Thanks everyone for this thread! You’ve persuaded me to get the RightStart Manual A and abacus and CD of appendices, and the digital card game if they get that out. It sounds like a great program. I’ll start watching Ebay and saving for new copies; we’ll see which happens first.
Hooray!
I just listened to my voicemail and retrieved a message from RightStart-
They are indeed willing to provide me with a digital version of the card games…at half the price of the regular games.
I will find out the details tomorrow and update.
WOOOOHOOOOO! great work 
Yay - that’s great news - well done Kerileanne - you are indeed a preferred customer (preferred by us at the very least) :laugh:
This really helps to make a decision about the best bits of Rightstart to purchase for international shipping. Sadly, their postage charges are based on a percentage of the overall cost of the items, so there is no benefit in choosing lighter weight items (although it could be worth challenging on this issue for the CD of all the worksheets which is $100). I am going to email and ask if they offer the lessons on CD as well.
BTW - Kerileanne - welcome (in advance) to the UK! I will be away on holiday for the next few weeks but will pm you my details. I’m based just north of London, so not very close to York though!!!
THANKS A LOT KERI! You are doing us a huge favor.
I wanted to share a 42 min video posted by RS, in which Dr. Cotter Lawler talks about her program. (Sorry if this video has been already posted somewhere else in the forum)
I wish RS did ebooks for their course books as well as the worksheets - shipping to the UK is prohibitive!
I wish I could afford the whole set! I might persuade myself to buy level A eventually…
SOOOO!
Finally, a few RS Updates!
RS has agreed to sell me the RS games cards as PDF files- Now, I ONLY have to find the time to make them more kid-friendly! I would dearly love to find an industrustrius mom to help! PM me if you have the time/creativity/ energy to help!!!
Also! I have had multiple PMs recently on how Alex has progressed through the RS early programs! I am answering here just in case anybody is interested…We are using RS A as our ‘spine’, but RS ‘B’ is a lot of the same material, with extra topics added in, such as more in depth time/calendar/geometry/etc…So we are actually doing a mix of both! RS A is more slow-paced, which Alex needs at 2.75, but! we are also not waiting to add in many topics, intoducing them as they fit into our everyday activities!
After further investigation, I actually think that we will progress more slowly through RS A, combining materials from RS B…and progress entirely into RS C!
A few people have asked how she so rapidly learned all of her math facts, in a RS manner, when RS actually does not combine everything until much later:
Here is a game I invented, we call it “Race to 100”…
The game is a UK 'skittles" game, similar to bowling. The pins are about 5 in tall. The first picture is the original Skittles game, I bought mine from Palumba. (10 unfinished wooden pins and a ball)
http://www.palumba.com/product/19/I painted them in RS colors so visualization is instantaneous and incorporatates/ reinforces abacus work. Originally, we used them to practice all of our “to ten” math facts, but then quickly moved on!
We use the abacus to record our running total, so we add the new score, always in terms of RS math, to the abacus. The first person to reach 100, wins! You can each use an abacus, or combine your scores to reach 100!
This also worked to use our Multiplication.com Times tables work!
Just though I would share…
Thank you Keri. This is such a cute idea! Fun gross motor play. I think my little man will love it.
James doesn’t like our abacus so we have stopped RS for a little bit. I am sure we will come back to it in time. There are too many good things about the program.
However I am at a crossroads with how to meld RS with more tradional math. Especially the numberline style addition counting and math facts vs subtitizing groups of 5. So I have not gone much beyond 10. I think I will introduce some Singapore math style number bonds up to 10 before I move on. At that point I am hoping James will be more into RS math again.
If not I have no qualms with continue with concepts tor a while too. Comparisons, sorting, patterns, capacity, positional words, shapes, weight, time. All that fun kind of stuff.
Oh James found a fractions app on my ipad that I downloaded a long time ago. One of the grasshopper ones. And he took to it right away. He knew exactly how to match fractions.
I love the idea of the skittles!
We are making steady progress with RS. We get through around a lesson per week. So far my DD is still quite excited about using the abacus and tally sticks. We are up to about lesson 9. It is going far better Thani had hoped! The lessons can be easily broken down into micro lessons lasting only a few minutes. This is very important for us!
I’m wondering about the mastery element of RS. Perhaps others could advise? She is still trying to count rather than subsutize and struggles a little with the RS approach. She’s starting to memorise yellow is the sun but is not 100% confident. Should I wait to complete mastery of these concepts before moving on to thenext lessons or is it reinforced over time as the curriculum progresses? She does not always find it easy to recognise the differences between 7, 8 and 9 without counting. Although this is certainly improving.
We are supplementing with a range of other approaches including numicon, marshmallow and some apps. I think we may add in Singapore at some stage too.
Keri - I’m quite busy but I might be able to help with some of the RS materials - maybe pm me and let me know what you need.
Izp11, have you considersed using flash cards for the amounts she is counting? You could flash ( perhaps in LR? :yes: ) pictures of both the fingers showing that number, tally sticks of that number and the abacus Colours in the yellow blue. It would take very little time for her to remember them instantly…probably it’ll take you longer to make the flashcards! lol I is reinforced with nearly every activity and of course practice makes perfect. You need to play some games to reinforce the subitizing in groups of 5. The skittles looks fun!
