First Singapore Week Plan
A complete, adaptable plan for your first week of Singapore Math at home.
How to Use This Plan
Grade-Level Starting Points
K–Grade 2
Number sense to 100 — place value (tens and ones), addition and subtraction within 100 with concrete and pictorial support.
Grades 3–4
Multiplication and division meaning — arrays, equal groups, relationship between multiplication and division, bar models for word problems.
Grades 5–6
Fractions, decimals, and ratios — meaning of fractions, equivalent fractions, operations through concrete and pictorial stages first.
Not Sure Where to Start?
Choose the concept one step below where you think your child is. Better to discover they’re stronger than expected than build on a hidden gap.
Week at a Glance
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning | Concept intro (Concrete) | Deepening (Pictorial) | Novel application | Mixed practice | Teach It Back + reflection |
| Short | Mastery Log setup | Review — prior concept | Socratic problem session | Sustain check | Week close |
The Full Week
Concept Introduction — Concrete Stage (30–45 min)
Introduce this week’s concept using only physical objects. No equations, no textbook. Frame a real-world question that creates natural need for the concept — “I need to put these 24 tiles into equal rows. How many ways could I do that?” Let your child work with the objects while you watch and take notes. Ask Socratic questions: “What are you trying to figure out?” Close by asking them to explain what they were doing.
Short session (10 min): Mastery Log setup — list the 3–4 concepts worked on in the past month.
Concept Deepening — Pictorial Stage (30–45 min)
Briefly revisit Monday’s concrete work, then move to drawings. “Can you draw what you just did?” For bar models: draw a rectangle representing the whole, and let your child divide it to show the relationship. Practice several examples — accuracy of relationships matters more than neat drawing.
Short session (15 min): Review a prior concept from your Mastery Log that hasn’t yet been Sustain-checked.
Novel Application (35–45 min)
Give your child a problem they haven’t seen before that requires this week’s concept — this is your Apply check. Don’t help them get started; wait, and give 10 seconds of silence after any question before responding. If they solve it, celebrate specifically. If they struggle, note where the gap is and adjust the rest of the week.
Short session (15–20 min): Socratic Problem Session — full dialogue on one problem from the morning, struggled or solved.
Mixed Practice (25–50 min depending on grade)
First portion: problems on the current concept, moving toward abstract if ready. Last portion: problems from a concept 2–3 weeks old — recall and fluency, not new learning. Your role is observer.
Short session (10–15 min): Sustain Check — run brief verbal checks on 2–3 concepts that passed Explain and Apply within the last week.
Teach It Back + Open Exploration (30–40 min)
Part 1 (15 min): Ask “What’s one thing you learned this week that you could explain to me as if I’d never seen it?” Let them choose, set up, and teach. Ask at least two genuine questions.
Part 2 (15–20 min): Give a real-world context requiring math with no predetermined lesson — a recipe to scale, a budget problem, a puzzle. No performance required, just math in the wild.
Short session (5–10 min): Week Close — answer the five reflection questions from Lesson 5 and update your Mastery Log. Set a reminder for next Wednesday’s Sustain check.
Troubleshooting Your First Week
“We didn’t finish the plan.” Fine — it’s designed with slightly more than a week’s content. Finish what you started; don’t skip to stay on schedule.
“My child hit a wall midweek.” Go back to the concrete stage, simplify the numbers, take a day off if needed. One difficult week doesn’t define the journey.
“The Mastery Log feels like extra work.” Give it one more week — by week three, most parents say they don’t know how they’d teach without it.
You’ve Started Well
Your First Singapore Week is complete. You now have a real concept introduced through the full CPA sequence, Mastery Log entries underway, a Teaching Notebook with observations from five sessions, and your first experience with Socratic questioning in practice — a rhythm you can repeat, adapt, and own.
The Auxesis Homeschool Foundations track continues with deeper dives into advanced bar model work, Socratic questioning for older students, and spiral curriculum design. Keep going.