![]() Research tells us that when stress enters a learning situation, learning stops. Karen Holinga for showing me what I was doing in error. Specifically, what happened to my child is that their learning was literally hijacked. ![]() What? What happened here? Quite by accident, I derailed my child’s learning train by introducing stress into the learning equation. Has this ever happened in your home? Flash card learning is going along swimmingly, until you encounter one fact that your student stumbles on, and then, from that point forward, the whole thing descends into a rough deal. In a flash I have inadvertently and completely derailed the process I’m trying to accomplish. My child dutifully says, “Six plus four equals ten.” I enthusiastically say, “Excellent!” And then I hold up a flash card that show 5 + 9, and my student hesitates in a wink of an eye I say, in likely what sounds like a whiny voice, “Aw, come on! You knew this yesterday!!” and waggle the flash card at them. I say to my child, “Six plus four is…?” and expectantly grin. Yes, I am poster child for how to use flash cards the wrong way.Īllow me to paint a picture for you: I sit down with my child – usually across a table (already putting a physical barrier between us…) – and I hold up a flash card that shows 6 + 4. They are probably the single most used tool in a homeschool mom’s tool belt, and I am about to tell you that you’re misusing them. That said, it is definitely very helpful to know all your addition facts by memory - but it is even more important to learn a set of strategies for mental addition, because that "number sense" (being able to break apart and combine numbers in various ways in order to calculate something) is a crucial skill in order to succeed in mathematics.Visit any homeschool household and look for the “tools of our trade” as homeschool moms, and you are going to find math flash cards. However, I don't want to put too much emphasis on flashcards, because too many adults have, because of their experiences in school, ended up viewing mathematics as "flashcards, speed tests, and memorization of rules" - which it is NOT! We should emphasize the notion that there are MANY ways to come up with the answer, and that the thinking processes, strategies, and patterns are more important than successfully and quickly producing the correct answer. You may use flashcards if you find them effective AND if they don't cause math anxiety. ![]() The curriculum does provide a list of online games and resources for that purpose (in the introduction of each chapter). You as the teacher are still in total control, and you have the liberty to decide IF to use flash cards, and WHEN to use them.Ĭhildren's needs are so variable that I really don't want to dictate when a child should review addition facts, or how. ![]() ![]() Your Math Mammoth book is just a TOOL you can use to help teach your child. The best possible situation is when the instruction is tailored to the student's individual needs. If your child does better by studying 2-3 topics at a time, feel free to have them work in 2-3 chapters at a time (though, some chapters because of their topics are best studied in the order they appear in the book, but usually you have liberty to study clock, measuring, geometry, and money at most any time you wish).Īlso, I've always advocated the thought that the MOST CRUCIAL element in instruction is NOT the book, but the teacher, and that we shouldn't ever become "slaves" to the books, not even to Math Mammoth books. For example, you're not limited to study only in one chapter at a time. It allows you to be creative in your teaching and adapt things to your child in various ways. " Hi Maria! We will be using MM for the first time starting next month (light blue grade 1) and I was wondering if there is any recommendation of when to work on addition facts/flashcards throughout the worktexts, or if we just do that on our own with the appropriate lessons? We're switching from A Beka, which was flashcard heavy and had it all scripted, so I'm just trying to make sure I'm doing it correctly :) Thanks!" ![]()
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