Originally Posted by elizabethmom
Here's a philosophical question, Kriston, which is:
How do you do math, which ostensibly builds on skills (and isn't lateral thinking, my DD's strong suit) if you let the kids guide you. For example, she loves geometry, but still needs boring memorization in basic skills, she lost some due to constant pull out attempts by our "resource teacher". If geometry needs any boring calculuations, she freezes. Can you get to pre algebra or cool geometry without first doing the basics that lead to it, or am I a totally outdated, in the box thinker on this?

One thing we've done is we work on drills and new, conceptual math separately. My son's in 2nd grade. So I let him truck along as fast as he wants conceptually with new math. And if it is helpful for him, he can use a multiplication table. But at the same time, we works on those basic skill several times a week just playing computer games. His dependence on the multiplication table has really gone down over the course of the year. And this summer, I'm going to push for a little more drill since we're not going to jump to new curriculum over the summer. (That's for a couple reasons - we may not consistently be working on it enough to keep moving forward over the summer. I'm also trying to stall getting to "real" algebra a little bit because there is a wonderful local program for gifted math students we're considering. But you have to be going into at least 5th grade and ready for algebra. I have found with problem solving, in many cases we really ARE doing algebra anyway!).