Teachers, can you spot a difference between kids who use maths websites and those who don't?

[Iamnotminterested]

Am just curious as there seems to be sooo many sites out there vying for parents money and, dare I say it, preying on our insecurities.

Do they make a difference to a childs' classroom ability?
Do they speed up mental maths recall?
Do you recommend them?

Thanks.

as a matter of interest breadandbutterfly have you ever taught a class of 30 children to be able to make a comparison?

As an ex Home Ed-er who then trained as a teacher, I have both taught classes of between 16 and 36, and taught my own child.

For me, the main difference is one of emotional involvement. Teaching a large class is tiring, physically and mentally, but somehow the needling frustration of your own child 'not getting' something or forgetting something he know perfectly the day beofre is much more acute than anything I get in the classroom. Being so in tune with your own child takes away that 'distance' that is part of the in-school child-teacher relationship and does make it emotionally harder.

Discipline is... different ... too. In a school, one is supported by a whole structure and set of expectations. At home, you are playing the dual role of care-giver and disciplinarian. That said, I found full-time HE a whole load easier than I find 'extra out-of-school learning' - with full-time HE it was clear to DS that it was 'work time now' whereas with 'extra' out of school things he is equally clear that it is encroaching on his own, much more interesting and intellectually satisfying, time.

Also, in my 'teacher' role, that is what I am doing. I have nothing else that I 'need to be getting on with' or 'would like to do while the sun shines'. At home, both for me and for the children, those 'other things' are much more distracting and have a much greater pull.

That said, I would be hard pushed to say that teaching my own child was 'harder' than teaching a whole classfull. It's different, certainly. It's not what I'd choose to be doing with my children, and so in the main, post HE [which we called 'school at home' as we we very much 'structured' HEers], we don't do any formal learning at all at home.

www.mommy-labs.com/creative-kids/making-math-fun-for-children-and-going-back-to-our-own-school-days/

My current class of six and significantly more difficult to teach than my class of 36 were. And me trying to teach DS anything is even harder

I do no maths with DS at home other than practical stuff - he loves measuring things and talking about numbers. He tries to tell the time and we cook a lot. I think I probably should work on times tables with him but will only do so if he's interested.

And, I agree with mrz, please, please don't use Sparklebox.

I'd vote for Percy Parker rather than maths websites, btw. He's a big hit around here (and I now know my times tables instead of having to do fast mental maths to keep up with dd ).

mrz - yes, I have, though not often - my classes are usually smaller and older - but I'd have thought teaching larger c;lasses made it harder rather than easier?

Can honestly say I had a lousy relationship with dd1 before doing the 11+ prep and now we are v close - it was a fantastic experience and completely different to class teaching.

I'm a fairly patient teacher in either case - don't get why you'd be frustrated at your dc if they don't get a concept - as long as they're trying - and don't think I'd mind if they weren't trying, as long as they understyand the implications of that. Academic success is not the only kind of success but it's quite handy if one is capable of it.

By the way, mrz and others - tried some of the links here and got ds v into shooting aliens to practice addition - for free too!

Liked the year 2 site as everything in ne place - better for me than odd games that I have to remember what they are and find.

Mrs H, your post about teaching your dd is exactly my experience and you put it into words beautifully. I am also relieved to see that you teachers don't find it easy teaching your own children (thank goodness it isn't just me!).

If you have a child who is really into maths that is fantastic, but if your child really dislikes it, because they have been told they are rubbish at it by school, it is a whole different ball game.

Like you Mrs H, I feel so guilty for doing maths during the holidays with dd, but I know that she needs it and yes we do have the occassional melt down. But we also do so many other things too, so it is only a tiny part of our day.

I am not a teacher and am rubbish at it and have little patience and yes I can feel frustrated with dd when she is pulling the rubber apart, or drawing flowers on the edge of the page and looking anywhere but at the numbers in front of her - I frequently have to take a big breath and even have been known to walk away.

Yes, I try and use maths in our daily routine, but it isn't always possible, so sit down and work we must if I want her to catch up, she is in Year 2, but I feel she is probably working at more of a Year 1 level.

Today however was a good day... for example we travelled down to London to see some castles and fit in a trip to Legoland, before going back to school on Thursday.

On the journey we played Eye Spy, then we chatted about the time and the 24 hour clock, how it works, finally we were spotting number plates, trying to get the highest number (using more/less/tens/units and introducing hundreds), we had a 976 our highest, on an old Citroen!!

