Math Meltdown

So we had a little math meltdown over carrying & borrowing (aka regrouping). I was watching her last week doing addition on Time 4 Learning and I noticed that she seemed stressed. We talked, did some problems on paper, and off she went relatively happy.

Monday I had to go out and my Mother helped her. The poor kid was dissolving over subtraction, not because she doesn't understand borrowing; but because the computation process is too slow. Unfortunately, Time 4 Learning doesn't have a built in process for catching poor performance and generating more practice, instead she stumbled through a section and then came the quiz! My mother quickly stopped her and got her playing a game and doing problems on paper.

Public school sucks realization #101 - it's not important that you get the right answer, it's only important that you know how to do the problem. I mean honestly does anyone think this really works?!?

We have stopped using Time 4 Learning for math right now (still using it for everything else); and are using flash cards for basic addition and subtraction facts, and tomorrow will start Kumon Grade 2 Addition. I liked the single topic focus and the fact that there was no huge program commitment to start. If she runs with it we may just work it for the rest of the year and see where we are then. She's already a much happier camper and that's all I really care about.

If you live near a Dollar Tree and you have a youngster learning addition and subtraction I suggest you run and look for the Teaching Tree Math Adventure game. It is a really simple 2 to 4 player game with about 36 math problems and a poster game board. Our girl just loves it and it was a simple matter to cut card stock into rectangles similar in size to the existing cards and add more problems (we're up to 136). There is also a state fact game (The Amazing State Race) and a money game (Shopping Cents), both simple but expandable and lots of fun for kids.