Customer Reviews

Prime Time: Factors and Multiples (Connected Mathematics Series: Number) (Student Edition)

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My daughter had to use this book at school. It is awful! Greatest Common Factor (GCF) and Least Common Multiple (LCM) are introduced purely "experientially", followed by problems that quickly involve large numbers and lots of factors. Prime Time does not explain how to find GCF and LCM or even how to check your answers. Furthermore, prime factoring is introduced after large number GCF and LCM problems. The book does not provide any counter-examples to explain why some approaches that a student might try "experientially" fail. The games are repetitive and require many computations, and there is no other motivation of the subject. In short, this book utterly fails to distill and explain the essence of the subject.

I very highly recommend this book. I have a daughter in fifth grade who is literally afraid of math after having a bad fourth grade experience with math. My husband and I decided to homeschool her for one year, in part to increase her confidence in math. I bought this book at the recommendation of a fifth grade teacher who teaches in a progressive, cutting edge program. The book is excellent! It allows kids to experiment with numbers first before teaching a lesson. In fact, the book allows the entire lesson to be experiential. Students play games with the numbers at the beginning of each lesson, allowing them to begin to notice patterns. Then, the book asks questions about what patterns the student noticed. From there, the book asks increasingly specific questions and guides the student through the points to be learned, allowing the student to interact with the numbers along the way and discover for themselves the concept to be learned, rather than the book saying, "This is a prime number. This is a composite number. This is a factor. This is a product..." and having the students do worksheets of multiplication problems. The concept makes a lot more sense, and it's a heck a lot more fun to teach and to learn. I believe students retain knowledge better when they discover concepts for themselves, rather than being told to memorize terms. And, the student has a good time along the way. My daughter's perception and understanding of math is improving daily with the help of this book. Well worth the money!

Although this is an outstanding series, I thought I was ordering the teachers version of this book. This is the student workbook. It is still a great series though.