Hi everyone! Welcome to another homeschool curriculum forum post. Today we’re talking all about math!
As most of you know I have previously tried both Abeka and Saxon math. Abeka was okay for the younger years, but flashcards just weren’t doing it for us. We needed something more hands on as well as something that better explained the various skills we were learning.
We switched to Math U See. While this curriculum was working well for us, I ventured over to Saxon for a bit just to see how it worked. After finding myself explaining Saxon lessons using our Math U See blocks and examples, we switched back to Math U See and haven’t looked back since.
One thing to know about MUS is that they do teach to mastery, and that means your student might not learn a certain skill right off the bat. They build on concepts so that the math skills actually make sense for your student.
Students also use the MUS visual manipulatives to help further understand whatever skill they are working at the time. However to my surprise the students do not become depending on the manipulatives to solve problems. They’re simply hands on training tools to use until a concept is mastered.
Pros:
- Hands on learning.
- Teaches to mastery.
- Visual aids to help explain various skills.
Cons:
- Skills are taught in a non-traditional order.
- Manipulatives can be pricey unless purchased used.
So, now comes the fun part!
What are your favorite Math curriculum, resources, websites, etc? Leave a comment below discussing your choices for this year and why.
Feel free to ask questions or reply to each other too!
It’s my way of doing a forum without actually doing a forum haha!
And hopefully this will help us all as we start the process of researching curriculum, and trying to decide what will be the best fit for our homeschool.
Note: Please keep today’s conversations geared towards MATH, I will be posting one for each subject separately so we can keep our comments organized.
Click here if you missed my previous Homeschool Curriculum Forum posts!
Disclosure: This was not a sponsored post, I may however be affiliated with one or more products mentioned. The opinions expressed in this post were not influenced by the company. They are products I have used and felt like sharing, cuz’ it’s my blog and I can if I want to.
We did MUS Primer this year for Kindergarten. This is the only level when mastery is not encouraged and is more for exposure purposes. Although, I liked the program, for my daughter….it was hit and miss. She loved it at the beginning when she knew the items already, then in the middle seemed to dread when we had to do math. However, when we got towards the end of the program seemed to enjoy it a bit more again. And really, as far as the manipulative were concerned, she never really got excited about them, which I thought she would LOVE. I don’t know if we should switch or not. It may be more of a frustration when it’s a new concept rather than an issue with the curriculum. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
We’ve gone through the same thing with our daughter who is in kindergarten. She says, “I don’t want to do math school!” Yikes! It’s too young to start disliking it already! So we’re on the look out for something funner.
We are using Math U See and the the math meeting from Saxon. I like how MUS teaches concepts and how Saxon goes over basic skills such as calendar, money, time, skip counting, etc.
Tell me about the math meeting…. We use and love MUS! I can’t imagine switching, but I’d love something to introduce them to the basic skills- something that doesn’t take up a lot of time. Is the math meeting it’s own book or part of a package?
Great discussion! Math seems to come very easy to my oldest (6) and we have been using Horizons. We are in the middle of Grade 2 now. He’s doing well, but I’m considering switching just to see what is out there. He is very independent with it, so MUS would seem more teacher intensive. He just doesn’t need concepts explained beyond one sentence. I’m a little concerned about the small pieces with MUS and having little ones around. I have a hard enough time keeping track of legos! I looked into RighStart because the abacus seemed more user friendly, but I think that teaching textbooks would be more independent, which he is used to at this point. I have three more boys coming up right behind him, so I’m glad to learn about other curriculum that might fit their learning styles better.
My son also age 6 seems similar to yours. I too am in grade 2 and almost completed for the spring. If you find something besides Horizons please post. Im at the if it a’int broke approach. I think I will continue with Horizons this summer/fall since I have not found anything independent.
We gave CLP a try since it’s independent. Similar approach, not as colorful, but the kids could do it on their own. I did find that it was pretty much as challenging as Horizons.
My 6 year old is done with his 2nd grade Math for the year as well. We did Horizons math, and had started out with LifePac. He was BORED with the LifePac and flew through those. The Horizons curriculum was much better. I am thinking that if I don’t go with MUS, that I will start him with the Teaching Textbooks 3. He is already asking me to do multiplication, so I think that TT3 would be a good challenge for him! We did the placement test and he did great so I know it won’t be too hard for him. I did Abeka with my oldest, and it was a lot like Horizons, but I did like how they did the Units. For example in the transportation section all the Match problems would be tied in to transportation. Made it a little more involved then just the random math problems.
We have had good success with Singapore math’s primary mathematics. it is “harder” than most American math programs but we like it because it teaches reasoning not just facts. and it is fairly inexpensive.
