Ok, so my 5th Grade kid got into serious talk with me about how he used to enjoy Math especially that part about place values and stuff . Now he's on prime factorization and complains about the headache it gives him (In Manila it's called nose-bleed)! [insert emergency sound clip here]
Instinctively, I knew it's about breaking down a concept into its most basic level and that good prime factorization skill offers solid preparation for Algebra. I was ready to argue that it's about learning to drill down to the core of something, like what's inside a fruit. But he wouldn't budge.
"Math is about seeing how things fit it. It is the science of (among other things) patterns and order. If you learn to accept math as a way to describe and think about certain parts of reality, you will get "the big picture" - the picture of math as something beyond just a boring subject in school."
Now what's with the Bill of Rights? You'd have to read the rest of the article to see what I mean.
As to the factorization drills, perhaps this exercise from Quia could help take away the headache?
