365 ~ 2015: Day 300

Last night the boys school hosted a "Parent Academy" on the new math curriculum.  The idea was to help parents understand WHY math is being taught different from how we were taught.  We learned some of the basic concepts of the curriculum and were given tools and tips on how to help our children solve the problems in their homework.  The idea is to avoid parents becoming frustrating and saying things like, "this is dumb do it MY way!", and then having the kids missing the point of the lesson because we as parents don't get it.

It's no secret that Charlie is the math genius in the house and I've been lucky that he has taken on the roll of "homework helper" in this house.  But I was still curious about the new curriculum.  It's scary!  My kids are coming home talking about number bonds and pulling out all these parts to a number, making it appear to be 3 times more complicated, to add them up and in my mind I'm wondering why they didn't just line the two numbers up and add them like "normal people".

What I walked away with from this presentation is that the math might look complicated on paper but it's actually quite simple.  They are doing that addition in their heads very quickly by making numbers into base 10s.  The reason you see all those lines and numbers is because they are now being asked to SHOW how they arrived at their answer, not just memorize the facts.

I'm honestly amazed at how quickly the boys are adding complicated numbers in their heads because of this system.  And if you are so "annoyed" by the new math and thing it's "dumb".  I suggest that you go to your school administration and ask them to put on a math curriculum night for parents and see for yourself.  Get your questions answered and become educated.  Just because it's different than what you're used to, doesn't mean that it's dumb or wrong!

Here is my Kindergartner excited to try using the number bonds his brother is using in his math!  He was working on finding the parts to various numbers.  The number bond insert and plastic sheet was compliments of the curriculum night.