After asking you all for information about
you and your homeschooling family,
and what curriculum you use....
I quickly found that there is a wide range
of variety.
I should have expected that since
I myself, after wasting a lot of money on
things that just didn't work for us,
use a vast variety of resources and curriculum.
Today I'd like to chat about Math.
Since that's an important core subject,
and there are lots of options out there,
I would like to hear your
thoughts on what you really like...
and don't like so much.
I have always used Saxon Math,
which I have always liked...
until Nick hit pre-algebra and I really struggled
teaching it to him. I found that I was
just getting by and that wasn't really
teaching at all.
I sought the advice of homeschool mom
extraordinaire, and my real-life good friend,
Martha.
She quickly and excitedly told me about
Teaching Textbooks.
If you aren't familiar with it, it is
so great, especially for higher level
math. It comes with a text book
and program for your computer where the
guy teaches each lesson
(not a video, just his voice while he
demonstrates on a graphic-type "chalk board").
But best of all,
for EACH and EVERY math problem,
you can pop in a separate "solutions" CD,
click on the problem in question
and the guy explains and walks you through
how to work the problem.
It is amazing!
Pricey, but amazing!
I would love to know if any of you are
familiar with this...if you like it...or not.
Other Math programs that you all liked
(based on your comments on my personal blog)
were, Sonlight, and Math U See.
So, your thoughts on Math....??
you and your homeschooling family,
and what curriculum you use....
I quickly found that there is a wide range
of variety.
I should have expected that since
I myself, after wasting a lot of money on
things that just didn't work for us,
use a vast variety of resources and curriculum.
Today I'd like to chat about Math.
Since that's an important core subject,
and there are lots of options out there,
I would like to hear your
thoughts on what you really like...
and don't like so much.
I have always used Saxon Math,
which I have always liked...
until Nick hit pre-algebra and I really struggled
teaching it to him. I found that I was
just getting by and that wasn't really
teaching at all.
I sought the advice of homeschool mom
extraordinaire, and my real-life good friend,
Martha.
She quickly and excitedly told me about
Teaching Textbooks.
If you aren't familiar with it, it is
so great, especially for higher level
math. It comes with a text book
and program for your computer where the
guy teaches each lesson
(not a video, just his voice while he
demonstrates on a graphic-type "chalk board").
But best of all,
for EACH and EVERY math problem,
you can pop in a separate "solutions" CD,
click on the problem in question
and the guy explains and walks you through
how to work the problem.
It is amazing!
Pricey, but amazing!
I would love to know if any of you are
familiar with this...if you like it...or not.
Other Math programs that you all liked
(based on your comments on my personal blog)
were, Sonlight, and Math U See.
So, your thoughts on Math....??
12 comments:
We use Making Math U See for the little ones and then they graduate to Teaching Textbooks. But I am excited that TT is coming out with curr. for the younger grades. Math is a subject that I allow for alot of outside help, because I don't like it. So TT is great for me and worth the price since I have so many that are close in age.
Hmmmm math...not my favorite subject:-) We have used Abeka math for many years. Switched one of mine to Math-U-See and it made a big difference in their understanding. The manipulatives made the math "real" for them. Started my Kindergartener on Math-U-See too. Tried Abeka with him and he wasn't "getting it". My oldest is still using Abeka math and doing well. We are going to try the math DVD program from Abeka this year for him. Did I mention it's not my favorite subject?:-) My 3 preschoolers are going to use number workbooks and the Abeka pre-K math.
Pricey Teaching Textbooks--just wanted to let you know we have successfully sold ours 2 years in a row on ebay, for almost as much as we paid for it.=)
Also--I forgot to tell you this when talking with you the other day. Part of our problem with Saxon (although I loved it for years)was this: After calling Saxon with questions and complaints, I learned that one person writes the text, and another person writes the solution manual. What this means for mom is---my kids were old enough to do their own lessons, and use the DIVE CD, but I graded it. The book would tell them to leave an answer in one form, while the solutions had the answer in another form. That is no big deal if your talking about 1/3 and 2/6. But in higher math it is not that simple to recognize. I was marking things wrong on their paper, that they were doing exactly as the text told them to.....but the answer guy wanted it in a different form.
We also found MANY wrong answers. After struggling with a problem for hours, and finally sending it to the engineers at my husband's office, I was ready to scream!! From then on, if we did not get the same answer as Saxon, we called on the engineers and ignored Saxon's answe. I believe it was Alg I that was such a headache for us----I shelled out the dough for Teaching Textbook mid-year, and started my kids back at the beginning of the book!! Now they sail through their math.
We are using Singapore and we loved it for the first year of Math (K). We'll see how it goes this year, we are starting school next week so we can have some fall breaks.
We use a lot of manipulative with it and then I buy a lot of $1 practice books for our daughter. They aren't anything fancy, but they are cheap and she loves to do them and that helps her practice and improve her skills.
Math was a hard subject for me to decide on. I looked at all of the math curriculums I could find. I honestly spent and entire summer just looking for math. I am not great at math and I needed an easy to teach yet challenging math curriculum. I decided to go with Math-U-See and it working pretty well for us.
