"Learning Mathematics with the Abacus" Year 1

[Maquenzie]

I know Ayesha Nicole is using this book with her girls, anyone else?

Ayesha Nicole - I think I read somewhere that your girls are in their 2nd year of Montessori (the year before kindergarten year, correct?).  My son is also in that "grade" at a Montessori school, so I'm also very curious about what you guys do and how it relates for them in school.


This is the book for anyone else interested -

http://www.nurtureminds.com/Year-1-textbook.htm


We got ours this weekend.  I'll have to say that the book is not really our "style" and my son would definitely not enjoy writing as small as he would need to for the activity book. And the abacus is probably super cheap and not awesome.  Buuut, it's what we've got, so we'll try out what we can and see how we use it and what we like.

I tend to do math with my oldest (just turned 5) at night inbetween my 2 year-old's bedtime and his.  We often do handwriting, spelling, and math.  I think we will turn all gears toward math right now and drop spelling for awhile and focus handwriting on numbers, and math on the soroban!  I've looked over the book and decided to pick and choose some things from it as we go.

I also have lots of games brewing in my mind to play thoughout the day, once we get started. . Does anyone play soroban games of any sort? Want to share?  One I had in mind was using some cards that go to higher numbers (or just picking one) and then using other cards (deck of cards, UNO cards, number flash cards?) and each person picks a card and adds it to a central soroban.  The person who gets to the number first (or passes it) wins.  Or, to become more difficult make one color (or two colors, in the case of UNO) addition and the other(s) subtraction.  Anyway, I'll probably use these games in addition to other lessons, but I think they'll add a lot. Maybe. . Anyone do this sort of thing?

How's this book going for anyone else using it? We start tonight!

[Maquenzie]

Anyone?

We are in "Unit 2", almost ready for "Unit 3". (I'm actually surprised we are going straight through the book, but so far so good). Just trying to make sure he has a solid foundation of all the numbers (he's still frequently mixing up 7 and 8 ). Oh! I did really skim over the posture and fingering pages. I think his personality would rebel against too much "hold your body this way, use these fingers this way".  Instead I'm taking the approach of doing it correctly myself and waiting for the right window to show what I've found to be best. Hopefully it won't backfire. But, hey, he doesn't *have* to know the Soroban so I think we'll be okay.

We've played my UNO game I mentioned, except I'm doing the adding unless its very easy. We just add to 100, even my 2 year old played (though, for her, she was mostly just turning over the cards and saying the numbers/hording the cards , but you never know what they're picking up!).  I think that game (and others) will be more fun as his knowledge expands.

Right now he giggles a lot with it, and we're having fun.

[aangeles]

Maquenzie, we are not using these books but I am following your progress with much interest! During our lessons, I am not putting too much emphasis on posture and pencil position either, since my daughter likes to dance to music while doing her sums.  I do try to make sure she uses the correct fingers, because the fingering method would have a lot of bearing on how easily she learns to do anzan. In soroban classes, a large part of the reason why the teachers insist on a certain posture and pencil position is because the students are being groomed to participate in soroban competitions and the "official" method has been proven to be the fastest and most effective way to use the soroban. Since winning international competitions is not the reason I am teaching Ella soroban, I am not as strict with her on this aspect. It sounds like your son is really enjoying his lessons, so keep up the great work! Happy teaching! 

[Maquenzie]

Oh, please share what you guys are doing too!!  It doesn't have to be about that particular book (which I'm not in love with anyway).  I'd love to see what's ahead!

We played "war" with some cards I made from a soroban font download. (we're still in unit 2)



(I only made numbers up to 10 right now).

I think we have at least one more day before I'm confident he's got 7 and 8. 

I have a question, he counts when the number is 7 or 8 (as in 5, 6, 7).  Do you think this is interfering with his ability to recognize it at a glance.  Is that just something that comes with time or are there other specific things I can do to nurture this?

[aangeles]

Maquenzie,

What is it about the book that you don't like?

Regarding 7 and 8, I think it is quite common for kids to confuse the two. When you ask him to identify the numbers shown on the abacus, tell him not to count. If he doesn't know, tell him to try and guess. I think that after a little "guessing" practice, he will get it.

This is a sample page of the kind of sums Ella is doing now. It takes her about 10-15 seconds to do one. She is also working on solving equations that involve the use of number bonds and formulae but I don't have one of those worksheets on hand right now. Those equations also involve 3 or more addends.

[Maquenzie]

What don't I like about the book?  I guess I expected (at least in the activity book) more like what you just showed (though, of course, he isn't that advanced yet).  That was the type of sheet he did at the Aloha school.  Dry as it was, he really enjoyed doing 20 or so problems real quick. 

