Yesterday while teaching my son long division, I discovered that the brain cells lost are not just for memory.
The problem was 4050/50..in order to solve 'big' division problems we talked about how you get to 'ignore digits' and just look at the first few to start..in this case 405...immediately he says 8...50 times 8 is 400..I said..'Umm'..to buy time, a word I once tried to eradicate from my vocabulary is coming VERY necessary to buy me enough time to multiply myself.
We finished the problem, but added on top of my recent hunt to find the answers for conversions (man I hate those liters to pints, to gallons, ugh..or is it pints to liters, to gallons, which is smaller again?)
I am finding his math is reaching the limit of my ability fast. A teacher shouldn't have to look up the answers, if you can't understand the problem quickly how do you break it down for a kid before they find something new to amuse themselves with?
I am barely making it now, but soon his math class will have to be moved to a time when Daddy is home. (I already have to call for things like the square root of infinity, or a number divided by 0-I could look it up, but in the middle of breakfast I prefer to call)
Not to mention all the looking up I have to do just to keep on top of his trivia...I don't want to shoot him down when he comes up with a tidbit, but I also would like to be able to help him if he is wrong. And that requires I know a lot more about animals and space, and plants than I ever cared to!
And it brings to mind another reason I home school, I have to have him home so I can at least read the book he learned from. Learning with him is my only defense!
I didn't think it would happen so soon..
September 22nd, 2007 at 04:59 pm
September 22nd, 2007 at 07:29 pm 1190489370
September 22nd, 2007 at 07:56 pm 1190490973
September 22nd, 2007 at 08:55 pm 1190494542
September 23rd, 2007 at 02:39 am 1190515142
September 23rd, 2007 at 04:57 pm 1190566634
September 24th, 2007 at 04:09 pm 1190650181
He said '80'...the answer is 80
umm, yeah, how about the rest? he finished beautifully and never needed me, I have no idea how he learned to round, but guess I can skip that lesson...
Now you know why we have such a behavior problem with him...I said, get paper, he didn't..no wonder he often doesn't listen to me...
But he does thankfully learn on his own! Just hope he is learning from the right sources, I don't know that I will be able to tell soon enough! i think Saxon for all it's booringness is VERY good at teaching...I learned calculus with it...i also discovered I didn't like calculus (even though I named my cat that as a kid) But the book was totally self explanitary..never needed the teacher really.
And yeah he is well ahead of his agemates, one reason why we avoid leaving him around his agemates very often....doesn't help their parents any (though children seem to be ok with it)