The best laid (math) plans often go astray.

A big chunk of my summer was spent writing out lesson plans.  I made it through Valentine's Day, and was pretty proud of myself.  Most of those plans have been perfect-ish so far, with just a few modifications made here and there.  But then there is math.  And numbers.  So many numbers.  Will started to get overwhelmed.  I realized that all the math plans after the first three weeks needed to be scrapped.  It was a bit of a hit to my teaching ego, but it had to be done.  

Right now we are working on sprucing up his addition facts with sums up to 20 that he learned last year.  Effortlessly knowing these facts will make the rest of the year easy for him.  But looking at a workbook page like this (even though he knows his facts) is completely overwhelming to him:

So I started from scratch.  I am using the concept of what I am calling "7 & 15".  I came across variations of this approach online, but have modified it to make it fit Will's learning style in the best ways.  The idea is that kids can learn the seven addition rules of: zeroes, ones, twos, threes, tens, doubles, and the commutative property of addition. These are relatively easy rules to master, with doubles being the most difficult. After mastering the seven rules, there are only 15 more addition facts to learn in order to know all addition facts to sums of 20.  These facts are:

4+5, 4+6, 4+7, 4+8, 4+9

5+6, 5+7, 5+8, 5+9

6+7, 6+8, 6+9

7+8, 7+9

8+9

We are currently on the fives facts.  As you can see, there are only four of them, yet I am allowing as much time as he needs to be able to easily and, more importantly to me, in a stress-free manner.  I spent two days teaching the fours facts in various ways: 

Above: addition table, touch math visual, and post-it number line (He used his favorite Power Ranger to answer a fact.)

Above: addition facts WITH answers (so important for visual learners), quick worksheet to go with our Animal theme, and egg crates with pom poms and dry erase board.

So this is the plan for now.  We will keep going until he masters the facts with no anxiety.  And we will go right into two-digit addition without regrouping, then two-digit addition with regrouping... all before we start polishing up his basic subtraction skills.  Addition and subtraction skills are often learned on different developmental levels... meaning that just because a child is ready to master addition facts, doesn't mean they are ready for subtraction.

To be continued (when we're ready for subtraction)...