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common core? craziness pad patter 8.22.18

AnneofAlamo

AnneofAlamo

Slippers IN sunshine? Even better!
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
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okay. I graduated in 1982, but I can do multiplication in my head...
especially things like 400 x 10=
count the zeros and then 4x1 4000. 2 seconds tops.
this is my son's 4th grade homework last night:
interpret a multiplication problem as a comparison
my brain exploded!
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I never did see a multiplication problem on the page? HELP?
is it 40 x 100?
my brain hurts
 
Ha ha ha! I know! I LOVE math, but my kids started bringing home their math homework in about 3rd grade and would show me how they were solving multiplication problems and I couldn't believe how much harder they were making it. I guess they told the kids they just wanted them to have a bunch of different ways to solve the problem so they could use the one that worked for them. Oy!
 
KWYM, it's all about understanding strategies now and various ways to get to the end result - although sometimes they get lost in the bewildering strategies and don't get the result that is obvious to us and i think was easier to get the old fashioned way!
 
oh goodness.. I always wanted to be a math teacher growing up and I have helped many with algebra (my fav) even college algebra but no way could I do this common core.. no wonder the kids have a hard time... this is crazy! Bless you all with children in school. I don't think I would be able to help with homework!
 
Common core is my nemesis! And... I love math. It really was the bane of my existence for a few years.
 
All your comments really repeat what most of the teachers I know say. There may be many ways of learning but seriously...

Anne, I recall learning what was called 'the new math' back in my sophomore year of college. It went into the reasons for a lot of the processes we used without thinking why they worked. e.g. 5+4 = 4+5 but 5-4 does not equal 4-5. Addition is commutative (interchangeable) as is multiplication but subtraction and division are not. Did that learning ever have any bearing in my life? No. And did the children learning about this have any better understanding of math than I did with my old fashioned memorization kind of learning? i don't know. I definitely enjoyed that class and the 2nd semester one also (and got two 4credit A's that year which I REALLY liked) but considering the way many/most of us use our phone calculator for daily math, I wonder what is really the reason for yet another way. A way many parents don't understand. ?????

re #3 I have no idea what the final = could be. There are no tens or 1s in that diagram so 40x100=4,000=???

@jesskab I may have to look at that video since I have a granddaughter who may probably be stumping her mother with this kind of thing!

@Tree City good thing you have a good head of hair to start with!
 
Crazy!!! I have been tutoring high school math on and off over the years, in addition to teaching my kids. Those public school textbooks are crazy, crazy. They contain a lot of intuitive thinking, which works for some people, but not everyone. Some just need the simple rules spelled out. I just skip it when tutoring as half the time I can't figure out what they are trying to say. Well, I could if I spent 10 minutes on it...

But your son's worksheet has me stumped --- looks more like a division problem to me -- you are moving hundreds to thousands, so you would be dividing by 10 to see how many 100 dots get to move up to the 1000 dot place. Just sayin...
 
cookingmylife said:
It went into the reasons for a lot of the processes we used without thinking why they worked. e.g. 5+4 = 4+5 but 5-4 does not equal 4-5. Addition is commutative (interchangeable) as is multiplication but subtraction and division are not.
Click to expand...

And this why I teach that subtraction and division are never really needed in algebra once you understand negative numbers. That is a negative 4 in the first example and a negative 5 in the second, and you are combining them. Division is just multiplying by a fraction.

BTW - my dd needs lots of word associations to remember the rules, i.e. distributive theory is "everybody gets one". Negative exponents mean "you must go to the basement" or if you already in the basement "you must go upstairs". And to leave the square root prison, you MUST have a partner that looks just like you.
 
I think the hardest part is that we, as parents, can't help them with common core because we don't think that way or even understand what the objective is of many of those exercises. I don't think it's inherently wrong or bad though, just very different from what we learned.
 
I hate common core too! I send all math homework to the husband. We both have sat staring at algebra common core worksheets (that have the answers worked out) and still have had issues understanding it.

I looked at your worksheet for 3 minutes and now have a headache. I'm going to creep back out of this thread ... :backing
 
We picked our grandson up at school pretty frequently last year (first grade). His mom and dad wanted us to help him with his homework so that he could go to bed when they took him home. Right! I looked at that math on the first night and said your papa has to help you with this. My dh has an engineering degree and has taken every kind of math imaginable, but he had to really think about what he was looking at. I washed my hands of the math from then on. I could help him with everything else.
 
uggggg! This household was lucky enough to have their dad to go to for any math homework. BUT he would teach it the way he knew how. Any English History they came to me.
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So So glad to not have children in school anymore!
 
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