Quick question for junior school teachers.

[fotheringay]

My ds is 9 and good at maths, his teachers view not rose tinted parent view:-) he is in year 4. I am doing a maths degree and have been revising to go back after taking a break. Ds has been looking my books and begging me to show him how to do it and teach him algebra. He is really excited about the idea of being able to make a sum draw a shape or that a sum can work out how far a ball will go. He can do negative numbers squares and square roots decimals and some fractions and understands using x=y etc to draw a line on a graph and solve easy equations 3x-9=y, x=2 what is y or 3x+3=9 what is x that kind of thing.
He is so enthusiastic about it and so interested to learn it feels wrong to just say no you can't but I want to do it in a way that will help him later on not hinder. I'm not trying to hot house him just encourage an interest in the same way I encourage my daughters love of reading by helping her find books she will enjoy. This seems especially important as he has sen which mean he finds other aspects of the curriculum a struggle and he loves the fact that maths is something he finds easy and makes sense to him which he finds a big boost to his self confidence.
So far I have just shown him odd bits here and there as Im looking at them and he gets it and is really excited by it but I'm wary of confusing him so to the point of the thread I'm thinking if we are going to keep looking at this it would be better to have some sort of direction to what we are looking at ..
What is the best way to introduce him to it all, what are the methods kids are taught at school (many years since I was at school), what is the best way to tie it in with school or is it ok to just teach him at home as a hobby (I know a strange hobby but...) what is the order to teach? Should I show him a broad range or is ok to just focus the things which spark his interest?

Hi -

I was a primary TA, but some children can have curiosity about things beyond what their age suggests. I had a Yr1 girl once fascinated by a world globe in the staffroom. She asked me what it was, so I showed her and explained; she asked if the continents were floating on the sea, which is quite a sophisticated question for a five year old, I thought. Every chance she got she would come to me with a big atlas and say, "Let's do research!"

Can't you look up the secondary curriculum for algebra, or ask at your local secondary school the best way to go about it? Have you been on Khan Academy? Our 30 yr old DS says that teaches maths in a better way than he was taught at grammar school, and he has used it in preparation to go on to do a Master's degree.

As long as he enjoys it and understands most of it I don't think it will do much harm. He might just get bored at secondary school if he knows it all when he gets there!

just show and share with him and do it together. You are obviously good at maths so you aren't going to teach him anything wrong, the only thing he will need to remember is that there are often several ways of doing things and at school he made need to do it the schools way.

Thank you for your ideas and reassurance I will definitely look up Khan academy and algebra syllabus and see how far we get with it all if its not going to complicate things for him. It might actually help him to understand why it's important to learn to write things down because at the moment he doesn't understand why he needs to write anything down in maths as he can do all his school maths work in his head and is very resistant to it because he finds getting things down on paper so hard.
He has always been interested in things over his years when he was five he could tell you all about how the magnetic field of the earth worked and the specifications of most of the USA and japanese ww2 pacific fleet but struggled to write his name

sounds like youve really captured his imagination!
one thing you may want to think about, which you may or may not have thought of, is getting hold of his school's calculation policy. it clearly shows which methods and strategies for calculation are taught, so that you'd be reinforcing methods he's taught rather than showing him different ones (wrt the steps taken, iyswim)

Have you looked on nrich maths? It's part of the University of Cambridge and has lots of fantastic activities for nursery age - A level. The different challenges promote problem solving, thinking and application of knowledge so you can pick some challenges on there to solve together, which will really broaden and deepen his understanding. There are lots of articles and discussions which give interesting background/food for thought that you might enjoy too.

Children are doing algebra much earlier than we think they are. For instance 4 + * = ? Asks them to find a missing value. They so this from key stage 1 so the idea is there.

They do touch on algebra in year 6 so perhaps google year 6 algebra. It will be basic stuff like 3n = 6 ... Find value of n etc etc. to begin with.

Speak to your sons school maths co ordinator. They might help you out with materials. If he's interested in it there's no harm in introducing it to him, at his own level.

I meant 4 + *= 6. Doh!

Hi again -

Some people on MN the other day were discussing the £25 computer Raspberry Pi. It enables quite young children to learn about programming. It also needs a keyboard, a monitor or TV, and a few other things. There are 'user groups' all over the country (and in other countries I believe.)

It could be something he would enjoy, and I give a link here:

www.raspberrypi.org/about