Math Curriculum

Ahh, the math gremlins! I’ll be honest, nearly every homeschool mom faces this worry over the years. There are a few things I’ve found that help:

1. Choose a curriculum and stick with it. Curriculum hopping frequently in math means your kids will be left struggling. Each curriculum teaches things in a different order, so gaps will be a real possibility and in math that matters. I do not think there is one perfect curriculum. Any solid curriculum can work if you follow my second piece of advice:

2. Remember you are the boss of the curriculum. I’ll use your example of finding yourself with a curriculum that had over 100 problems for a 1st grader. I’m guessing that was for one day’s lesson/worksheet. As the boss, I would simply look at the problems and cross off half or more of them (really, if you know how to 10 addition problems you don’t need to do 90 more today). If the worksheet had a child practicing a couple types of problems we would do some of each type that day, and cross off the rest.

Another example, if you feel like your curriculum doesn’t have enough practice problems (MLFLE? I don’t know much about this one) then you come up with some more simple math problems and do them orally or on a white board or paper. (Obviously, this isn’t easy to do in upper level math, but elementary math it is doable.) Or find a math workbooks to pull from like Math Mammoth.

I feel your pain!  After two kids (now adults), I am no longer trying to convince myself that somehow I will magically turn into a math teacher. I did only the basics in math as a student, not much higher math, and I rarely enjoyed it.  With my older two, I taught them the basics and then hired a friend who is a college math teacher/homeschooler to teach them higher math. (She was already doing this with homeschoolers, so these were modified classroom situations.) . She did a wonderful job and my daughters excelled.

With my third student, I tried Rays and Math Mammoth. Both are great, but the truth is, it has always been easy for me to just let math slide. This does my daughter a disservice, I know, and I should have learned my lesson!  Finally, I bit the bullet and got a subscription to CTC Math, which is an online math teaching program from Australia. So far, so good. My daughter does the math on my laptop, but there is also the option to print worksheets, which I will be doing when she gets to harder computation. If needed, she can watch a short lecture that is like watching the problems being done on a whiteboard with a voiceover from the math teacher. She really loves it, and math gets done every day!  With a subscription, all levels of math are available, which is helpful for us because she’s working at different speeds for different skills, and would be helpful for a family with multiple kids because the price is not much different than for a single student and you can have separate sign ins for each one.

It is not a CM approach, but this is a sacrifice I have to make because I know myself. I am also not a fan of using technology as a teacher for kids this age, but…see above reason.  So, just another option to look into.

Hahaha! I have some who would do the same. Another way to handle that is cut the paper up (only keep what they need to do) or draw lines to divide the paper into work for a couple different days and label each section “Monday, Tuesday” etc. But I understand!

Have you read through the MLFLE you bought? Maybe do that for the next two weeks or so, simply read it front to back and see what you think. Will it work for your kids? If not, why? What do you actually want in a math curriculum? Be specific – video instruction for you, or no? No more than X number of problems per worksheet/day? Done on the computer? Story and math problems or just get to the math?

My math experiences, having just graduated oldest and 9 more kids in the process, are as follows:

Oldest started with Saxon and did K, 1, 2. Didn’t understand it at all. In grade 3 we switched to Math U See andn started her at the very beginning, trusting that if we did light math over every summer she would eventually ‘catch up’ to a more typical level. She did. She ended up doing these MUS levels Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry. She also did half of Algebra 2 and it was a huge struggle for both of us. She used Consumer Mathematics for the second half of that year (From Abeka, a really old book that had some outdated things, but was a good break for her). For senior year she did CTC math to be able to focus in on any and all topics she felt she needed practice on for the ACT. She did a mix from their Trigonometry, Algebra 2, Geometry, etc. In the end, she is really not a math student, doesn’t understand it naturally, but persevered and survived.

We have had Life of Fred books in the past as an extra – but none of my kids learn math well with it hidden in a longwinded story.

The other kids have all used/are using Math U See.

This just finished year my 7th and 8th graders also did CTC math while the senior did it – but not because they weren’t doing ok in MUS. Instead, we wanted one more year of logical development before they tackle Algebra 1 (both finished Pre-Algebra the previous year, as 6th and 7th graders). In the fall they go right back to MUS for Algebra 1, as planned.

