I was recently complaining to a very wise person about the "explain why 9X1=9" question. I told her I didn't understand why this was even being asked at the 4th grade level, especially as "enrichment". She explained it to me like this - it might actually be a good question to ask a student that didn't know why, but when you have a child that has known 9X1=9 from a young age, then it becomes a foolish question to ask. I guess that makes sense.
Those questions are great questions to ask of kids who don't intuitively understand math (I have one of those)... but fwiw, my one non-mathy kid asks those questions *herself* - they don't need to be sent home on a worksheet lol.
We've had a ton of interesting discussions with my math-challenged kid over these types of "explain your work" type questions, with my other two math-geeky kids who hate "explain your work" problems shouting in the background "BECAUSE IT JUST IS!!!!"
Sometimes I think all the current early elementary math curriculums were simply put together to torture parents....
polarbear
