My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Primary education

has anyone used the power of 2 workbooks? If so what did you think of them?

12 replies

lisalisa · 19/06/2008 12:10

The title says it all really.

We hvae been doing kumon wiht our 7 year old for about a year but i can't say its helped all that much apart from wiht confidence. I'm looking for somehting that follows but explains and reinforces the national curriculum in maths a bit more.

Anyone used these resources and with what resutls?

OP posts:
lisalisa · 19/06/2008 12:22

No-one ? How about edplace?

OP posts:
ReallyTired · 21/06/2008 18:37

We have just started using power of 2 workbooks and my son is six years old. We have only done a couple of pages. Its too early to say whether its effective.

Its written in a similar style to Toe by Toe.

Issy · 21/06/2008 19:15

We're using "Power of 2" with DD1 (7). When I say 'we' it's actually DH and he thinks it's brilliant. Quote: "Steady, methodical, wicked at revealing your child's weaknesses, great for building confidence, easy to use". Much like Kumon it's directed towards increasing the child's confidence and facility with manipulating numbers, but unlike Kumon you do it with the child which seems to make the 10-15 minute sessions much more acceptable.

Power of 2 doesn't really explain and reinforce the concepts as such, which is fine for DD1 as she seems to have grasped the concepts but has a real problem with the basic calculations. For explaining and practising concepts I would recommend Bond "No Nonsense Maths". www.nelsonthornes.com/bondnononsense/maths.htm

Issy · 21/06/2008 19:16

We tried Edplace. DH hated it. Unlike Bond and Power of 2 there is no sense of progress, they're just random work sheets. Also DH found errors in some of the work sheets.

ReallyTired · 21/06/2008 19:33

We never tried Kumon, I was staggered by the expense. Several of my son's classmates do it and it does seem to help with mental arithemetic, but the children truely hate it.

Bink · 21/06/2008 19:37

Not the same thing - website rather than workbook - but both of mine completely adore Mathletics, which their schools have subscribed to. (I think you can subscribe privately too - not sure though.)

lisalisa · 23/06/2008 09:48

Thank you all so much for your replies.

Issy - I clicked on teh bond nonsense books and read one or tow sample worksheets as i was veyr interested in your statment that for explaining concepts this was good. Couldn't see from sample worksheets where it was explained. As this would be pure gold from my point of view ( I am very good at maths myself but intrinsically ifswim and have no idea how to break down or explain concpets - to find a system teaching me how to do that would be amazing) I am interested to learn how and where those concepts are explained by bondnonsense.

Really hope you see this thread.....

OP posts:
lisalisa · 23/06/2008 09:51

Bink - mathletics sounds great too - just had a read and very reasonable price....now a bit stuck for what to do ..............

OP posts:
Bink · 23/06/2008 10:07

lisalisa - the other thing I've recommended recently is a maths textbook which has been lent to us by the school ds is going to in Sept (so that we can check he's up to speed): here is ds's one - it's part of a series, so perhaps Book 1 might be better to start with (and there are answer books too)

It explains things very very well, I find.

lisalisa · 23/06/2008 10:21

Bink - how does it actually explain? Does it , when dealing wiht division for e.g. explain to the child how to understand what divisino is and then how to apply it to questions?

OP posts:
Issy · 23/06/2008 10:40

Hi LisaLisa

There is a bar at the top of each lesson that explains the concept. There isn't a lot of detail there but it's simple and well-laid out. The lesson itself is then progressive. WH Smiths stocks Bond books so you can browse there before buying.

lisalisa · 23/06/2008 11:41

Great thanks - I'm off to have a look.

OP posts:
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.