I think I also thought it had too many activities that weren't "to the point", you know actual problems.  But as silly as some of them seem to be, and as much as I thought I'd skip some of them--he's actually doing and enjoying them. So, perhaps I had an unfair bias.  ...and he is still having issues with 7 and 8 (and doesn't want to just guess, but we're trying, and I keep trying to reassure him its okay if its wrong..but he'll count stil on the sly). I probably will make up some supplementary drills though.

The other think I didn't love isn't really terrible or anything, and we're still doing it: learning the spellings of the number words. It's good review for him, but I was looking more for a soroban/anzan only kind of thing. I consider number words to be a language lesson, not arithmetic. 

I'm probably being too harsh on it. I actually like it more and more as I see it in action. I do like the little visual prompts to practice visualizing numbers on the abacus. I don't know enough to know what's good or bad there, but he really enjoys those parts and it seems to help his understanding. (he's prompted to close his eyes and visualize "6" and then draw the beads on the blank beam).

He *is* still stuck on 7 and 8 though and I'm not quite sure how to proceed. If we should stop and wait for this, keep going but still work on it, or do some cross-training of some sort.

He also loves moving the beads so much and doing actual pr

[Maquenzie]

Woops, I hit post too soon..

He also loves moving the beads so much and doing actual problems, so I'll probably make him a sheet to do some simple problems I think he could handle.




Also, I remember reading somewhere on RightStart's website about starting before the child starts to rely on counting strategies.  Is this 7/8 thing the type of thing it's trying to avoid?  Would it be a good program for my 2 year old to ease into? Or are there other good ideas for preparing her? (she's 25 months, the age under my name on the left there).

[Maquenzie]

And wow!!! I'm really impressed with Ella's work!  I can tell you guys are working hard!

[Maquenzie]

Here is his sheet from Aloha:



Here's some shots of the book:







Our abacus (it's all plastic, I'd like to get a better one some day)



An example of one of the pages in the text book I found sillier and asked him if he wanted to skip.



(we just went over the numbers real quick instead)

[aangeles]

Hmm... our book also has a few pages of "critical thinking" exercises - such as spot the difference between 2 pictures, mazes, and word problems - but mostly it has worksheets, drills, and visualization exercises. We spend about an hour each day (broken up into 2 sessions) on Math - 15-30 minutes for Soroban and then another 30 minutes or so on another program (currently, we have on rotation Rightstart, JG, and a fun Chinese workbook program similar to Singapore Math). As you can see, I am trying to get the best out of each program as I would like Ella to not only be able to do rapid mental calculations, but also be able to fully understand the fundamental concepts, be able to think creatively about math, and translate those skills to higher level math. It may sound like overkill but I am somewhat of a math junkie myself (I competed in international math olympiads for fun back in grade school and high school) and I really enjoyed learning all the different methods of doing math. I am hoping Ella will turn out to be the same. She seems to have a good math head on her shoulders. A few months back, while doing sequential addition on a number line, she figured out the concept of multiplication by herself. She told me - Mama, look, if you add 3+3+3+3, that is four 3's and it makes 12! After that, I started doing multiplication activities with her using manipulatives (well, I started out using marshmallows and m&ms and quickly ran into trouble when we got to the higher numbers!) and introduced her to the multiplication table.

I am sorry for rambling  but that is what we are doing for Math. 

[NadiaD]

I read through this thread with great interest!
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Karma to you!

[Soroban]

Hey just my 2 cents on this.

For my students I don't mind at all that they start by counting beads. Usually in a few months at the latest (most kids start just intuitively seeing the numbers in 2, 3 classes) kids will know what each number looks like.

*1 hint* to count numbers larger than 5, start by pointing to the 5 as a 5, then counting up to 6, 7, 8, and 9. That way they start using the same strategy. Vs trying to count the 4 beads on the bottom + 5, which would confuse most kids.

Good luck,
Tom

[Soroban]

Maquenzie

Quick question, how do they teach adding numbers to larger than 10?
So what do they ask you to do for 9 + 1?

Thanks,
Tom

[Maquenzie]

Thanks Tom for your insight!  I'll stop worrying about him getting 7 and 8 then and trust he will in time.  He does count 5, 6, 7.

The book uses number bonds.  It calls number bonds of 5 "little friend" and number bonds of 10 "big friend".

Here, I'll show it:

5



10



That's the text book portion of how it introduces it. What do you think?

[PokerDad]

I know you're expressing your doubts about the book, but it looks pretty good to me! I wouldn't want my 8 year old going through it this way (of course that won't happen since I won't wait that long), but for a youngling 25 months old it seems perfect, if not advanced.
Little friend, big friend... that's great!

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