Quick Singapore Math Question

[Cuckoomamma]

It's my understanding that the Early Bird books are written by a different author than the other texts. I did workbooks (DK, etc.) that I picked up in Costco with dd8 when she was young and jumped into Singapore 1B (used the online placement test).

I bought the Earlybird for dd4 and think it's okay. They introduce number bonding which, I think, is an important mathematical concept that, a lot of kids either aren't taught or just don't get. Because I didn't buy the HIG when I started dd8, I didn't stress that with her. It was fine with me that she would just "know" the answers. Later on, I felt that she wasn't adding larger numbers mentally as quickly as she would be able to if she added/subracted through bonds. By then, I understood that Singapore is really big on mental math and took a little time out for her to do some of the early bonding activities they suggest in the early HIG or Teacher's Guide.

None of the other early workbooks I've seen have placed much, if any, value on mental math. So, I see that as a bonus to the Early Bird. I'm not necessarily saying that anyone needs it, though. Depending on the age of the child, you could start with 1a. I just know that dd4 liked the look of her EarlyBird book better when she was young compared to the black and white of the 1a workbook.

I always order the text and wb. We've almost exclusively only done the problems from the wb. Every so often I'll pull the examples from the text if I want to be sure dd has a concept after doing the wb problems (too lazy to make up my own problems some times :-) )

FWIW, I've never seen the Singapore books we use in an average commercial store like Borders. I've seen something that's called Singapore math in an educational warehouse-type store in our mall, but it's a different book.

Because I'd always done well in math, I didn't purchase any teacher's guides for dd8. Now that I'm going through it with dd4, I"m buying the HIGs. Again, it's definitely not necessary, but I learned math by wrote. I love hearing dd4 dividing because she understands the concept is actually "dividing". It's not some random numbers that she's memorized.

There's a fun book of math games to play by Peggy Kaye called Games for Math. Depending on the level of math we're talking about, there are several fun games to play as well. Gameright makes a lot of fun ones that stress different math skills. We have one that deals with negative and positive numbers, others with adding. There's also a fun mythology card game where you use multiplication to face off with each other.

[baileygirl]

For Early Bird A you would want the textbook and the activity book (and readers) is optional. The activity book has a lot of cutting and pasting and some writing. If you are looking for some fine motor skill things to do, you might consider it. I believe all of this is true for Early Bird B, but I haven't seen it in person.