Math on the Level

I have been using MOTL since August.  My dd10 has struggled with math through Right Start, Math U See, and Shiller Math.  MOTL is a keeper so far.

How does it fit with CM education?   You, the teacher, choose how to teach a topic.  The creators give plenty of real life ideas for how to do that.  You also choose in which order you will teach math concepts (though suggestions are offered).  The student does not practice her skills with a page or two of problems.  In fact, she doesn’t practice them in writing until you decide she has mastered the concept.  Then, she will complete 5 (problems) a day of concepts she has already mastered.  I write hers out in a spiral notebook, but others type them more formally. 

I love that my dd doesn’t learn her math from a book as much as from doing it.  She loves that she only has to do 5 problems a day in her notebook.  This summer she is doing Sonya’s Business Math program for practice on her addition, subtraction, mulitiplication and other skills.  It fits right in with the MOTL style of teaching. Finally, the concepts are not assigned a grade level like most other math programs.  It has been good for my dd not to associate concepts with a grade that is one or two years below her traditional grade level. 

Plenty of parents don’t like MOTL because it is rather teacher-intensive, but that works very well for my dd.  So it works for me! 

I hope this helps.

Kris

What do you love?

I love that I have EVERYTHING I need to teach all of my children math. This is not a book of lessons and problems. Rather, it is more of a handbook of math if you will. I have mine all in one 3-ring binder. A FOUR-INCH d-ring binder actually. It is THAT LARGE. It covers every single concept needed to be prepared for higher level math—algebra and beyond.

I love that my oldest son, who used to struggle with math after 5 years in public school (and let me add, I don’t think he was struggling b/c he was in public school), but I said that to say he was very defeated in math and since he wasn’t at home, I didn’t realize how defeated he felt until we brought him home. So I took him back in his 5th grade year using MOTL and now he is soaring. He now believes in his abilities to DO math.

He tested recently at a high school level in math. Granted, he still has to really think and it still doesn’t come natural for him, but he gets it and he feels confident. He now likes math and can think on his feet with math, which he couldnt’ do before. MOTL taught me how to incorporate math on the go (e.g. asking questions on the fly like DH asking our son tonight “what is 25% of $1200?” and our son immediately answering “$300”).

I love that I can use them with all 6 of our children through the years and NEVER have to buy a major math curriculum again. I love that though the learning curve is steep, I know think MOTL-wise throughout our lessons. “Oh, this would be a great time to revisit fractions and review while we’re working with this art project.” etc. etc.

I love the price when I consider all it comes with and all I can do with it, especially when I figure for 6 children over their elementary and middle school years. I love that I can supplement with Saxon (that my neighbor has given me to use this year with oldest who will still be finishing up concepts in MOTL and doing 5 a days) or Life of Fred (my 9YO son is using the decimals and percents book) or whatever else I want to use it with.

Or, not so much?

I really don’t have any dislikes. I do know that I need to stay ahead of the game. I don’t like the record-keeping b/c I don’t like excel, but they also give you paper copies with the curriculum. I’m still working out a record-keeping system with it that I love. I’m getting close I think (and it involves checkboxes :).

Why do home schoolers feel this is a CM approach to learning math?

I think Kris answered this already. You as the parent go at the pace that fits your child and his/her needs. It is not grade-specific. The writers stress very much that the “Beginning Math Student” should be learning math through “living” math (games, cooking, manipulatives, songs, etc.). The Math Adventures book is full of “living math” ideas. I mean, FULL of them.

For us, one aspect that is very CM is I can often teach more than one of my children at a time, even though they may be years apart in age. But I can for instance do a fraction lesson with two or more of them (even at different levels), but using the basic MOTL concepts I can teach more than one and then spend some individual time with them as needed on specifics. I can also do this approach with mutlitple children of ours who are different ages but might be at the same level on some math topics. The curriculum is not broken up by grade, but rather into 4 main books: Operations, Fractions, Geometry, and Money & Decimals.

I think it is very CMish, though admittedly I’m not a CM expert and we don’t do CM schooling exclusively, but we’re closer and closer to CM each year!

You can also join the MOTL yahoo group, even before purchasing, to ask questions there. Several of us on here are on the group! http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mathonthelevel/

HTH

Our 2nd oldest son was adopted at age 10 from China with very little English (and no fractions LOL!). I could NOT imagine teaching him math w/out MOTL. I took him back to “whole” and then “1/2” and so on using the ideas from MOTL. Sure some of them I already knew of, but the books helped me to see (and look for) every opportunity to make it REAL for him. And I use this with all of our DC, but yes, MOTL is great for my son, whose first language is NOT English.

