I can't for the life of me pick a Math curriculum….help!

I can’t say enough about MathUSee. For us, it has been our best purchase every year. We have used it since the beginning, and I can’t image trying to find something else. Life of Fred has been suggested to me, but I would only use it as a supplement (like to fill space for the remainder of this year since ds finished Beta). The MUS website is very helpful too, as I can print extra worksheets for more practice and use their online drills to generate addition/sub/multiplication/division probs for practice. Those are free, whether you use their curriculum or not.

We LOVE Teaching Textbooks! teachingtextbooks.com I have an 11yo, 4yo, and 5 month old. It has an intimidating price but I do not let them write in the actual text so that they can be passed down from one child to the next.

Charlee

We also struggle in this area, math is obviously not mom’s strong subject. We started out with MUS and as much as I wanted to love it, I didn’t get it and the kids hated it so we switched to Singapore. If I couldn’t figure it out, I wasn’t able to re-inforce the lessons so it wasn’t going to work. I liked singapore and so did the kids, there were only one or two concepts that they didn’t get and we worked around it. I also tried Abeka and hated it with a passion. My oldest (10) is doing teaching textbooks and likes it as do I. I do it with him as much as possible because he likes me being there, but if I can’t he can do it himself. My dd is a struggling learner and for her and my soon to be kindergartener we are going to try the Math lessons for a living education, but that is for younger years.

I use CLE’s math with my three youngest children, who each have very different learning styles and abilities, and it works well for each of them. One 11-year-old “gets” math quickly and is a bit advanced in math, but has convergence insufficiency – an eye issue that makes focusing difficult. When we tried Saxon, he had a great deal of trouble copying the problems from the book into a notebook, and his math scores plummeted even though he knew the concepts and had been doing them in another program. CLE has been great for him.

Our other 11-year-old really struggled with math concepts and was not quick to understand, and forgot the concepts unless they were reviewed regularly. We tried several programs before trying CLE, and the set up of the lessons and the regular review works well for him too – no more complaints and he is learning.

Our littlest, just 9, really really really struggled with math, and has trouble with nonverbal reasoning skills (which = math). We tried MUS, wanting to love it, but it was not a success here. We started him in CLE this year, and he is progressing well.

One thing you should know is that the program, according to the gals on the Well Trained Mind forums, runs 12-18 months advanced, and we found this to be the case as well. Do use the placement test and make sure you place your child correctly if you choose the program. They have the scope and sequence of each of the books on their website, so you can start midway through one of the sets if you feel that’s the right placement. And the program is so reasonably priced, if you decide to try a unit, you haven’t invested a ton of money.

Blessings,

Aimee

CLE looks very interesting. Thanks for the input, even though this isn’t my thread, lol.

I am trying to find a new math for next year as well. I was looking at math mammoth but have just heard about CLD math in this post and it looks good. Can anyone tell me what exactly is covered in grade 3 and 4? Or give me the page to look it up? I can’t seem to find it on the site.

Thanks!

We started using Math on the Level this year, and I love it.  I think it fits in perfectly with the CM method of teaching.  It is very teacher-intensive, but it provides plenty of teaching ideas.  My daughter, who insists she hates math, is doing well because it is not workbook-based.  I write her math problems in a notebook based on what I have taught her.  I especially like that it gives me the freedom to choose the concepts we will work on, though the authors do give suggestions.  There are no grade levels assigned to the concepts so you can put different aged students together without any stigma about what grade level they are working at.  It won’t be right for everyone, but I think it is worth looking into. 

Here is the site for CLE Math. They have samples of each light unit. Just view details for the grade you want.

http://clp.org/store/by_subject/4