Please bear in mind...I'm JUST reporting our own experience here. I didn't do an exhaustive review of all the curricula out there, and we made this choice on reasonable but NOT wonderfully well-informed grounds. So, while I am flattered by your replies, please don't just jump on the bandwagon because I happened to pick this book! At this age a lot of people are doing Montessori math, for example, and who knows, maybe we should be doing the same. I myself don't have time to do all the investigation I wish I had the time to do...
1) How old was Henry when you started Singapore math with him?
2) Did you teach him using another method (Doman, LM) before this program? You mentioned that he was able to do simple addition before starting Singapore math? Did you use something else to teach him?
The reason I ask is because I have been teaching my 2 year-old using the Doman method (initially using flashcards then subsequently, Little Math) since she was 15 months old but it has been inconsistent - mainly because she has not taken to math like she has to reading and she goes through periods when she would even refuse to watch LM. Since I can't test her to see whether this method is working for her, I am in a dilemma as to whether to persevere using Doman or to switch to another method entirely. Before we stopped (4-5 months ago), I was showing her quantities up to the 50s and multiplication equations. Thanks again for your input.
(1) We started about a year ago...when he was 3 years and 3 months, I believe. The only problem with that was that he couldn't write his numbers very well at the time. He still needs dots to trace for the harder numbers. I have him figure out the answer and then I write dots for him to trace. Lately he's gotten much better and faster at drawing letters and numbers so soon he'll be doing it all on his own, I think.
(2) Doman math is for babies (by the time they're toddlers most don't seem to like it), and Singapore math is a K-12 program. We tried something like Doman math when he was 2 years 4 months or so, and he just couldn't get into it. It was too late. As far as I am concerned, something has to come in between Doman math and a workbook-type approach like Singapore Math--we did a lot of manipulatives when he was 2 and 3, taking inspiration from Montessori methods.
From what age you think it is OK to start the program?
Would I find some interesting activities to do with 1 year old in Kindergarten Math A?
So if I understood you correct just the textbook will be enough for the start?
I think it depends entirely on your child when it is OK to start the program. Who knows, maybe we started too early. Without pushing him, we have taken over a year to go through the first year's material, but that's because we've repeatedly put the books down for many weeks or even months at a time. Currently we're back into it--he's interested once again. Educationists generally recommend against doing too much worksheet work with kids younger the 5-6, and for perfectly understandable reasons: it's hard for them, requires attention and concentration most of them don't have, and it makes them associate a subject, or learning, with boring worksheets.
Well, if I thought that were true of my boy, I wouldn't be doing it, and that is why I am very quick to put the workbooks down as soon as he shows the slightest resistance.
Sure, you can get ideas for activities from Kindergarten Math A, but there are probably better sources of ideas of math activities to do with a 1-year-old. No offense, but the idea of
trying to go through Kindergarten Math A with a 1-year-old is silly. You have to be able to meaningfully communicate with a little one in order to do these exercises.
The textbook alone was great. We might be using both a textbook and a workbook for 1A, however.
I learned a lot from
Einstein Never Used Flashcards, which goes into some depth about the stages children go through as they learn math concepts. It's quite interesting. I find this book's animus against "flash cards" and Doman to be misplaced, but otherwise it has a lot of great info. It points out very helpfully that there are certain skills that pre-K kids learn, which are important to learn, but which most parents are probably not aware that they are learning. For example, it is one thing to be able to recite the numbers 1-10, but it is another thing to count ten items; it is quite another to count ten items
consistently well (without recounting the same item, for example); and it is another still to be able to "count on," for example, Papa counting a set of items up to six and then the kid going from item seven on.
Kindergarten A does try to strengthen such concepts, by the way. But if you don't have the capability to learn them yet, you just don't, period. It's like walking or handwriting: some things just don't arrive until the child is ready, and you can't make them learn such things (much) earlier.
Do check these reviews out, together they're much more helpful than what I've written:
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/curriculum_reviews/
Digg
