Math Suggestions?

We’ve used Right Start Math. It’s more of a spiral program so it covers lots of different math concepts through the course of the year. For the most part, the lesson plans were easy to follow and didn’t require much prep work other than gathering the manipulatives needed for the day. I really enjoy the program, but my son is currently burned out with math, so we’ve been doing a variety of activities like math games (Yahtzee), picture books about math, and online games. He’s currently enjoying working through Easy Peasy online homeschool math activities. It’s free and has links to different games and activities for each day.

I also use rightstart math. We are just finishing level A (we took a couple of years to finish it – life got crazy and we just didn’t do it some weeks…). I like it because it is open and go. During the craziness times, I didn’t even prepare at all, just opened it up and we did it. Obviously it’s better if you are more consistent, but even still, my daughter has learned a lot and really understood what she’s doing. We have done everything from basic arithmetic, to geometry, to time, to money; it is very well rounded. They learn to use the abacus to visualize math, which I think is cool, and the program is heavy on manipulatives. The expense is a lot up front, but the manipulatives can be used for the whole program for years, I think up to middle school math. So each year you only have to buy the next level manual.  And I just want to mention that even though everything is all there for the daily lessons, I found them to be too long for my daughter, so I broke each lesson up into shorter chunks and that worked really well!

You could maybe, with the exception of one thing – the abacus. You really need that, it is foundational.  For everything else you might be able to use something you have or make it yourself. You can look on their website to see everything.  But honestly, it would be a lot of work to have to make stuff yourself and find substitutions. It isn’t lots of worksheets and so you do need some manipulatives whether you use theirs or make your own.

It is expensive, but I figured that we will be using them for many years each with two kids, and what we ended up doing was we were able to attend a homeschool conference during the summer and we got the whole package with a big discount. Another option is buying the manipulative set used. We are lucky enough to live in a big city with a great homeschool store, so you can find the stuff used. I even got my level b manuals for next year for less than half of new! Look online for people selling, and rightstart I think has a forum that people might sell on too?

Anyways, I hope this helps. My husband was a math major in college and was always told in school growing up that he was horrible in math, and his grades proved it! But I asked him to pick and he chose rightstart above all the others because he believes it teaches math in a way that is foundational for truly understanding it, not just memorizing arithmetic like I did. So with that in mind, and figuring the investment was spread out over years with multiple kids, and I don’t have to plan anything, to us it was worth it.