Our youngest son, age 7, and home from China at 5, is also delayed too. I use MOTL for him as well. Use it with all of our DC, but the beauty behind MOTL is they are not ever “behind” but are on their individual track of learning math. And if your child is able to forge ahead in one skill and not in another, no worries. You teach the concept as they are ready. And the book will also tell you when you can “drop” a concept as you introduce new ones that also cover that first basic concept.

The 5-A-Day problems may not sound like enough, but the thing is you may be reviewing 15 concepts.

I could send you an invite to my blog if you wanted erin.kate. I have done quite a few posts this last year on our math lessons, mostly with my two kindies b/c they are more willing photo subjects and I really wanted to document their first year. But anyway, it would give you an idea of some of our typical beginning math lessons. Send me a PM with your email addy if you are interested in the blog invite. If not, totally fine, just thought I’d offer.

@leebowens, when I say teacher intensive, I mean the prep work. As far as actual lessons, usually no more than 15 minutes or up to 30 for older students. In fact, MOTL stresses the benefit of shorter lessons. They stress that it is better to stop if the child is frustrated and/or not understanding and come back to it the next day or the next week or later if you feel the chils is just not ready.

As far as grades, I have moved past that. I believe our 13YO, officially in 8th grade as of tomorrow, will complete MOTL concepts before year’s end, and he is not a math-inclined person. I have purposefully not pushed him, as we had to deschool and go back after bringing him home from PS in 5th grade.

MOTL has 146 total concepts broken into 4 categories and spiral-bound teaching books: Operations, Geometry, Money & Decimals, and Fractions. The very first concept, which is in Operations, is Beginning Counting. The very last concept is Computing Tax, which is found in the Money & Decimals book.

You can really go in any order you wish, though they do give you a suggested outline. But this is just a suggestion. I actually made a “map” for each of my three older children this year. I downloaded a sample of the one I’ll be using with my 6th grade and 5th grade level sons.

https://www.box.com/files#/files/0/f/0/1/f_2642065227

All of these concepts will be on their 5-A-Day problems, which I made spiral-bound notebooks for using pages I created as templates for writing out the problems each morning. I built in spaces for writing problems where they need lines and/or graphing.Here is a sample of those pages. I have a notebook for each of the older boys with 150 of these pages in it. Each day, they wil be given problems based on their 5-A-Day Maps I created. Once a concept is mastered, you no longer put it on the 5-A-Day sheets. Here is the template I made for their 5-A-Day notebooks: https://www.box.com/files#/files/0/f/0/1/f_2642071489

And so all of that to say, by teacher intensive, I mean on the front end. The actual 5-A-Days take me about 10 minutes to make for each child as the curriculum has sample problems. You just have to write them out on their papers for each day. I prefer to do this each day so I can check the ones from the day before. If they miss one, I will usually talk to them about it (and as often as not, it was a simple error). Either way, it stays on the 5-A-Days until they consistently get them correct.

For our 2 first graders, I use a much simpler record-keeping system that came with the curriculum. (BTW, they have an excel program that is free to all purchasers (but I don’t care for excel; I’m weird like that!) for record-keeping. Many people love it! I just don’t.). But anyway, for our 1st graders I use the Beginning Students suggestions and just teach a new concept about once every week or two. They don’t get 5-A-Day sheets, but I do give them one on occasion when they ask for it. More often than not, I’ll give them a few practice problems a day on our whiteboard.

With all of our children, I (or DH) spends 15-30 minutes going over a new concept once a week or revisiting that same concept the following week as needed. Monday thru Friday they get a 5-A-Day sheet, some days I have them watch a related Khan video (or yourteacher.com for my oldest), and they also do math drills in IXL.com Monday-Thursday. This is graded on-line and I can choose whatever concept I wish for this. This is not required with MOTL; I just like using IXL for extra drilling, and it is very reasonable for an acct. for our large family through Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op.

Hope this makes sense!

Leslie

I see you can buy some volumes individually (looks like it’s only for math operations), but others you can’t-like fractions (as far as I could tell) So I’m wondering if a person would be stuck having to buy the whole program for $295 if they purchased the 4 offered individually to start with.

https://www.mathonthelevel.com/

You can get information on their website. I used this with my daughter a few years ago. I like it, but my daughter’s learning disability in math is more than moderate, so the neuropsychologist said I should focus on just a few specific areas for life skills. So, I would not get full use out of it. I met the lady, who developed this program, at a convention several years ago.  If you need questions answered, she will personally answer them. I don’t know if she still does it, but she would sometimes hold webinars, which were very helpful. She is very sweet and understood the situation with my daughter and why I wouldn’t continue with it. She was formerly a special education teacher. But, now she homeschools her own children.