My thoughts on CTC Math are mixed. I like the younger and middle school stuff well enough. One of my middle school kids preferred doing the questions on the computer when possible (many of the lessons) while the other almost always chose to print out the worksheet and upload their answers instead. We had some trouble with the upper level courses my senior did, there was some missing information that wasn’t taught in a lesson but when you opened the questions you had to know. It simply wasn’t explained anywhere. I reached out to the company. In the end that was very frustrating because when you finally find a number to call, you reach a person who is customer service – they don’t understand the upper level math at all. They had to get me connected with someone in Australia who actually understands the math, but that ended up taking them over 2 weeks to do. We had to search online to figure out what we didn’t know and keep moving on our own. Frustrating – but if you aren’t doing Algebra 2 or Trigonometry then you are probably ok.  For us, moving all the kids to CTC would be cheaper than MUS, but we then have to juggle one computer with everyone needing a turn to do math. Not doable with my large family.

My thoughts on Math U See are less mixed. I really like it, except for the Algebra 2 level. I like the dvd lessons that teach me, but can also be watched by middle school kids as reinforcement if needed. I like that the teacher’s manual walks us through the lesson if I don’t want to watch the dvd, with problems, answers, and in the back the answers to workbook pages. I like that MUS has about 30 lessons per year, instead of 180 constantly switching lessons. I like the workbook setup – each lesson has 7 worksheets. They generally have 18-20 math problems. 3 worksheets are just practice of the new lesson concept. We do 1, 2, or 3 of those, moving on when the student gets the concept. The next 3 worksheets in a lesson are mixed practice of new and old topics so skills stay fresh. We do 1-3 of these. If they did 2 of the first set of worksheets that week (new concept) then we make it through all 3. Page 7 of the lesson’s workbook pages is an application page, just a different way to approach a math concept. We generally don’t end up doing these. MUS also has a test booklet. The test looks like a mixed practice page. We skip these. Then over the summer we can keep math fresh by using any skipped worksheets we didn’t need in a lesson or the test booklet worksheets, a couple days a week as review. MUS also uses manipulatives clear up to Algebra 1, which we love. Very helpful to visualize a concept for some of my kids.     The Algebra 2 book is ok, I simply struggle with the concepts myself, which makes it hard to help my kids. For the next kid I think we will look for a tutor when they reach Algebra 2, or possibly end our higher math with Geometry. Who knows? I’ll take it student by student. Also, MUS is much easier to reach when you need help with teaching a concept or resolving an issue a student is having with a topic. The biggest drawback for me with MUS is the cost. It is the single biggest expense in my large family homeschool budget every year. Oh well!

@Tristan – I just wanted to let you know that my oldest son and I attempted MUS Algebra 2 last year and were also frustrated and had to quit. This year I had him do Algebra 2 through Teaching Textbooks and he did SO well with it. I just wanted to throw that out there as an option for you if you are looking for an Algebra 2 course.

@MissusLeata – Totally hear you on the math second-guessing. I’ve probably had the most trouble with that subject as well. I say give MLFLE a try and use it for a while. Maybe it’ll be a good fit, but you won’t know until you try. 🙂

MissusLeata, nothing was meeting our needs so I got the Ray’s books for sample problems and some used curriculum (TT’s spiral-bound textbook instead of the discs, Life of Fred Fractions, MUS teacher manuals), and I just look at each of those for how to teach the steps (plus use my mother’s intuition and my math-whiz husband) and then give some problems from Ray’s. He also does a problem each week from a book called Math Detectives, books by Theoni Pappas, and games from Family Math. It’s a big mix of books but it has been working and helping him to see how math works in the real world instead of just a bunch of numbers on paper.

I’m hoping the rest of the CM Elementary Math series will be published fairly soon. It looks great but my oldest is past the two books available right now.

Can we continue the math discussion – has anyone used books by Edward Zaccaro as a math supplement? That is my summer math plan – just playing with math in a different way by using a few of these books. I picked up:

Primary Grade Challenge Math

Upper Elementary Challenge Math

Real World Algebra

I like the variety of problems aimed at different levels of difficulty.