It would seem that DS6 has a terrific grade 1 math teacher this year.
They apparently work on a lot of story problems where they have to prove their answer and show their work in a variety of ways. They also have to show that they know what a strong answer involves. And the story problems will soon be offered in a variety of ways such that the questions can be differentiated for the range of abilities in the class.
Also, she is presenting many of the activities in an open ended fashion and kids can show their knowledge in any way they want, including using multiplication and division.
So apparently, it's possible to have some differentiation. We certainly have not had that yet for DS8.
And when we asked DS6 how he felt about math, he said he loved it. Mind you, we still supplement a bit at home. But beyond fractions and a bit of basic "solving for X" type work, I'm not sure what to offer. Neither DH nor I are terribly math-oriented. We might need to look for some resources.
