Another One Bites Of The (Math Online Practice Sites) Apple…

NOT a sponsored post… (like I ever do sponsored posts 😀 long, long ago lah…)

OMG!! The almost-3.5 year old is doing “Online Math Practice” a la Original Rockstar? What has been done to this child!!!

I. Know. Wait. It’s not what you think. Let me explain…

Rockstar’s school recently changed Math online practice/learning sites (btw I love online practice sites because a teacher/ parent can pull the data very easily and see what the child is strong/weak in and – my particular favourite – if you’ve watched your kid doing these things for long enough you can tell whether they’re actually trying, or are careless/tired/totally zoning out and react appropriately), and because Rockstar had done so much Math practice on the old site (he gets no tuition, has been on IXL.com for ~4 years, you do the math 🙂 ), he got a real kick out of seeing all those completion awards and performance medals – a real collection, and one that doesn’t take up any room in your tiny little Hong Kong home.

This is one of a few collections of “prizes” Rockstar accumulates

We wanted to keep the collections when we moved sites and so I had his old practice data transferred over. (Not… that we’re not following the school newly prescribed Math or other learning sites, Rockstar spent the morning on the new school-recommended site Mathletics. More later, when I’ve had more time to watch my kid on it… And other school sites too…)

I emailed IXL Support on a weekend, so response was probably a bit slower, like, a few days – but on weekdays they’re pretty fast – we paid… I think it was USD 79.99 per year (much cheaper than tuition). Now this the thing – we could add the Miss at USD 20-40 (they have English also, which we didn’t take up..)

Things that make ya go “Hhmmmmm”

Now, the Miss’ teacher made a comment that really stuck with me at evaluation recently: It doesn’t make that much difference eventually whether you start the drilling of academics at 3 or 6, but the personality little kids develop from learning through play at this early age (and by default any huge dislike from being pushed in “kill and drills”) is going to stay with them. I’ve been telling mum friends about this one.

To that end, and bearing in mind the Miss really didn’t like to sit and read and it was making me anxious because that was so different from how Rockstar was (didn’t help that people were saying things like too much of a lack of fear of heights or deep water, not wanting to sit down to read for long… did the Miss possibly have ADHD and did I know ADHD is especially hard to diagnose in girls under 5……..  lemme tell you – there is so. Much. Noise that comes at you re early learning and developmental stages and kids getting “flagged” left right centre (I know at least two girls flagged for ADHD and delayed speech and after a few months’ to a year’s extra attention they went on to regular and good, for that matter, schools) in a place like HK that it is very, very disorienting… And so we have inadvertently stumbled on why I don’t deliberately publicise this blog or seek/take sponsored posts (because that would require publicising)… NOT when you talk about your kids in HK 🙂

Anyway, I was very careful not to “push” the Miss. Her Kindergarten teacher was very reassuring to tell us that she would sit down when ready.

She was right. Here we are with one of her Cats watching. (They’re all named “Cat”. Except one that is named “Wan Chai”).

The Miss was very proud to get to do “homework” on a laptop “just like Ko-ko.” (Even as every closet and aspiring and even mildly tiger parent out there thinks YOU JUST HIT PARENTING GOLD, AILEEN. WHOOT! :D)

But. Make it about math practice, and this trippy thing goes away :D. Catch 22. Little kids are devious. If they know you really, REALLY want them to do math, guess what they’re gonna? Yup. Take your car keys and drive to Lan Kwai Fong. Fine, Disneyland.

So this is not about academics. We just let her do like, pre-school stuff. (Yes they have pre-school-level Online Math Practice. What is wrong with the world today?)

Seriously though – if you get over the fact your 3.5 year old is doing “math” on a freaking laptop and take a look at the questions, it’s actually not at all scary:

You can even play the questions on audio. Super simple stuff – shapes, counting to 3… great for raising confidence and enthusiasm levels. The whole new experience, “just like Ko-ko’s”  had the Miss do….. 9 of those modules in two sittings. The pictures above… She sat up at 10.30pm when I was desperately trying to get her to be. Asleep. An hour ago. And said, “But I Want To Do MATH PRACTICE.” 

NOW look what the Online Math Practice people have done to our children. This is all their fault.

Epilogue: On an aside, bearing in mind the blog be not a blog, with any blood flowing, if it doesn’t say anything, I wanted to point out that our “stereotypes” of olde are pretty much being blown away, this generation. Since your own expectations will always colour all the ways you react to stuff, I thought it worth mentioning… When Rockstar was about the age the Miss is now, I wrote To Kumon or To Mickey, observing there was a trend a few years ago whereby Mainland Chinese appeared to be aggressively into making learning English fun, whereas some parts in the West seemed to be getting more into the Kumon trend.

Now, Rockstar quite enjoys math, loves puzzles and Lego and computers (and was once so uninterested in colours and art that for awhile we thought he was colour blind). So math practice to us is not to practice math (school’s got everything covered, right) but to well, parent. Some time ago, Rockstar pointed out that “suitable punishments,” or shall we say “encouragements to remember to do/not to do certain things,” should be meted out not in the form of say, loss of Youtube time (imagine our surprise :D) but in the addition of Math or other practice modules “because at least I’m getting better at something.” Just so…