are your kindergarten kiddies doing "everyday mathematics"

lauren grier

lauren grier

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Just curious.. I got a letter home today explaining it (also because he had a homework assignment for it LOL).. http://www.d124.org/Everyday_Mathematics_K-6_Curriculum.htm#Kindergarten <-- that's the program.


This seems to be the main focus the past 2 weeks in ce's kindy class.. and while that's all fine and good.. I wish they'd you know, help him work on his abc's.. or writing letters (he's a lefty and on top of normal lefty issues he writes a lot of letters like.. upside down LOL). It just seems weird that from day one.. learning math was the objective- and not the other stuff. He said they do the abc's sometimes, but it's mostly math every day. His teacher is part of this special early math learning program something or other so I am sure that is why.

Ce can't even count past 12 (he has an aversion to #11 and #13.. so really more like 10 haha).. and this stuff in the program is not just a little, but way over his head imo. I know he'll catch on, and at the base I have no problem with like the theory of application math (actually I much prefer it) but I dunno.. I just see him getting overwhelmed. I know that my friends daughter (who is now in 5th grade) has been struggling with this stuff SO badly since kindy.. and to this day, she can't tell time, make change, do basic math etc. So it worries me.
 
Lauren, Michael just started kindergarten on Wednesday, so we are just starting to learn the ropes. He's in an all-day program. When we went to the kindergarten orientation, we saw samples of students writing stories by the end of the year. It seems like they've pretty much turned kindergarten into first grade. I've been working with Michael on the concept of money. We have weekly homework, that includes about 20 minutes of work each night and 20 minutes of reading. The focus of the classroom is learning to read, writing and math. In the description, it mentions that this year they've converted to "Everyday Math", but they didn't provide specifics on what it is (so thanks for the link). It just says "Areas we will be covering in math this year will be number sense, patterns, beginning addition and subtraction problems, time and calendar routines".
 
Everyday Math is a tough one Lauren. Depending on how the school implements the program, it can require a lot of parental support particularly since the program doesn't place any importance on actual math fact memorization. Our local school district uses Everyday Math (to my dismay) so I've experienced it with them for the couple times we've tried school. I don't believe our district starts it in kindergarten though, I think they start in first grade. kindergarten math here is basically counting to and writing numbers to 100, early concepts using manipulatives, ordinal numbers, early addition and subtraction (using manipulatives), patterns, etc.
 
yeh it def seems that kindy is more like 1st grade now (well compared to when my brother and I were in school LOL).. it's just like woah to me. I think *I* need to adjust too haha. He's getting like 2-3 homework assignments a week and its just making me giggle, though I will say I've liked what they've had to do so far for homework.
 
Emmy said:
Everyday Math is a tough one Lauren. Depending on how the school implements the program, it can require a lot of parental support particularly since the program doesn't place any importance on actual math fact memorization. Our local school district uses Everyday Math (to my dismay) so I've experienced it with them for the couple times we've tried school. I don't believe our district starts it in kindergarten though, I think they start in first grade. kindergarten math here is basically counting to and writing numbers to 100, early concepts using manipulatives, ordinal numbers, early addition and subtraction (using manipulatives), patterns, etc.
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yeh... in the letter it was saying how important it is for ME to get excited about math.. haha I laughed. a lot. LOL I mean, I am going to do whatever it takes to help ce through school obviously.. I'm just weary of this program :p We'll see how it goes I guess.. there's nothing I can do about it.
 
I just an email from Wes' teacher this morning regarding what they will be working on next week. Here is what was listed for math:

Calendar Math (includes but not limited to...days of the week, months, counting by 1's, 2's, 5's, 10's, graphing, place value, coins, tally marks, even and odd)

Solid Figures(3-D and plane)

Patterns (abababab)


I don't know if that's considered "everyday mathematics", but he's doing well with it all. But his preschool last year prepared him really well. By the end of preschool, he was counting by 5's and 10's past 100.
 
The school I teach at was doing Everyday Math before I started. It was only mandatory a year or two b/c they weren't getting results that they thought they would be getting. I don't know anything about it, but I do know that the teachers who liked & continued to use it were diehard.

My personal opinion is, no matter what math program you use, you've got to start with basics (aka ABCs!!!)... even in math you have to know how to read!

I'm sorry-- I hope it gets better for you.
 
My kids' school district is on their 2nd year of Everyday Math, and our district just started it this year. It's likely they are doing reading as well as math (can't imagine they aren't), but EM comes with a ton of parent letters ready to be sent out, so that's probably what you're seeing. I know I got a whole "book" of letters for my 4th grader.

Emmy's right.... no focus on memorizing math facts, but that's the current math trend (and has been since I moved to public schools 9 years ago). Kids are supposed to get the right anwer, however they can get it. If they want to add 6 three times, or do multiplication doesn't matter. It's whether they got the correct answer.

I don't have any feelings about it because I do pre-K, but I know the K-5 teachers are excited to have it because it's better than the curriculum we had before, which was extremely loose and learning-through-experience.

Again, I'm sure they're using a reading curriculum, too. It probably doesn't have parent letters ready to go, though.

P.S. Our district also does not teach spelling, but that's a whole different ball of worms...
 
I wish ours was doing that. Nope we get the oh so wonderful 4-step process. They have to write EVERY stinkin math problem as a story problem.

Oh but do they teach writing? No! So they are to WRITE out the math problem using what writing skills?

I hate my district and can't move soon enough.
 
our district isn't using that particular program but math is the big focus in the primary school. We get all these suggested activity worksheets and things for the school every week. "Do jumping jacks while counting to 100 by 5s"

I think because 3 years ago they failed the math portion of the SOLs so badly.

So I'm waiting for them to fail the English portion this year or next because they are spending way too much time on math & on enough on reading & comprehension. Then of course we'll switch focus back to the reading portion
 
I haven't seen any math math papers yet. She's had some counting ones, and matching stuff, but no real math. Her homework is different.. they get a folder every month at the beginning of the month and she has 1 little thing to do each night and then they take it back at the end of the month. Starting next year, she is supposed to have 10 minutes of homework each night, but they don't do nightly homework in Kindy.
 
they only turn it in once a month....
I would go bonkers.... how does the teacher see what was done?

Ethan was in kinder last year and they were all day school...
he did have some sort of homework almost daily

they did lots of graphing (color in the # of boxes for how many yellow birds are in the picture, etc...)

lots of repetitive pattern stuff
simple subtraction and addition,
touched on some money

I know the school started a new math program this year, I will have to ask what it is called!

good luck!
 
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