Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Oh dear, second grade math

Arrrrgh! It's the first day of school and I just saw DS6's homework from second grade. It's called "60 minute math", and this page is "Minute 1".

"Circle the name of the shape." (square, circle, triangle, as opposed to his current favorite, dodecahedron)

"Use the number line to find the answer. 4+2= "

"Count and add. (four apples and three apples)"

Lord, help me to make it through the first week.

I asked him if he wanted some Singapore Math test pages to do, and he said yes, and he also wants minute 2,3,4,5,6...etc. all the way to 60. I said, "you want all 60 minutes of math homework?" And he said, "yes! I'm not stupid!"
And then he brought me his (my old) Bridge to Algebra book and said he wanted the pages (of homework) for the Table of Measures and something else. LOL!

Hm. Similar experience (DS6, second grade). Found DS doing an old copy of Singapore Math pre-test (3A? I think?) for fun.

We're hoping we're going through the first week adjustment period. We had a long talk at dinner and at bedtime and he started to share some of his frustrations about school... (although that was mostly because he doesn't like all of the rules.)

Good luck...

JB

Sigh...
We can lament together about 2nd grade math.


My DD(6) is in 2nd grade as well. She had her first day today - so no homework yet. However we did get the "what to expect in 2nd grade" brochure sent home to us. It spelled out the entire curriculum and what the 2nd graders will know by the end of the year. DD is well on her way to knowing all of the 2nd grade curriculum.

This site was fun for my DD this summer. www.aplusmath.com I let her explore it herself and she ended up doing some geometry game. She told me she can't wait until they do geometry in 2nd grade. Somehow I doubt they will get to right angles and isosceles triangles!

Wow - rewind 3 weeks ago when we started school in Florida and you pretty much summed up my DS6's first day of First Grade work. I chocked it up to the first week of getting to know everyone....but, here we are on the 4th week of school now and one of his worksheets that came home today had such amazingly challenging questions like: true or false -plants need water. True or False - a rock can grow. We also got the whole paper showing what the children were supposed to learn for the year along with her word wall list of words for the year - DS6 knew every single one of them.

We got the word list too.

:-(

It's late but I've had some interesting developments come up recently for us.... Hope to share soon.

JB

Am waiting with baited breath, JBDad.

Sorry about the level of work, all. Any chance this is just the getting to know them review phase? (she asked hopefully...)

We're 3 weeks in and I could only wish for 2nd grade math... still "circle the group with 3 dots" here... It's 1st grade math and the teacher pretty much stated she can't go beyond that because her own skill level makes her uncomfortable teaching it. Sad that you can be a 1st grade teacher and not be comfortable teaching 2nd or 3rd grade math. We're not talking Calculus!

Ahh...second grade math. I remember it well...too well. DS9 went spare over his math that year. I eventually made a deal with him: I'll fake your handwriting and do your homework. You do your more advanced stuff. It worked out pretty well in the end.

His class spent weeks on super-basic stuff like 5+3. Ouch.

Val

LOL- Wow, what a deal!

I'm sorry to tell you it won't get much better. Last night was "Meet the Teacher" night, and we got the lowdown for third grade. Here a sample of the math lessons for the year: place value; integers; exploring 2- and 3-dimensional shapes; finding the areas of rectangles by counting squares; using thermometers.

It's enough to make a parent cry.