My upcoming second grader used Singapore Earlybird with Little Hearts for her kindergarten year. She did very well with it, but really wanted to have the same as my older kids (CLE Math). She's done CLE 1 for first grade and has done wonderfully with this. She's done well. . . . . but hates doing it!
So we're looking into Singapore for her, which would be more enjoyable and less time consuming. I've also been looking for a math program for my soon to be kindergartener and am now considering Singapore for both of them. I realize that HOD now recommends the Essentials math for kindergarten from Singapore, as the Earlybird books are now out of print, so that's no problem. It actually looks pretty easy for her, but we'll start at the beginning and keep moving on through with her. My upcoming second grader could most likely pick up the 1A/1B books and move through them at a quicker pace to catch anything that might have been missed because we did another curriculum this year. I have no doubts that she would be doing the 2A/2B books sometime before the end of the school year (next year
). Both of these dc LOVE to do school and are very quick learners! One question I have (obviously for the future levels
) is if you would need the Home Instructors Guides or not? Now, I realize that the younger levels in HOD have the hands on activities in the plans, but I'm wondering about after that. I see in the catalog that the option is given to order the Home Instructor Guide and even possibly order the answer keys as well (for upper primary levels). So what does HOD recommend for the upper primary levels? Would I need to have these to be successful in using Singapore at these levels? And would the student complete the lessons fairly independently (at the upper levels 3A-6B), or would we do the lesson together leaving the workbook page for them to do on their own?Other questions on this for upper levels would be what to transition to after 6A/6B? The catalog shows the choice of going up to the Discovering Mathematics 1A/1B (also from Singapore), but I've also read on the message board that some go on to Video Text. Which choice is better? And, would Singapore cover everything that my dc may be tested on in standardized testing?
Also, I have two older dc that I would have loved to have in Singapore from the beginning, but when I found HOD and Singapore, they were past the ages that people were recommending to switch them over to Singapore. I'm sure if we tried to place them in Singapore now, they'd have a lot of backpeddling to do, which would be really discouraging for them. So in this case, what would HOD recommend for math for children who are too old to switch to Singapore?
I am sorry for the ramble of questions, but I've been rolling all of these through my mind, and need help to clarify just how this would/could work for us. Thanks so much!
). The jury is still out on that one. I am working through the end of 7A and then making a decision about how to proceed. I'll gladly share that at that time.