New Math? Confusing Math!

My neighbour’s son brought home this math homework, to prepare for an upcoming test. She showed it to me for another opinion and I was confused. She’s good at math; I’m not (so I’m expecting not to understand, tee hee!). This is Grade 2 math.

Here are the first set of questions. My daughter and my neighbour’s son can easily add the initial problems:

But not when they want the Grade 2ers to solve them like this example:

Then it gets even more complicated where they want them to “fill in the doubles”. Not sure what the point of adding three other calculations to figure out the initial math problem. Can’t they just rearrange the numbers on top of eachother and add them that way? Seems like a huge “make work” project.

                  

Math was NOT my strongest subject in school. In fact, I was a solid 64% or 68% in all math classes in highschool (compared to 90s for my other subjects). I’m sure if I had to learn it this way, it would have been even lower. This gives me a headache just trying to figure out what they are asking for, let along if I was a 7 or 8 year old in this Grade 2 class. I’m really hoping this homework doesn’t come home with my daughter, who is also in Grade 2 but in a different school this year.

On The Injured List

 

 

 

Normally, school pick up entails picking the kids up, chatting with DS’s Educational Assistant for a few minutes to see how his day was, and then we head across the street to “the Butterfly Garden” if we have other plans, or the park then the Butterfly Garden then home. Yesterday, this is NOT what happened.

 

Everything looked normal until the supply EA let go of DS’s hand BEFORE I had ahold of his hand. In that split second, he bolted. Three adults went to grab him. We all missed. I’m sure it looked a bit like baseball players all going for a fly ball. I had been carrying DD and lost my footing. Down I went. DD was crying, DS started crying because DD was crying. Honestly, I was trying really hard not to start crying too. Unbelievable pain! A bunch of fellow kindergarteners were coming over asking if my daughter’s “mommy was okay”. All I could say was “no. I’m hurt. Please give me space”. My left knee was banged up, left foot toes were scraped, the side of my right foot was twisted…which made for a painful 2 minute drive home.

 

Some things I’m thankful for from this situation…

1. I was able to turn just a tiny bit when I was falling so I didn’t land on my daughter, and was still able to protect her from really hurting herself.
2. The kids’ father was able to take the kids overnight. There was no way I could handle the stairs in our home to put the kids to bed. We have a sunken bathroom with only two steps and those are hard enough to manage, let along the 20 or so steps to upstairs!
3. A friend of ours was with us for school pick up. He caught my son after he bolted, was able to carry him to our mini-van, get us home, help me into our home, manage my kids, and get them fed. He even told me to make a stop at Starbucks on the way home to get me my favourite Starbucks order…gawd he knows me! Thanks AS!
4. My neighbour kept my daughter entertained between our friend leaving and the kids’ father coming to pick them up. Thanks JM!
5. My daughter was and continues to be such an amazing help…she’s holding my hand to “help me” whenever I have to move somewhere this morning, and she even wrote me a “get well” card this morning too.

 

This morning’s biggest decision for me was, do I put the tensor bandage on my right foot or my left knee. Went with the right foot.