Korrale to get to the next level in rightstart and go beyond the number ten, I used the montossori style number cards. That way it is easy for the kids to understand that 12 is 10-2 and 17 is 10-7. I thought that going from 1? To 20 was going to be hard for him to grasp but he got it first time and was super keen to try bigger and bigger numbers. My 6 year old enjoyed playing number with him too. Here is a link
http://www.shop.montessoriprintshop.com/Large-Number-Cards-MF-9.htm
These ones you can print free. Right start had some in their appendix but these are better and more comprehensive. I really think these number cards are a wonderful tool for understanding place value.
Keri I am busy but there is always some spare time to squeeze in some worthwhile work
I can’t see why you can’t run both rightstart grouping by fives and memorizing number facts at the same time.
A few thoughts-
IZP11- I do think it is fairly critical to memorize Yellow is the Sun and be able to demonstrate on fingers, tally sticks and the abacus. Since you are not speeding through, you should be able to continue on with the new lessons, but try to pack in some YITS review/singing/matching games from the Appendix- there is a memory game particularly good for this in the appendix. It has bead cards, finger cards, and tally stick cards, and you can make up all sorts of variations to match /recognize quantities immediately.
As far as learning math facts alongside? A resounding YES! And anything else they are interested in. Alex still does daily practice with Melissa and Doug number magnets/equations in the kitchen while I am working…I will say, can you make me three equations to equal ten, etc…and now we are reviewing multiplication facts in this manner as well.
Just because we are using RS as our spine, so eclectic mommy and daughter are sure not to miss anything, I am introducing anything of interest, even reading RS lessons on the concept so that I can introduce it somewhat compatibly…the way I see it, when we get to those lessons (as we have in the past!) I give a quick review and move on:)
Korrale4kq-
We love to use the Singapore number bond work, as it is so intuitive in understanding the relationships between addition/subtraction and multiplication/division! I am SSOOOoO glad we do these concurrently with RS! iMHO, one of the weak areas in RS is that they introduce addition first, then subtraction. Singapore is exceptionally suited as a supplement to RS, and I love that Singapore teaches more advanced concepts such as measurement/time/calendars/etc., earlier on.
Oh! I read your post on geometric solids as a Xmas prezzie for James? We have the wooden RS set that will eventually be needed, so you might consider that one. We play a game where originally I made name cards and she matched them…now we play, “I am thinking of a 3-D geometric solid with six faces and eight vertices…” Sort of thing…
Also, if your kids, like mine, learned to count to very high numbers, and you want to ensure they can understand the ‘math’ way of counting and place value, here is an idea for a game I used to check :
I put our pocket 100 chart on the floor and gave Alex a pile of Bingo style markers. I called out the ‘math’ number, say, six-ten-three, and she would put a marker on it. So on and so forth until she achieved a ‘BINGO!’
Manda-
I am going to post some of our favorite math songs for skip counting and math facts, but thought I would mention this here. I have yet to find a GREAT song for skip counting by threes, although I have a pretty good App. We did this: a version of sort of a patty-cake clapping game. Face each other, cross and touch right hand with partners right hand, saying very quietly (to start!) ‘one’. Then cross left hand to left hand, saying very quietly, ‘two’. Then both hands clap partners hands and ‘THREE’ is shouted. Eventually, they will get to the point where it is very fast paced and silly, they are no longer saying one or two, just tapping palms, and shouting: three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, etc. as high as you want to go…
Thanks everyone for offers to help with the RS games. I will be in touch soon:)
I found these clips on YouTube the other day showing fun ways to learn multiplication. When James has a more solid number sense we might play some of these games together.
Here is the website
And yes Manda! I completely forgot about the Montessori numbers. I need those. I do want James to learn place value when he counts. Super important. Which reminds me. I need my mum to bring over a bunch of grid (quad rule) books. I can’t be the only one who learnt to do math in them. I can’t find any in the US that have large enough squares.
Thank you all as always for some great ideas.
I’m making powerpoint flashcards (also inspired by Sonya in the subsitizing numbers thread). I will upload these to the forum when done. I’ve included finger, tally sticks, abacus beads and several other variations but trying to emphasise the RS approach ( e.g. A dice with 5 and 1 to show 6). Plus a few of my DD’s favourite TV characters to brighten it up a bit :laugh:
We actually had just started trying the memory game with beads and tally sticks. Whilst DD is very adept at playing memory card games on the iPad I found that physical version was more of a challenge as she tended to just turn them over a bit wildly and it was hard to get her to turn them back if there was no match. So I adapted to a simpler game. I had a group of 5 cards face up and she had five matching ones face down. She chose one of her cards and then looked for the matching one of mine. If she could find it then she won! This way she was able to win every hand lol .
We broke it down to cards 1-5 and then played again with 6-10 which is harder. I also mixed things up matching beads to tally sticks etc.
I am sure that these two activities should help cement her ability to subsitize up to 10 fairly quickly.
Btw - i really love the idea of skip counting whilst playing clapping games. I could see how you could easily adapt this to counting in 2s 3s 4s etc and builds coordination and rhythm too!
I am not that advanced with an Ipad lol so I was not able to figure out how to purchase all topics together ( it never gave me a choice for some reason), any tips?