Everyday Math

I went to the kindergarten orientation and found out that my kids' school will be using Everyday Math. Does anyone have experience with this? I heard that Texas School Board voted to stop using this method. I'm interested hearing your thoughts, both pro and con.

 

I have no idea what "everyday math" is.

I will say that both DH and I get so frustrated with the terminology that is being used today. I am not just talking about Math but also different terminology when it comes to reading. This term "everyday math" is just the beginning. sorry

 

It is an actual math program.

I really liked it. I like that it is a spiraling effect. The traditional programs move on regardless if students mastered a concept or not. For example, the book may start out with addition and then moves to subtraction. If kids dont understand subtraction, they still then move on to the next concept in the book which for example may be fractions. Everyday Math revisits concepts throughout the year. I liked the program lot but you do have to supplement.

 

We have it. I guess my feelings are very mixed about it. The kids do learn the concepts in a very hands-on way. The sheets my kids bring home for homework are more like mini-projects which usually require very direct parent set-up and direction. Some of our homeworks have been:

"Weigh yourself on a scale. Then find something in the house that weighs the same as you." (Sounds great, but we don't own a scale. I had to borrow one.)

"Trace an adults foot and cut it out. Trace your foot and cut it out. Measure different items around the house using both feet and record your measurements."

"Use a newspaper ad and cut out some of the prices. Arrange them from lowest to highest."

"Using tally marks, record a weeks worth of mail into different categories like bills, ads, junk mail, packages."

There are no traditional math sheets. Everything is hands on. I just wish the homeworks were more independant for the kids instead having to have the parents round up a bunch of supplies, then observe them doing the projects and then just write "completed" on the sheet to send it back in.

Marissa

 

Do they just give you one night to finish these? If so, my kids would be out of luck on almost all of them. We don't get a newspaper and I throw away the ads right away. I also go through my mail each day and shred it. I would need plenty of notice in order to go out and buy a paper and to keep my mail for a week (ugh! The paper clutter!).

 

Everyone has given you lots of good points about it. I wanted to add too, it incorporates math into everyday things. Our county used it 5 years ago when I taught ( they have since stopped using it), but teachers had a bulletin board and would count the days the kids had been in school and use tens and ones (and hundreds when it got to it) to show the number for that day (place value), there might be a graph about the weather, the calendar pieces would be a pattern, so it incorporated those types of math skills into their everyday warm up. Those were just a few of them.

 

Our district used it (dont if they still do, I will have to ask).

I taught with it and had mixed feelings. I like the hands-on approach and real life applications, but it moved too fast or in too many different ways at once. It was also hard to 'take home' to families at times since it is so different than what parents are used to.

For my advanced learners, it was great----lots and lots of exploratory learning, fast pace, real life applications, great for the child that likes math and 'playing' with the concepts.

For most learners, it was OK. Some parts were great--the spiral learning was +/-. Sometimes it mixed up concepts too quickly and kids got confused and/or did not get enough practice before building on new ideas. Good that it had real world applications and kept skills fresh. In the older grades, it had a lot of 'scenarios' type math problems and group work---which the kids enjoyed. Lots of games as well.

For learners with slight cognitive or learning disabilities. It was horrible for most of them. It was not 'concrete' enough to reinforce concepts before moving on. At times the reading portion was too hard for kids that struggled with reading to read and figure out. The 'mixed' concepts that were constant was confusing for some kids and they could not switch gears or remember the 'rules' for everything so quickly. Really not a very good program at all for kids that need a lot of review, simple explanations, and/or gradual transitions to new concepts. Heavy on reading for later grades which was hard for my non-readers. By the time some of my kids mastered a 'game' or idea--the rest of the class was ahead multiple pages in the text.

Overall-- parents were not fond of it because the terms were different, the concepts were different, and it was hard to send homework (esp upper grades) home without lengthy directions. The multiplication/division is totally different than traditional methods. Our area had parent workshops to help parents get through it with their kids. It is hard to step back 'into' and re-explain make up work when kids were sick or absent for more than a day or two.

 

We had packets sent home with about 5 or 6 of these sheets. Our teacher didn't care when we got them back into her. I think what got me more than anything was how observational the homework was, but there was nothing concrete for the kids to write down on the sheet to go back to school. I would just write "completed" and send back.

