I know everyone is probably tired of my comments here. IRL people just don't understand or can't advise. Thanks for listening!
Ds came home with math homework over the weekend. It was a page of 100 math problems, of which he'd completed about 20 and there were about 15 highlighted for him to do. I think it was originally a timed math test (they take one every week) and then the teacher assigned extra for more practice. ?? Anyway, it was all single digit addition, which I know he did last year, but I'm hoping it's just review to get back into the groove. She said she'd given him problems that he could probably do at home "without the materials." But that defeats the purpose of learning Montessori Math, right?
He was working on them with golden beads at school (or so they say), so I pulled out our golden beads for him to do the work, but he was really resistant to using the beads and started counting on his fingers. He said, "No, mom, everyone sits together and works on the same problems like this!" when I tried to get him to use the beads. Finally, I just said that I wanted him to learn with the materials because it would help him understand the information better longterm. If he could do a problem quickly (like 7+2) just in his head, then I let him do that, but if he needed to use his fingers, I wanted him to do it with the beads so that he could start seeing the relationship and patterns. He finally agreed...and quickly started explaining the concepts to me (like, 9+7=16 because one of the beads goes to make 10 and there would be 6 left over).
Later, I read that they'd set up their "Math rotation" groups, which sounds very traditional - just like the math and reading groups I grew up with. His teacher is nice, and she seemed to be able to tell me what I wanted to hear last week...but I just can't understand why it's SO difficult for her/the school to get past the traditional philosophies. They've been certified Montessori... so why the resistance?!
Ds came home with math homework over the weekend. It was a page of 100 math problems, of which he'd completed about 20 and there were about 15 highlighted for him to do. I think it was originally a timed math test (they take one every week) and then the teacher assigned extra for more practice. ?? Anyway, it was all single digit addition, which I know he did last year, but I'm hoping it's just review to get back into the groove. She said she'd given him problems that he could probably do at home "without the materials." But that defeats the purpose of learning Montessori Math, right?
He was working on them with golden beads at school (or so they say), so I pulled out our golden beads for him to do the work, but he was really resistant to using the beads and started counting on his fingers. He said, "No, mom, everyone sits together and works on the same problems like this!" when I tried to get him to use the beads. Finally, I just said that I wanted him to learn with the materials because it would help him understand the information better longterm. If he could do a problem quickly (like 7+2) just in his head, then I let him do that, but if he needed to use his fingers, I wanted him to do it with the beads so that he could start seeing the relationship and patterns. He finally agreed...and quickly started explaining the concepts to me (like, 9+7=16 because one of the beads goes to make 10 and there would be 6 left over).
Later, I read that they'd set up their "Math rotation" groups, which sounds very traditional - just like the math and reading groups I grew up with. His teacher is nice, and she seemed to be able to tell me what I wanted to hear last week...but I just can't understand why it's SO difficult for her/the school to get past the traditional philosophies. They've been certified Montessori... so why the resistance?!