When we started the first year with MUS Leanne was in grade 4 and Cameron was in grade 3. Up until that year they had used a horrible program called everyday math at the local public school. They were so confused and believe it or not, I was too. They were teaching them little snippets of information and at least 4 different ways to solve each problem. Since I thought they could use some refresher courses on what they were already taught in public school I moved them both back to the beginning. I started both kids out in Beta and Justin (who is to smart for his own good and was in Kindy) started in Alpha. Leanne and Cameron both thrived from the beginning. Leanne got such a confidence about her and finished Beta, Gamma and Delta in the first year. Cameron finished Beta and Gamma and was solid and ready to start Gamma in grade 4 where he finished Gamma and Delta at the beginning of the following school year. Math-U-See has been great for the kids.
That being said- sometimes I feel like they are missing things with MUS. I have looked at TT and almost ordered it for Leanne last year. I am still up in the air about what to do this year. We will most likely stay with MUS, because it is working. But, the Doctor who did my assessment actually said she thought TT would be great for the kids. So I was back to square one. I do not think you would be going wrong with either program. Now if someone could just help me make up my mind on the writing program I will be set:)
Math..good subject! I have used MUS since the beginning, and have pretty much been very happy. I got over the fact that it is kind of boring doing the SAME thing day after day when I saw that my kids have really caught on easily to math. I started reading reviews that weren't so glorious about it starting at 4th grade, which my oldest was in this year. So instead of potentially wasting money, I made the switch to Math Mammoth for him. Has anyone heard of it? It is CHEAP! And GOOD! Look it up on homeschoolreviews.com to get feedback from others. I have liked it this year. I think it makes the kids think a bit more than MUS did. And it teaches a few different ways to do something, which I thought was neat. MUS seemed to teach one way, and it wasn't always the way I had learned, so that frustrated me because I sometimes thought it was more complicated, and ended up just teaching it my own way anyway. Anyway, I am going to stick with Math Mammoth for the next year at least and see how it goes again. So far, so good. I looked into TT. I read on the reviews site that many people thought it was just too easy. Like they felt their kids weren't learning enough. Did any of you find that to be true?
Holly, I can't really speak for the lower grade levels of TT since our first year of using it was algebra, which I thought was made-easy by the way it was presented but still quite challenging for Nick. However, he was in 8th grade when we started it so he may not have been quite ready for it yet. He didn't finish it last year (which was our plan), so we will continue it this year.
Brenden, my 11th grader will do TT pre-calc. It should be interesting...because I know NOTHING about that level of math. I only passed geometry because my teacher had much mercy on me. After that, my math career was over.
I have always used the Saxon for the kids until this past year. My HS student just could not hang in there and is behind although graduated. We hope to work on math this coming year and have been encouraged to look at the Leanring Textbooks. My middle school child with be using another book with a class she is taking thru a program called PEP. :)
Hi Lori,
I've just found your main blog and would like to be involved with this one too. We're h/s the last of our 9 at the moment... only a couple of months away from 'finishing the race' after several decades of being so focused. Here in Australia our school year finishes in Nov/Dec. Hope I can be of some help.
Aussie Chris
I've heard a lot of people either love Teaching Textbooks and hate Saxon, or they love Saxon and hate Teaching Textbooks. Personally, we're in the hate TT group.
My older 2 did the Algebra last year, and they complained every lesson that it was so silly it distracted them from what they should have been learning. I mean who really cares about how many boos boos Junior got when he fell off his bike? Or how many times per week this little piggy had roast beef? Or that Mrs. Gargantua bought a water hose to use for a necklace, and another one to use as a leash for her pet whatchamacallit? And this is high school?
I didn't feel they got enough out of it to go on to a higher level. So we're doing Algebra over again this year. We'll be trying the Saxon. They have a DIVE cd for the computer with an actual teacher explaining each lesson. Unfortunately, this puts us a year behind, so we're going to be playing catch up. They're not too happy about it, but I want them to do well in college.
Hoping the Saxon works for us!
Okay, I can't sleep. Don't know if it's the pop I drank right before bedtime, or the guilt I'm feeling for being so blunt in my last post.Sorry if I offended anyone, just my opinion.
Guard my tongue, Lord - and my fingers :)
AUGH The math!! We would be of the variety that have tried a lot of diffrent ones. My oldest and I are both math challenged. So We started with singapore. It went so so for the first year then he seemed lost. So we went to MUS. OH MY GOSH! He HATED that. He totally tuned out the guy teaching because he used words/phrases that did not make sense to him. So we tried making math meaningful. I looked at Miquon(um, no answer key??!!I was supposed to work an extra workbook as my answer key! HAH!) By this point I had two boys way behind in math. So I got Rod and staff. It focuses on drilling, and can get too repetitive(and I totally don't use their charts and stuf, or the blacklines/speed drills) but we skip around and do new concepts and drill just enough. Then move on. It is affordabl, easy to teach and easy to grade. We will move to something else as they get older though.
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