Marissa

 

:whoa:

I've never heard of it, just am a bit taken back that your district needed parent workshops to get through it.

 

How can multiplication/division be so different??? I mean aren't numbers still the same numbers and the concepts still the same? :blink:

This sounds VERY different from the math I grew up with. I'm also worried about the responses that say their districts used to use it but doesn't use it anymore. Does that mean it's not a good program?

 

The multiplication is the 'lattice' method...which is a grid type and add across format. Hard to explain, but it looks VERY different than the way most of us learned. Also it was hard for the kids I worked with to 'organize' it. Once you get the hang of it, it was not too hard---but most parents did not know how to do it, which led to A LOT of questions on homework.

Here is an example of how to do a higher level addition problem (one of the ways they teach). EDITED TO ADD: I could not get the spacing to be right....grr. When I edit it, looks good, when it goes up the spaces are not correct..... sorry.

2 6 8
+ 4 8 3
_______

1. Add 100s (200 +400) 6 00
2. Add 10s (60 +80) 140
3. Add 1s (8+3) ____11__
4. Add partial sums 7 5 1




HEre is the partial sum multiplication

Partial Product Algorithm

67
x 53
_______
50 x 60 3000
50 x 7 350
3 x 60 180
3 x 7 21
_______
3551



I could not figure out how to do a grid of the 'lattice' method of multiplication. But if you google it 'lattice method everyday math' a ton of videos come up. It involves drawing a grid, filling the math facts, adding up numbers (often 3 or more) and then the sum will be on the outer edge of the grid. It is actually not a bad method, but the students I worked with struggled with getting lost in the process and adding multiple numbers- getting them in the right spot and then getting the answer correct (not copying down incorrectly from the grid).




This is mostly what I was working with in 4/5th grade so I am not as familiar w/ the K/1st/2nd curriculum.


It much much different than the traditional way of doing math. Our school had a hand book that dealt with ALL of the Everyday Math concepts and methods, but we still got a lot of homework back from parents with questions. The 'Parent sheets' included in the upper elem programs were not clear enough for most parents.

 

Here is their website. There is a lot of info there if you have not already seen it.

 

That example looks more like a word game than a math problem.

The terminology I am talking about is more what they are calling this new math and how they describe how to do it and what number they are talking about. For example i posted a while back asking if anyone knew what a fact family was.

 

I actually think this terminology helps kids visualize more and understand the concepts better and be able to grasp why they are doing rather than just performing a task because the teacher says that is how it is done. I know that when I was taught, I just did problems because they followed the pattern that the teacher did during class but there were many times I never fully grasped the concept because I did not know why I was doing something.

WIth the Fact Family example, I think it makes it very clear to the child after being able to see the relationship between addition and subtraction. It is about building an understanding about how facts work.

 

Nadia's school just implemented for K-4 this year. I haven't formed a full opinion so far -- I know teachers who love it, and other teachers who loathe it. We're just going to wait and see, and supplement at home with extra math if we don't think she's learning sufficiently.

 

I think this is the way it is at most schools feel----teachers and parents either really like it or really dislike it. I had a love/hate relationship with it---depending on the student I was working with. Personally, it works well for my thinking patterns- but it simply moves too quickly or too much different information at once for some of the student population that I worked with. I would have liked a blend of EM (hands on,discussions, real life applications,etc) with a more traditional format (long studies of same topic for mastery, more repetition of core knowledge,etc).

Our district DID supplement some core areas they felt it did not touch on long enough (multiplication facts/division facts--they also taught multiplication the 'traditional' and after children practiced BOTH allowed 4th/ 5th graders to pick the way they felt more comfortable using....which was great. It allowed kids to determine how they learned best and what worked for them.

Some difficulties that were making them thinking dropping it were that the middle school did a traditional format and many kids struggled with the 'switch' in 6th grade, kids moving in from out of district REALLY struggled to pick it up since it is very much a sequential program--esp for kids in later grades (3 and up), and the high reading level required caused a lot of struggling readers to start to struggle with math as well...

 

Funny. This is the way I already do my math. I never saw the point of carrying in my head and such. This is much easier for me. I didn't know this was odd and laughed when I read that it was a "new way" of doing math.