This is an honest post about how I am handling my fifth grader's math. At the beginning of the year I knew he didn't have all his math facts down so before starting Saxon 54 I had him go all the way through the RC Math Flashcard Guide. I thought he had them all memorized so we started Saxon. Things were going along just fine until he didn't pass a test one day. It could have been an off day but I went through the test with him and found that he did not in fact have his multiplication tables memorized. Other parents who pulled their kids from problem school-I mean public school-may have similar skills gaps they are working on.
I decided to hit pause on Saxon and go back to multiplication until he has his facts down. I have to admit it's been a hot minute here in multiplication land but I'm trying not to panic. What's important is that he gets these into his long term memory so that it's not an energy draw on his brain to try and calculate in addition to higher math thinking. I went ahead and printed him off the Multiplication and Division Workbooks and a stack of Memory Pyramids and let him get to work.
Everyday he was doing a memory pyramid, a workbook page or two and flashcard work. He is slowly making progress. The workbooks constantly review so I think he's actually making the transfer from short term to long term memory. Then I saw a new thing. I bought the new thing. I waited for it to arrive. The new thing came and I love it. It's The Good & The Beautiful Musical Multiplication. I'm not sure if it's a silver bullet to put down this math fact monster but we all enjoy it.
After Bible is math each morning and we now start math by listening to these sweet jingles with the little books and then the boys split the flashcards in half and quiz each other going back and forth. Then they study their wrong pile for five minutes and go onto their memory pyramids and workbooks. It's a fun start to the day.
He's on his nine's now so he just has this and then 12's and then we'll move onto the Division portion of the workbooks. That should go faster, I think as it's just backwards multiplication, right? We'll see. I'll do an update when we get into Division. My goal is to be back to Saxon in a month or so. I am thankful to be here to make sure he is mastering this important step in his education. If I hadn't brought him home who knows how math could have soured for him.
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