Challenging Maths by Ammiel Wan - which grades?

[Brenda10]

Tinkerbelle:

Lynn2:

May I ask how is the onsponge math books different from andrew er, A star series and top school past year papers?


Thanks again.

Regards,
Lynn2

Hi Lynn2,

I can't make a fair comparison as I haven't used Andrew Er's books and I haven't seen DD's Onsponge book as her teacher collected it. DD mentioned that the questions are challenging (but manageable) and she enjoys doing them.

Below are some sample pages of the onsponge book 6 you might want to check out. DD claims that these sample pages are only the tip of the iceburg. Actual book has just over 200 pages and questions are more challenging than the ones shown in the samle pages.

http://www.onsponge.com/index.php?option=com_flippingbook&view=book&id=5&tmpl=component

I think it will be good to have exposure to various types of questions and learn the method which is easily to grasp. DD teacher told us to also work on others too on addition to onsponge so as to gain more experience in all different complexity of questions.

[ksme]

Brenda10:

Tinkerbelle:

Thanks NickleBee Tutors for sharing your views on Onsponge. Will also check out the new book you mentioned. Tks.

Thank you for introducing this new book. Went to Popular yesterday and they said so far the book released up to P4 level, as for P5 and P6 are not out yet. Hopefully don't need to wait too long.

Hi Brenda,
I think I saw it Bras Basah Popular over the weekend. I didnt' dare to buy as already bought Andrew er in Dec Popular sale. Thought I'' let him finish that before I buy some more. Now that ds has to stay back in school quite frequently, only seem to be able to do school homework and not much time for anything else.

[HHB]

janet_lee88:

Brenda10:

[quote=\"Tinkerbelle\"]Thanks NickleBee Tutors for sharing your views on Onsponge. Will also check out the new book you mentioned. Tks.

Thank you for introducing this new book. Went to Popular yesterday and they said so far the book released up to P4 level, as for P5 and P6 are not out yet. Hopefully don't need to wait too long.

Called Popular to enquire on onsponge Maths...was told only the school will carry stock. If buy online, a little cheaper.[/quote]Try Cambridge Book Store... Opposite Yishun MRT station

[Brenda10]

ksme:

Hi Brenda,

I think I saw it Bras Basah Popular over the weekend. I didnt' dare to buy as already bought Andrew er in Dec Popular sale. Thought I'' let him finish that before I buy some more. Now that ds has to stay back in school quite frequently, only seem to be able to do school homework and not much time for anything else.

Hi ksme

Thank you for the information.

Quite true once supplementary class kick off there will be less time to attempt to additional work other than school work. As such we are making use of this period to clear A*starbooklet and Andrew Er’s Challenging Problem 6 , hopefully by then dd just needs to focus on school work.

[janet88]

Now that supplementary lessons have started and taken up time 2x a week, there is less time to start Fabian Ng's Problem Solving. Didn't manage to do Fabian Ng either...busy trying to improve his subjects. School work can be rather heavy certain days. :?:

[NickleBee Tutors]

Lynn2:

Hi Nicklebee tutors and Brenda10,

Thanks for the details.

May I ask how is the onsponge math books different from andrew er, A star series and top school past year papers?

Thanks again.

Regards,
Lynn2

Hi Lynn2,

I would say that for topical revision and day to day work, Simon Eio's Step by Step series would be good to help the kids strengthen their basic mathematical knowledge and build up their knowledge application (mainly Section A and B / Paper 1 work). Its also a great book to help you highlight and pinpoint which areas of your child's maths is still weak and need to be worked on.

Onsponge (and also Fabian Ng's PSP) are more geared towards helping the children learn Problem solving skills, Model Drawing and other Heuristics skills which are essential for Section C / Paper 2 problem sums. I feel that Onsponge has a little more non-routine type of questions as compared to PSP. Both books are packaged in such a way to allow the children to practice each new skill learnt on a few questions of varying difficulty levels. This helps them to understand the methods better as applied to different variations of the question and also help them integrate the methods/skills learnt for long-term usage.

For my students, i prefer to use OnSponge because though both PSP and OnSponge have very well-designed questions, i feel that OnSponge is much more compact and contains just enough questions in each unit to allow the child to practice and integrate one particular skills before moving on. PSP is seriously too thick and meandering and given the large amounts of work, CCA and enrichment classes kids are getting nowadays, its just not practical to expect kids to finish PSP together with the other stacks of assessment books!

