We use Rightstart Math. I love and hate it all wrapped into one (saving that for another entry). Because I hate it, I haven’t been consistent about using it this year. Because of my lack of consistency, we are not even half way through our book! Don’t fear, though, we are on a roll (thank you workboxes) and should be able to finish before July when we start 2nd grade.
I will repeat this again at some point, but I love Righstart Math because it has mapped my son’s mind for math. I know. Sounds weird. It is. I can’t even begin to explain what it has done for my son. He understands math. He’s as comfortable with numbers as he is with words. True. Thank you Rightstart (I’m sorry I hate you).
Okay, anyway, this post is not a review of RS Math. This post is to show what my first grader did today (remember, we aren’t even 1/2 way through!).
I read him a story problem about Abe, Amy, and some other A-named character. Each person had so many sheep. One had 2735. Another had 3817. And yet another had 1849. His job was to figure out how many sheep total. I was to do as little instructing as possible.
He got to use the base ten picture cards to help him find his way through this problem. He has a great understanding of ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands (thanks again RS!). He has already learned to trade ten ones for one-ten and ten-tens for one-hundred, etc.
So, he used those strategies to add the three (very-large-for-a-first-grader) numbers.
Laying out base ten cards for each number
Cards are all out…now what?
Starting to move and trade
His final answer
He did it!
We recently finished Rightstart B as well. The base ten cards were fun. Glad to know I’m not the only one with such strong feelings about RS! 🙂 I’d love to read your review of RS when you write it…