Originally Posted by MegMeg
Originally Posted by cammom
I get your point- I think at least a few first graders are ready to go straight into multiplication, and wonder if much of the year is waiting for most/all the rest to catch up.
What also makes me think this is how much of the curriculum is measurement stuff -- time, money, temperature, weight, etc. Sure, this is important stuff to know in life, but it is in no way a building block of further math progress. They could just as easily pull it out as a separate subject, and let math go on its merry way. So stuffing all this into 2nd grade really does seem like a way to keep the math curriculum in a holding pattern until kids have matured a little.
The measurement, and money is another way to make them practice addition and subtraction, make "math" relevant. It also makes math visual for those kids who don't really get the concepts easily. I see why it's part of the curriculum, and for the some kids pace this is useful. It's just really frustrating for the kids who just "get" it, who don't need this level of repetition. What drove me nuts was how much time was spend on "patterns" in K and 1st grade.

It's frustrating but many elementary teachers aren't very comfortable with math and just teach to the book not really understanding the concepts themselves. If their degree is in elementary education they might not have ever taken math higher than Algebra II.