Questions:
I can tell you what we did from what I know:
The schools around here have websites that are a compilation of a bunch of other math website games. I know they were used quite a bit. The teacher would print off puzzles from them. It took about a month before my son said "she just plays games!" She'd give a pretest and if the kids did well, they'd play games applying the material and skip the teaching of the material. So, at the beginning of the year, it was heavy in games since it was mostly review. I can pm the specifics to you.

My ds would occasionally want to play some of those games, but I think it was the atmosphere in the classroom that he liked the most. Sitting at a computer alone didn't give him the same experience.
At home, I sympathize with him and tell him why they want him to memorize- that it makes math so much easier and frees up your mind for the problem solving if you aren't having to go back to compute everything. He is beginning to understand the truth in that (I think). We introduced soduko and helped him with it, and mastermind, and chess, and helped him with all that. Never giving him a puzzle to do on his own, but being there to cheer him on. Also do a lot of cooking and fractions with cooking. And figuring out unit prices, etc. He will think about them and if he can't come up with the answer, I ask how he would, and then say "well I can finish the computation". Those sorts of things. Taking away the pressure and expectation to perform, but modeling and showing how useful it is to actually know math facts.

Have you tried just finding things he'd *want* to calculate? How far the earth is from the sun and each of the planets, for example (since science is his thing).

Sometimes it's all about the context.

Thanks, Kriston, but he knows all that, LOL! And he knows why he needs math (particularly since he loves science so much). I'm going to take the master of none approach and see what happens. I think that's the way to go with him. Thanks.

Of course he does! LOL! I just meant that as an example off the top of my head, since I am not terribly science-y. But there must be something he'd like to know about that you could use as the raw material for doing calculations with.

No, I know - I was joking. There are huge calculations which interest him, but not enough to make him actually do them. He did like the Zaccaro book, so we'll work on that one again, too, when camp is over. Thanks!

Having a morning coffee, I found this thread. Do not have time to read beyond first page now, but found something I wanted to underline:

Like someone else pointed out, it can't be all fun, because eventually it is bound to become hard work, and if you have been after fun only, you are in big trouble.

My kids are past that stage, they both understand that it is work, sometimes easier, sometimes more difficult. When they were younger, I did notice two things:
1. Everything was MUCH MORE FUN when mom or dad were doing it with them, even math.
2. My kids had only educational games when thay were young. Mostly Jumpstart series. It was fun, and lower level math deals with a lot of computing in a funny, enjoyable way.

Now questions, I know that you understand about fun versus work

Thanks, Ania! I'll look into both those things. DS is too young to have decided that he hates math, and I'd like to turn that around.

I think there's a difference between trying to make life a party all the time and trying to turn around the attitude of a kid who is starting to hate math. Two very different issues.

The former is counterproductive and useless; the latter is a vital educational necessity!

Absolutely Kriston! You know, I was wondering why he started hating math in the first place. Forgive me if you already posted that. I read the original post when it showed up, but now I don't remember if that was mentioned............




Absolutely! DD8 just liked me to sit next to her even though she was working independently. In fact, I think it was ME who was crying at one point......please, please can we stop doing math now!!!!!!!

It was the EPGY Grade 3 online course.

It was very repetitive, especially since he had already taken the Elementary Problem Solving I Course through CTY, which covered multi-digit addition and subtraction, carrying, borrowing, multiplication and even long division. I think one of the big problems was that the courses overlapped, and there are a ton of problems that you have to do even if you know the stuff. Also, for a visual-spatial kid, it was static and visually uninteresting. The tutor even said that many young children have a hard time with the "rather dated" presentation of the course. On the other hand, I know many love it, and I would have loved it as a kid. I liked to work in sequence and watch my progression. On the plus side, all that repetition was good for his basic math skills. I think it was a case of the wrong curriculum for the wrong child - but I paid a lot for it and made him finish it. He did extremely well in the course, but it was probably a mistake for him.

I think this is the answer, right here, for DS:



Thanks!