Good math for grades 1 and 2 before starting Teaching Textbooks?

My 14 DS uses TT and does very well with it!  My others 11, 10 and 8 not so much.  I have tried Horizons and that was a good fit, I agree with your friend, teacher book is not necessary.  Horizons is rather advanced, but you can go at your child’s own pace.  It is colorful but not overwhelming.  We tried Abeka and that didn’t work out either.  Their book was way too “busy” for us, meaning that there was way too much going on per page. (Hope that makes sense)…LOL.  I ended up settling down with Math U See and my 11, 10 and 8yr old children LOVE it!

Tameka 🙂

I concur with your friend. I used Horizon, which is a spiral based math program before going to TT with both my kids and my daughter who is an over achiever and doesn’t like change decided to do both Horizon and TT together the first year so she could decide which she liked better. She went with TT, but it is also a spiral based program.  I attempted a mastery based program and my son was doing great but when we moved on to a new concept and finally reviewed he forgot the first concept and so I learned quickly that he had to have a spiral based program because if he doesn’t use the skill almost daily, then he forgets it. If your child dislikes the repeating of skills, then TT may not work for them. For instance, Horizon has about 5-6 concepts that you do daily. So they will have 5-10 problems on addition, then5- 10 on subtraction, then 4-5 on time, 2-4 on geometry etc.. The younger grades are easy enough for you to teach and grade without a teacher manual for sure, save the money.  I also recommend times tales for when you hit multiplication. I never ever used flashcards and my kids know all their times tables and was able to learn them super quick. This also showed them how it helps with division also.

Best of luck.

times tales dvd is what I bought it teaches them the harder ones like 3×6, 3×7, 3×8, 3×9 and the 4’s and the 6’s, 7’s, 8’s and 9’s. Then you teach the rest, which are pretty easy. They teach the harder ones by giving a little story and then the answer is in the story. So even when they do division, it is easy to know what part of the story is missing.

For instance 7X4 the story goes that Mrs. Weeks(7 because there are 7 days in a week) goes fishing and sits on a chair(4 because there are 4 legs) and catches 2 boots and 8 fish (hence 28)    It teaches all the stories then test their memory on how well they remember the stories. Amazingly, mine remembered them all. Then they show how the story tells the answer. My friend’s daughter learned them all over Christmas break and so when she went back to public school she had them down. That is how fast it works. No need to use flashcards trying to get them to memorize them all.

Anyway, if my kids miss a math problem it usually isn’t because they multiplied wrong and that is why I always recommend it. It made learning our multiplication facts so stress free.

It seems it is easier to remember a story than just a number fact! I have friends who have kids in 6th & 7th that can’t remember all their facts for multiplication and that just makes their math so much harder to do.

Hope this helps.

well, if you do try it, then have her sit in on it too even though it seems babyish because I didn’t have a strong foundation due to a move.

The school I went to hadn’t started multiples yet and when we moved my new school had already hit division. So I had to play catch up and fast. I never had a solid foundation and while I was always good in math, I never had them all memorized. I remember really struggling during division and I didn’t want my kids to go through that. Since I watched the dvd with them, I no longer have that problem, so it works for all ages!!