[Tex]

Last year I worked at a school district that used Envisions and supplemented it with Investigations. This year I'm working at a school district that only uses Investigations??

It was my understanding that Investigations was not a "stand alone" program but meant to supplement another program (ideally, Envisions).

Is anyone only using Investigations or do they have any insight on the issue. I teach 5th.

[ccarlton]

The last school I taught at used Investigations as the sole math curriculum. Pretty much every teacher that had to use it hated it. It's great as supplemental curriculum, but not as sole curriculum. It jumps around a lot and does not give students enough in terms of helping them master grade level standards.

[dreamgirl]

My school is solely an Investigations school. I HATE it! I teach kinder and it feels like all the kids do is explore and play. I don't feel like I am teaching and it really stinks. A lot of the teachers at my school really really like it, but I haven't caught the vision of it yet!

[Beagles]

We have 4 programs that we are required to use throughout the year with very different philosophical approaches and none of them are stand-alone program... This is soooo annoying because you need to know everything from each program so you are not sabotaging by teaching explicit methods too early.

So what I do is use your Investigations type material first to build the concept of whatever you are teaching. Then find what the holes are that doesn't get taught or get taught well enough and supplement with your own material or other commercial material. Glance at your state requirement/standards and then create a few lessons around the standards that are not taught well. We have Investigations for Building Nos. You Know, Picturing Polygons, and Growth Pattern. This is easier said then done especially when our district keep adopting new materials... Good luck!

[gardener5]

I would love to being using Investigations instead of enVisions. I miss it very much and am really struggling with how things are taught with enVisions. I feel like we've had to step back to a more traditional way of teaching. My kids do not have the mathematical thinking and number sense they had with Investigations. Yes, I had to supplement for fractions and measurement, but my kids really understood what they were doing and could work flexibly with numbers.

This year I'm having to supplement especially for my high kids and do lots of reteaching (finding better ways to teach concepts) to those who are struggling.

Obviously, no one program is favorite for all of us.

[starrysky]

yes, we use envisions and ivestigation supplements.....however for summer school we used ONLY investigations....

I would have to stay investigations would not prepare my kids for state high stakes testing!