Math, again

Agh - I spent a lot of time last weekend on school stuff, then had something every night this last week while I tried to squeeze in some more school work, and spent my whole afternoon yesterday on school stuff -- in great hopes that I wouldn't need to today {Sunday} and that I wouldn't need to this next week. 

I was stuck on math. Blech, Blech, Blech. 

The really super, big, important thing in 2nd grade math is double digit addition and subtraction. As I was procrastinating, and continually running upstairs to tell my hubby about my procrastination, I finally realized why I was procrastinating so much. 

I hate our Math curriculum. 

{You may have gathered this from this post, and this post and this one and the biggie post.}

And I don't know where to go with this. My district tells me I have to use EngageNY. We have now been granted some leeway in how we teach it, but we still need to teach their concepts. I told my hubby that I use many of these strategies in my own head. But, he said, you first understood the basics -- ie, math facts {which the curriculum doesn't spend much time on, but I've been working on with my kids since the first of the year}; and place value, and yes, I even think the algorithm. Which may seem backwards to some, but once they get the algorithm, they can feel successful, and then they can branch out. Instead of branches running all over and saying, "I don't get it."

I got my planning done. I tried to decide what the important thing was in each lesson.But I'm thinking I need to see how far I can stick my toe out before I get into trouble. And I'm really not a troublemaker :)