Primary Mathematics 1A, Textbook, Standards Edition

I bought this after trying to help my 1st grade g'daughter with her 'new' math homework. This girl was adding/subtracting 5-digit numbers (!) over the summer using her favorite wooden number line she got for her 3rd birthday . She loved doing problems with me getting stickers & stars for getting the right answer. Then came 1st grade algebra BEFORE they learn that 2+2 always equals 4 etc. (That's NEXT year!???) Forget learning one's flashcards - now you have to convert each addend to 10 & solve for 'x' despite not knowing basic facts. It's like putting up a high-rise but skipping the foundation. You may get something built but it ain't gonna last long. After just 2 weeks of this nonsense she now hates math & dissolves in tears due to her (and mine) frustration with this idiocy.My husband has a degree in nuclear engineering & physics & he can't figure out a lot of this stuff. We both disagree with the idea that "The correct answer doesn't matter. It's the process that counts" Tell that to the guy you're sending to the Moon. One ten thousandth of a degree of arc error & your astronaut ends up going to Saturn instead of your intended landing spot. In his line of work consistently getting the answer precisely correct matters a helluva lot - lives lliterally depend on your findings. But not in the new math. Get the answer wrong & you still pass if you (at least) tried the 'right' process. Say what?I bought these books in desperation. Even the teacher admitted this 'new math' (which throws out 2,500 years of proven results in teaching mathematics) is 'ridiculous' & 'really unhelpful' but she's forced to stick to a curricula that threatens to do to math what the 1979 'new reading' system (memorizing words vs. learning the 75 rules of phonics) did - take us from 94% literacy in the US to just 50% today. Mexico refused to follow suit & they still run 95% literacy over their entire country. 50% of US adults can't fill in a job form & companies have to dumb-down their brochures & use simple pics because so many can't read. Now, thanks to the 'educators' from California, they want to destroy the US system of teaching math.I got these books & she loved them on sight. We went through the first few pages carefully with me explaining that while she knew how to count she had to (re)learn them the way the book taught. I let her draw faces on the pineapples & smiles on the carrots to make it even more fun. She now understands how to use a different set of counters (vs the dominos or putting circles in a box of 10 squares like the teacher uses).If these help her get over the frustration of new (and utterly ridiculous) math I'll buy every book in the set.

I used this textbook for both of my children while homeschooling, along with the 1A workbook. It covers counting to 20, addition and subtraction up to 20, ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, etc), shapes, length, weight and volume. The length, weight and volume chapters lend themselves easily to hands on work, but the rest of the book is more worksheet than hands on manipulatives.I liked it better than my kids did. The both liked the earlybird kindergarten level of this, but 1A didn't do it for them. The text is in full color and has short lessons. It is 10 chapters long, and a chapter can be from 7 to 17 pages long and have from 10 to 100 problems to work out. One chapter can take from a few minutes to a few hours. I think the longest chapter took about two weeks, in 20 minute increments over 4 days in a week. The shortest chapters took a day or two. Where I think I failed them, was also making them do the workbook. My kids don't enjoy worksheets or busy work of any kind, and adding the workbook to the textbook was too much repetition for them. It is a lot less repetition that other math curricula, such as Saxon, but it was overkill for my kids to have both workbook & textbook. In hindsight, I think that I'd go for the textbook, which is colorful, over the workbook, which is in black and white.Now that my kids are a little older, we've moved on to Life of Fred, which is has too few problems to work to be a stand alone math curriculum, but my kids like it a lot. And I've added Math and Literature by Marilyn Burns, which asks for much more creativity in their math manipulation.At this age, what works for many kids is a more hands on approach, using legos or cuisinaire rods or coins, for example. But if they are excited to do a more formal approach, then this textbook is engaging without being overwhelming.

I like to use Singapore workbooks to supplement our main math curriculum. When we need a break from our usual, or need time to practice or reinforce, we pull out these workbooks. They focus more on mental math.

Ive tried many coffee substitutes but this one hands down is the best. I havent had coffee in over a year and this really reminds me of a real cup of joe

Best math ever . We sided at home for extra!

Good supplement activity for my incoming first grader.

Great books and math program.

Nice book! My son likes a lot!