I am homeschooling my youngest child. She has some learning challenges because of her genetic disorder (vcfs). Math-u-see has been such a blessing to us!! The founder of the program has a son with Down syndrome and this program was developed in large part to help him understand math. While I may flip flop on science and history curricula, I am sticking with MUS. :). (PS – Erica, your website has been a huge source of info and help to me.)
Another thing I would recommend would be Little Giant Steps – Rapid Recall System (for all operations)…can add on additional student books for other children and visual input CDs …but what I love is the neurological approach to learning math which has been highly successful with students with special needs and others alike! You must have many reps of correct input before you can have correct output (which is a test). It establishes permanent neurological pathways in the brain to retain and recall math facts (brain training) moving from short-term to long-term memory …quite fascinating really!!! It can be used alongside with ANY math curriculum you choose because it’s focus is on math facts mastery (which seems to be many parent’s concern). Then your children are free to focus on math CONCEPTS and REAL WORLD PROBLEMS with much less frustration when they are not struggling to remember the math facts…hence a more enjoyable experience with math…Time involved is only about 7 minutes TOTAL a day for addition and subtraction and about 10 minutes a day TOTAL for multiplication and division with short exercises spread throughout the day (not long enough to get bored!!!)
This year we’d used TEaching Textbooks 4 with my 3rd grader and Horizons K with my Kindergartener. Very happy with both. We’ll go on to do TT5 next year and Horizons 1 for my 1st grader. 🙂
With your younger one you should try http://www.aplustutorsoftmath. They have 1st grade and it is similar to TT in that is it computer based and interactive however it is more comprehensive and covers all math subjects including time., money, geometry. My 1st grader loves it,.
oops sorry http://www.aplustutorsoft,com
We started my Pre-K daughter with Saxon K this year. She loves it – all of the hands on manipulative play. We bought a used teacher edition, a new student book and I had most of the materials on hand so I didn’t have to buy the manipulative kit. We love the calendar work – will tweak it for next year – I love some of the morning math/calendar ideas people post on these homeschool websites. I don’t necessarily read the script word for word. The spiraling curriculum makes sense to me – always reviewing what we have previously learned, and constantly building on what we have learned. I hope the curriculum continues to work for both of my children, especially as I have read some wonderful reviews of the program in the upper grade levels. (I was also a teacher in a school that used Saxon. While I know the teachers in the upper grades tweaked the material, added things here and there, etc, the students graduated with phenomenal grades and math skills) Fingers crossed it keeps working for us – why fix what isn’t broken 🙂
We also switched from Saxon to MUS. It has been such a blessing! It is a HUGE time saver for my family. My 11 year old son has ADD and after taking him out of a Christian school were he was doing BJ press we went to Saxon and we were both very frustrated, it was such a battle! Since we switched to MUS, he loves math again and has so much confidence back. He is doing Gamma, at first he was a little bored, and then those things he was struggling so hard with, just clicked! My 9 year old son has dyslexia, he really enjoyed Saxon but I switched him to Beta and he loves it as well! He is lego crazy, so the manipulative aspect is a winner. My daughter, who is 7, is doing Alpha. This is her first year homeschooling. She went to Christian school for kindergarten last year because being new to homeschool with both boys having special needs, I wad afraid I would slow her down! She did Abeka last year and then went right into MUS, and she adores it! Cannot believe how well it fits all three of my very, different learners!
Kelly, I also have 2 sons – oldest (9) with ADD and younger brother (8) with Dyslexia. Have you had to overcome any challenges with the video tutorials for MUS? With my boys I think it would be hard to focus on the videos, especially for my son who has Dyslexia. Thanks for your input.
Big fan of Teaching Textbooks. We started out with Saxon and a 20 minute lesson was lasting an hour or more. My son learned with Saxon, but hated the sit down and listen part. Teaching Textbooks has solved our math time battles.
We are eclectic with our K and 2st graders here. We sometimes use our Shiller Math Kit (a hand me down). My children LOVE it when I take the time to do it with them — and learn from it. However, is a scripted program with manipulatives that requires parent-child one-on-one (or two) time. I am not a scripted sort of gal and I also sometimes need the kids to work independently. So, we wax and wane with it. When we are NOT doing it, we do some living math, some math learning and reinforcement via free sites like ABCya.com and shepperdsoftware.com, some homemade games and worksheets, some typical packaged games, some Montessori stuff, etc. On a recent trip, my son made his way through the first book of Life of Fred with me, which he loves. So, I am considering switching to that and supplementing with pieces of Shiller.
We use Rod and Staff, which isn’t at all flashy, but my girls like it. It is rather “old fashioned” it how it teaches, practice, and order of concepts learned, but it works! We tried other approaches, but nothing quite clicked with my oldest and she felt like she was “bad” at math.
We also LOVE Math Rider for math fact review. The girls beg to play this even when school is over!