Sharing Schedules: Singapore Primary 5A & 5B US edition

Here's a quick look at Jessie's math schedule for the upcoming year. I've added links to both this year's and last year's schedules over in the right hand columns.


Again, this schedule is simply a framework from which I make my weekly schedules. If Jessie struggles with a certain section, I have no problem stretching an assignment over two days. Conversely, if she breezes through an assignment, we will double up lessons. Since the girls are always eager to finish at the end of the year, we tend to double up more lessons then and finish in closer to 38 weeks.

Sharing Schedules: Singapore Primary 3A & 3B US edition

I decided that a little extra review would be good for Violet to start off the year. We actually completed the first two units of 3A at the end of last year. She did OK with the work. I think she got the general idea of what she was doing and why; but before we shift away from addition and subtraction to devote more time to multiplication and division, I decided a retracing of our steps for a few weeks to help her really master the material and be confident about it would be prudent. Here is the schedule that I put together for the textbook, workbook, and intensive practice resources. Again, the Excel version can be downloaded using the link in the right-hand column under lesson plans.
I should add that we rarely take a full 40 weeks to complete our math schedule. Although I have doubled up assignments here and there to stay in the 40 week time frame, I find that as we go through the year some assignments end up being much easier that I thought and we complete two days of work in one day. Usually, we finish math in 38 weeks despite my 40 week schedule.

Our Homemade Fraction Manipulatives

I decided that it would be better to stick with fraction bars instead of trying to make my own pie piece fractions since the odds of my dividing a circle equally into thirds, sixths, and ninths would be slim to none. The brown strip which represents one whole is made of construction paper since that is the only kind of paper in my house that is twelve inches long. All of the fraction pieces are made of the same cardstock we use for our lapbooks.

The concept that we need to work on is basically equivalent fractions. We'll lay out the bars to show how 1/2, 2/4, 3/6, 4/8, etc. and 1/3, 2/6, 3/9 etc. are simply different ways of naming the same amount. Then to explain why multiplying the top and bottom of the fraction by the same number doesn't change the amount, we'll discuss that multiplying by 2/2 is the same as multiplying by 1. Hopefully with something concrete to look at, the last couple of exercises in the workbook will be much easier. Depending on how it goes we can either move straight into the exercises in the IP or spend a couple of days working exercises of our own. Worst case scenario, we can always move on for now and spend some more time on fractions over the summer.

Math Drill Standards

I can tell by watching my children do their math work if they are mastering the concepts being presented or not. I do tend to wonder, however, if they are effectively applying those concepts at a sufficient computation speed (especially on those days when math drags on for more than an hour). I know there are plenty of math drill resources that can be purchased, but I've always thought I shouldn't have to spend money for something I can create. I've seen several free worksheets online, but I didn't know for what age they had been designed or what the time limits for completing them should be.

I basically needed a standard to fill in the details of how to do math drill. How many problems should there be for each age? How long should the time limit be and how much should the limit change over time? I finally found an answer while looking through some of the school standards for the Logos school.

We don't always drill daily, and most of the time we drill with either flash cards or wrap ups; however, it's nice to take time to stop and check every once in a while to make sure we are on track with our computation speed. I had our third grader run through our addition wrap up at the beginning of the week, and we timed each key individually. After adding up the times and adjusting for the 20 extra problems, I was happy to see that even without drilling with worksheets that she was able to meet the 3rd grade standard for addition. Now that I have a gauge to check our computation speed, I'll have a better idea of when we need to drill and when we can better spend our time on something else.

Expanding math drill from flash cards

Although I find flash cards to be an effective way to teach math facts, they do get boring after a while. We have tried doing written math drill similar to the concept in CalcuLadders. So far that has proven to be completely ineffective for Violet. Given a page of 25 problems, Violet's mind seems to go completely blank to the extent that she forgets what 2+3 equals. Here are some other ideas that I have found to use for reinforcing our addition facts.

1. Bring back the Learning Wrap Up for addition. This is a great, simple way for Violet to cover her math drill. We have used the keys through +3 so far. We put it away when Violet was getting bogged down in the higher keys. I think we'll give it another try and work on the +4 and maybe +5 keys this month after vacation.

2. Addition War is similar to the regular war card game. Using the all of the cards ace through 10, all the cards our dealt between 2 players. Each player turns over 2 cards. The player with the higher sum when the cards are added gets all the cards. If the sums are equal, I think we'll turn over 3 cards saying I declare war letting the higher sum of 3 win.

3. Make 10 Pyramid is a great variation on the pyramid solitaire game I played growing up. Again using all of the cards ace through 10, deal cards out in a pyramid shape. (Row 1= 1 card, Row 2 = 2 cards, etc. to Row 6) Each row overlaps the one above it. Then looking at row 6, you remove any fully exposed cards that make 10. When you can no longer make 10, you turn over a card from the stack, and try to use it to make 10. Your score is the number of cards left over, the smaller the better.

4. Domino sorting. I haven't decided if I want to use our actual dominoes or make card stock ones with numbers. Then I'll set out styrofoam cups with the answers on them and have Violet add the numbers and sort them into the correct cup. (Maybe after a couple times, we'll try timing this and let her race against herself for a best time.)

5. Make 10 go fish. Same rules as go fish using all the cards from ace to 10. Instead of finding a matching number, you match by making 10.

6. Snap It Up! Addition / Subtraction Game available from Rainbow Resource looks like a lot of fun. I can't buy it this month so I think we'll test drive a homemade version of the game first to see how it goes over. Basically each player starts with 3 cards. When the card in the middle is turned over, each player tries to make that number by adding or subtracting the numbers in their hand.

That should be enough to get us started. If you know of or have any links to other addition games, I'd love to hear about them.