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Post a message or simply read what others have written and answered. Rachel, a RightStart™ Math user and one of our customer care people, will be monitoring this forum. She will respond to your questions as needed.

Have a great day and remember to play a math card game! 

 

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Re: teachable heart

Marilyn,

Thank you for your message. Sorry to hear about the troubles you are having.

A couple questions for you, when taking our Starting Level Questionnaire, (http://www.alabacus.com/questions/) where does your daughter place at?

Also is she enjoying any of the games played? Playing a math card game is equivalent to doing a worksheet. What lesson are you on in Level A? I would be more than happy to suggest some games to play, we even have examples of them on YouTube.

Please let me know what else we can do to help.

Make it a great day,


Cassie
Activities for Learning-RightStart™ Mathematics
Cassie@ALabacus.com
www.ALabacus.com

Our Mission: To help children understand, apply, and enjoy mathematics.

Re: teachable heart

Hi Cassie,
Thanks for your reply...I just took the placement test, and it looks as if she should be in level B. She is currently on lesson 52 of level A. We play the math games (she likes the Missing cards game and Go to the Dump)...but to tell you the truth, we're currently on an extended Dec/Christmas break. When we do play them, she seems just somewhat interested...not as engaged as I would hope. I probably need to play them more. Thanks for any ideas.
Marilyn

Re: teachable heart

Marilyn,

Thank you for your reply. First of all, enjoy your Dec/Christmas break, that is always important!

I am wondering if she is slightly bored with the concepts and maybe needs to be challenged a bit more.

When you get back from break, please let me know and we will work on some different games for her to play. Looking forward to working with you more.

Make it a great day,



Cassie
Activities for Learning-RightStart™ Mathematics
Cassie@ALabacus.com
www.ALabacus.com

Our Mission: To help children understand, apply, and enjoy mathematics.

Re: teachable heart

I hope my response is not too late here but I just wanted to help out. I'm in the same situation as you are. I have a 7yo 1st grader who reads above grade level and she is motivated to do math but she isn't ready for some of the more complicated aspects of level B right now. I have two older children in Right Start (one who is almost done with Level E and about the start Geometry and one who just started Level E) and I have a lot of experience now with homeschooling in general and Right Start math specifically.

My opinion is that it is OKAY for her to not be ready to go on yet. With my two older kids I found that in Level B in the 70s somewhere when mental trading was introducted they had to step back and take a break for a while. My 7yo has reached a "take a break" point in the 50s. (FTR, we did Level A with her when she was 6.) This has happened in almost every level of math with all of my kids and I think it's a normal developmental phase.

I have said here (and on the Yahoo Group) that I think sometimes kids need to stop learning new stuff and just let the things they already learned kind of marinate or ferment (choose your metaphor LOL) in their brains for a while. Then after a few weeks of playing math games or maybe even not doing math at all, start again and see what happens. You don't have to be "doing" a program or curriculum every moment at this age in order to be making progress. IME, the break time helps them pick up the concepts again with a fresh mind and they often easily understand things they previously didn't. And this is something that applies to all subjects in homeschooling, not just math... It's the beauty of homeschooling!!!! Instead of your child falling behind and being labeled "dumb" or "slow" when she can't keep up with the program, you can just take a break with no shame or guilt and she will likely advance more in the end because of it. It can be hard to break out of the "school" mentality in which the kids have to be kept busy with *something* so they may keep on doing worksheets or keep plodding through the program even if not all the kids are understanding it. If you're not "doing math" for a few weeks, it's okay.

Particularly if starting with Level B, Right Start does a really excellent and intense job of providing kids with a really great "number sense" and I would encourage you to take as much time as she needs to really get that. If she likes to do worksheets you could print some simple ones off the internet for concepts she knows well (like +1s or something easy like that) but do play the games with her and keep referring to the abacus when you do it. You can also find some math games and craft activities in the meantime if you really want to fill in your "math time" with something. I like the Math Cats website for some crafty math ideas.

I have to run now but I hope this helps.

Re: teachable heart

Thanks so much for your reply...I did end up taking a long Dec/Xmas break, and we came back to it just this last week. I don't know what happened, but she is now "getting it". All I did during the break was write out some equations on our dry erase board, and have her do them with or w/o the abacus (her choice). Now she can do them w/o the abacus. I am still looking into SM simply because it seems to provide more independant work for her, and I would eventually like her to do some work on her own. I like how RS is set up, so does anyone have thoughts/comparisons on the two programs? (I will be starting RS with my younger son this Fall.)