Mathematics -A Living Education…Opinions/suggestions

First, I didn’t want to hijack the other math thread with this, so posting here, but the other math thread is what instigated all of this…I would like that noted for the record. LOL

My 7 year old DS is getting frustrated with Horizons. He can do the work, but he just dislikes it. He absolutely loves Life of Fred, but I am not outside the box yet apparently because it is so outside the norm that I know as math that I can’t accept that it will teach him all he needs. So while we continue Fred and he thoroughly looks forward to it, it is a supplement to Horizons and I was pleased that it showed real life math application even if in slightly bizarre ways. Anyway, I read this thread and checked out Ray’s free ebooks online and my ds happened to come and snuggle up to me as he is want to do in late evenings and happened to see it. He became very interested and started telling me all the answers to the word problems. i was not asking him too mind, I was multi-tasking…watching tv & internet surfing and forum surfing between SL & SCM and didn’t even know he was paying attention to what I was doing. I was trying to see the differences in the Primary book 1, Intellectual book two and the Primary elementary series….. He amazingly pointed out that the primary first book was way too easy and that the intellectual was way to hard and so we settled on the Elementary series and he seriously went through answering one or two word problems on each page until we got through all the addition and hit subtraction upon which he says, “OH I don’t care for subtraction much” and I said, “well, it appears you know your addition so it looks like you have no where else to go but to the next page” and he just laughed and said, “well I guess there is no way out of this one; I will do it tomorrow.” I said alright and then he told me he loves this kind of math because it is like a riddle and he loves to figure out what to do! He was having fun writing out the number 5 billion 345 million 45 thousand and 14 units. He wrote it out and yes it took a while for him to piece it all together filling in a zero in the thousand house or period, but he did it and then once he had done two of them he said just for fun, could he add the two together. I said go for it and I sat stunned and amazed at my little 35 pound 7 year old adding 12 digits plus 12 digits and he got it right!! 

I am not bragging but since last march when I pulled the kids from PS, this same boy was telling me that 17-4 was too hard and he didn’t get it!! He was making a B in math and hated every minute of it. HOMESCHOOLING is awesome and I am so happy to have such a helpful and peaceful forum to get such great ideas and support from!! Oh & too share great success stories too of course. Thanks Ladies!! 

Now, I have the dilema….. keep doing the Ray’s (I will buy book because it is hard to do off laptop) or use it for taking a break from Horizon? Stick with Horizon till finished with this year then switch to Ray’s? Let him pace himself between Ray’s & Life of Fred and drop Horizon? Don’t know what to do. 

After public I tried Mammoth math thru summer and I liked that it was mastery based, but he would complete a whole section and pass the test completely and then 2-3 weeks later when presented with same problems, he was at a loss and had forgotten. So I thought horizons being a lot of review would help transfer the know how from short term to long term, but he dislikes all the review and practice. He does it and he doesn’t whine, but he just openly and honestly tells me he doesn’t care for it. I want him to enjoy his studies but I do not want him too think it is ok to quit things, but if it isn’t a good fit then finding a better fit seems logical.

I guess what I want to know is, will all this switching curriculum screw him up? OR Should I continue to try new stuff till we find what fits him? Opinions appreciated.

Channa