Making Math Fun

Math
Kate used to be my math whiz. Last year, she wanted to do math all day long. Seriously. She would ask to do 2 or 3 lessons a day and she really enjoyed it. She blasted through Saxon Math 1 and then did Horizons Math 1 also.

Unfortunately, she isn't moving along so easily this year. She is fighting it and griping about it. What happened?

I think that part of the reason she is having such a hard time, is that we took off 4 months this summer with the new baby and Andy's deployment. This was way too long in my opinion. We will never do that again.

It was enough time to where she forgot a lot of her basic addition and subtraction facts that she had memorized last year. That, paired with the fact that Horizons is moving quickly along into skip counting by 6s and 9s, and she is one unhappy six year old :(

She liked math so well last year, because it was easy for her. She knew her facts and did it quickly. She is learning many new concepts right now (telling time to the quarter hour, skip counting, subtracting with borrowing and adding with carrying) and I think she feels kind of overwhelmed. That's not good -especially since we're only on lesson 24.

She is an entire grade ahead in math (doing Horizons 2 during 1st grade), so I suppose we could slow WAY down and review all of the addition and subtraction facts, memorize the skip counting, practice telling time, and then move back to the daily lessons. She would have a much easier time doing them and I think there wouldn't be all of the drama that is going on presently every time she is forced to do her math.

I have ordered a new hand-held game for her to play, which I hope will help her out with her facts. It is called "Math Shark". We are in the car a lot going from class to class, and my kids don't have a Nintendo DS or anything like that, so she would probably get excited about a game to play in the car (or so I hope!). We'll see if it helps out.