Andrew Er Worksheets and Past Year School Exam paper are more for helping the kids to bring together all that they have learnt and applying them in an examination format which has a good mixture of \"Knowledge\" questions, \"Knowledge Application and Comprehension\" questions and lastly the much dreaded \"Higher Order/Heuristics\" Questions.

A* booklets are well recommended and highly regarded for PSLE revision with several top schools using it for their Pri 6 students. In my personal opinion, unless the child is already getting Band 1s or A*s regularly, i would caution against making the child jump straight in without building up his foundations properly. Just a side note, my student who's in the NJC Intergrated Programme told me that her school SCGS (Pri) used the A* Booklets during her PSLE year (2007). However the teachers did not use it for the next batch because even the students there found it too difficult. That's what she told me so could anyone help me confirm if it is true?

Yours

Zhou Shicai
NickleBee Tutors

[NickleBee Tutors]

Brenda10:

Tinkerbelle:

Thanks NickleBee Tutors for sharing your views on Onsponge. Will also check out the new book you mentioned. Tks.

Thank you for introducing this new book. Went to Popular yesterday and they said so far the book released up to P4 level, as for P5 and P6 are not out yet. Hopefully don't need to wait too long.

Thank you for the update. Much appreciated!

Yours
Zhou Shicai
NickleBee Tutors

[Lynn2]

Hi Nicklebee tutors,


Thanks for your reply.

Can I ask, does simon eio book helps in particular to questions from section b?We usually practise it from past year paper.How does it helps as comapred to using past year papers?

Via my experience, past year papers seem not enough to cover all section b kind of questions.

For A STAR math, I heard the questions are good and am not sure cos I yet to see onsponge math.

Regards
Lynn2

NickleBee Tutors:

Lynn2:

Hi Nicklebee tutors and Brenda10,
Thanks for the details.

May I ask how is the onsponge math books different from andrew er, A star series and top school past year papers?

Thanks again.

Regards,
Lynn2

Hi Lynn2,

I would say that for topical revision and day to day work, Simon Eio's Step by Step series would be good to help the kids strengthen their basic mathematical knowledge and build up their knowledge application (mainly Section A and B work). Its also a great book to help you highlight and pinpoint which areas of your child's maths is still weak and need to be worked on.

Onsponge (and also Fabian Ng's PSP) are more geared towards helping the children learn Problem solving skills, Model Drawing and other Heuristics skills which are essential for Section C problem sums. I feel that Onsponge has a little more non-routine type of questions as compared to PSP. Both books are packaged in such a way to allow the children to practice each new skill learnt on a few questions of varying difficulty levels. This helps them to understand the methods better as applied to different variations of the question and also help them integrate the methods/skills learnt for long-term usage.

For my students, i prefer to use OnSponge because though both PSP and OnSponge have very well-designed questions, i feel that OnSponge is much more compact and contains just enough questions in each unit to allow the child to practice and integrate one particular skills before moving on. PSP is seriously too thick and meandering and given the large amounts of work, CCA and enrichment classes kids are getting nowadays, its just not practical to expect kids to finish PSP together with the other stacks of assessment books!

Andrew Er Worksheets and Past Year School Exam paper are more for helping the kids to bring together all that they have learnt and applying them in an examination format which has a good mixture of \"Knowledge\" questions, \"Knowledge Application and Comprehension\" questions and lastly the much dreaded \"Higher Order/Heuristics\" Questions.

A* booklets are well recommended and highly regarded for PSLE revision with several top schools using it for their Pri 6 students. In my personal opinion, unless the child is already getting Band 1s or A*s regularly, i would caution against making the child jump straight in without building up his foundations properly. Just a side note, my student who's in the NJC Intergrated Programme told me that her school SCGS (Pri) used the A* Booklets during her PSLE year (2007). However the teachers did not use it for the next batch because even the students there found it too difficult. That's what she told me so could anyone help me confirm if it is true?

Yours

Zhou Shicai

[Belle2011]

Hello,

I need some help here.
I lost the answer key to this (orange) book ie Challenging Maths Problems Made Easy by Ammiel Wan Chee Hong.
Any kind soul willing to email me the answer key, PLEASE ?
Thanking you in advance.

Cheers,
Belle.

[Lynn2]

where do you stay?

If you are nearby in the east, i can lend it to you cos i dont have a scanner at home.

rgds
Lynn

Belle2011:

Hello,
I need some help here.
I lost the answer key to this (orange) book ie Challenging Maths Problems Made Easy by Ammiel Wan Chee Hong.
Any kind soul willing to email me the answer key, PLEASE ?
Thanking you in advance.

Cheers,
Belle.