In the restaurant tonight dd added up the £ on the bill for the starters (starting to add three numbers together, I didn't give her all the pence, as that would have made it harder) and then Daddy paid £56 for a £49 bill (he is a bit tight!), so she told me the difference and I explained about tipping and why we do it. Pretty basic stuff, but all getting that important terminology into her brain!

I would rather not do any of this and would love her to just be able to have complete freedom from it all, but sadly she is behind and whilst her new school are working hard with her, I feel I should do something too.

BreadandButterly, You are so lucky...I get frustrated with dd a lot!

breadandbutterfly if you spoke to people who know me in real life they would tell you I am incredibly patient ... even my own children say I have the patience of a saint so I really don't know why

Funny, mrz - in real life I am not v patient and don't suffer fools gladly - but in the classroom my philosophy is 'you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink' if it doesn't want to. You can't force someone to learn - yu can share your passion and hope it will rub ff, explain the sihnificance f their study - but the driving force has to be them. Hence my relative chilled-ness. Again, maybe a difference of a lifetime of working in adult education, where studying and achieving are optional, v working in primary education, where 'results' are expected from the teacher no matter the intention or ability of the pupil! - and reflected in national league tables?

I suppose the other point is no child likes to work at a subject they feel they are bad at, so for me a can-do approach is probably my strength - I have 100% belief that my kids can achieve and so view any difficulties as overcomeable - hpefully if this rubs off they are prepared to give it a go? Plus I'll bribe them t get them to do stuff they don't want to do - so they discover it's not s bad after all... Just 'paid' my dd2 with a box of chocs for getting her algebra qus all right, as she really struggles with accuracy, and hated the idea of algebra initially - but persisted. Am v chuffed - s is she. :)

And she has now asked me for lots more algebra to do...

Oh! I thought the classroom was RL

Eh? I was just comparing my attitude when dealing with say someone pushing in front of me in a queue or charging me wrongly for a bill, v my attitude when teaching. Yours may be identical; mine mercifully aren't, or I would have been sacked long ago...

and I was just saying that I include the classroom as RL.

I do actually stand back and let people push in front of me in queues it drives my OH mad but I'm patient with him too.

Fair enough and I admire and envy your patience! My dcs hide and pretend not to me when I shout at rude people on the bus .

Luckily, I'm not at all like that when I teach, when I seem to gain the sense of perspective I lack in other situations, that I call 'real life' to differentiate them. I think you got my meaning really... :)

not to know me

I do now

N, seriously, if my dcs education was perfect I'd rather take thenm to the park or the zoo r read them poems or watch a good film - but as it's nt, I don't mind doing a spot of algebra or whatever.

I suppose it depends on the dcs one happens to have as to how easy it is to teach them and hence how frustrated one gets as a parent - my dd1 just wants to knw everything and is v motivated and competitive, whilst dd2 is just sweet natured. So both quite teachable. ds though is more headstrong with a marked reluctance to do anything invlving sitting down or anything he sees as work. So I have to sneak it in a as play - on the cmputer, board games, dvds, etc - and then he'll do it happily. Maybe when he's older and caannier he'll be more resistant? I'm kind f hoping that before we get there we'll have all the basics straight so he can progress with little input needed fron me. As I said on anther thread, if you can get them secure in the basics when they're little then much less needs to be done when they're older and less teachable anyway - they can pursue their own passins on the computer or in books etc. Plus my ds is interested in science, about which I knw nothing, so will be onto a loser if I'm expected to teach it - hope he can read books and find out stuff for himself soon!

Does anyone else agree that sometimes it feels silly to restart a zombie thread when there’s useful stuff than can be found in the old threAd. In 2018, my kids like Squeebles ( but it’s not that useful). I will be looking into mathsfactor given the last post above. I need to know how to explain.

TBh, the free sites are actually way better than paid sites these days, imo. Don't know why you needed to revive zombie. If you start a new thread asking for good apps/website, you will get reply which is more up to date.

Mine are quite liking doing Sumdog at the moment (I'm not explicitly using it to boost maths but just trying to get them confident with things like mouse skills on the laptop and the concept that it's not a touchscreen and may as well channel them toward something educational rather than endless "what Paw Patrol dog are you" type nonsense).

I do know, however, in response to the complaints about well-meaning parents teaching different methods and confusing kids, that I AM doing things the same way because I've sat in on enough maths lessons as a volunteer and I'm the sad bugger who's actually read the school calculation policy and I've double checked with staff if I've needed to explain something to DD1 where they're up to in terms of covering it in class to make sure I'm doing it the same way.