Practical Arithmetics by Strayer-Upton

Yes, we are still using them. 13 and 12 year old are not using right now and are exclusively doing Life of Fred Elementary Physics, but we will do some more work in tan S.U. when they finish. I’ll probably order book 3 after that.

10 year old has finished red book and moved into Simply Charlotte Mason Pet Shop Math. Older two also did that book after completing S.U. red. She is also going through LOF elementary series.

8 year old has completed about 100 pages of S.U. and is also doing LOF elementary. She is also working in Mission blue book. We use Miquon, LOF, and S.U. for elementary.

Does that help at all or just make it more confusing? 🙂

6 year old will start S.U. after he finishes Miquon Red.

Hi, Melissa.

Practical Arithmetic books are my favorite math books. My three oldests have used books 1 & 2 (some of book 3 like a section on circles etc) and then jumped right into prealgebra and algebra. My dd16 was able to jump into Forester’s Algebra just fine and continues to use Saxon’s upper level books. My ds12 and ds14 went straight into prealgeba by Art of Problem Solving. They are now taking Art of Problem Solving online courses for Algebra 1 & 2. My nieces also used Practical Arithmetic books 1 & 2 exclusively before algebra and have had great math success. One of my nieces got a perfect math SAT score (she went into Saxon after PA book 2). Practical Arithmetic provides a strong foundation in computation skills needed for upper mathematics.

My younger children are using these books as well. They bring their books to me and we decide if they will work with a timer (15 to 30 minutes) or make a page goal for the day. Because the books progress incrementally, I don’t have to teach much. I am really there to help out when needed. And they do every problem in the books, which means I don’t supplement with other math texts or have the children do math fact drills. There is no need to.

I would love to answer any specific questions.

BTW, Book 2 is a brown book.

Janell

Melissa,

Yes, Practical Arithmetics has plenty of word problems especially in the brown book. Back in the day when I first discovered PA, I thought “this is so Charlotte Mason” because of all the word problems. Having strong computation skills, my older children transitioned into algebra just fine. I doubted the books occasionally when we first started using them and worried that we weren’t doing much geometry and negative numbers. However, my children truly understood the why behind dividing fractions and converting fractions to decimals and percents. I don’t worry anymore and keep things simple here by sticking to those nearly 500 page books.

I think the diagnostic test idea is great, but it may simplify things if you try to settle soon somewhere in the book to continue steadily from (like page 310, if multiplication work is needed). Since you are teaching the child and not the math book, it’s definitely okay to skip or add computation problems. The books may seem to move slowly, but that is a good thing. Practical Arithmetics builds concept by concept with a lot of similar problems grouped together to produce mastery. My children don’t need much instruction from me because of the books’ pace.

When we begin math, each child tells me what he/she will do for the day as we look over the math book together. I ask if I can work a couple of sample problems with the child on the dry erase board. When the assignment is completed, the child checks his/her own work using the back of the book and brings it to me so I can look over it too. Right now, though, I still check my dd6’s work because she would get lost in the answer key with it’s small print. I haven’t had problems with cheating because I make a big deal about the privilege and honor it is to use the answer key independently.

I have sets of cuisenaire and Math U See rods that I use to teach basic addition and subtraction. I especially use them for multi-digit addition and subtraction problems, but I rarely use manipulatives once we hit longer multiplication and division problems. I keep the rods handy just in case.

I love the way the red book teaches the additive method for subtraction on page 68. I can subtract multi-digit problems mentally now using that method, and my husband who computes problems all day in his work loves the additive method instead of the borrowing method. So, I have my children learn both the additive and borrowing methods for subtraction. They work problems using both methods until they are ready to choose which way they want to do their subtraction. Some prefer the borrowing method over the additive. What?!

I hope that helps.

Janell

Suggested grade levels for the books are:

First Book: 1st-4th grades averaging 20 minutes a day

Second Book: 5th-6th grades averaging 30 minutes a day

Third Book: 7th-8th grades averaging 30 minutes a day (this text has a lot of interest rate calculations)

I also recommend SCM’s Pet Shop math if you wanted to strengthen computation skills before moving into prealgebra/algebra.

You’re welcome, Melissa. Thank you, too, for your American History booklists and book reviews. I was able to check out This Dear Bought Land a couple of weeks ago. I copied your explorers booklist two weeks ago, so we’re sharing ideas. I love this forum. 🙂

I don’t know if the OP is still reading this thread, but I would caution you about using Systematic Mathematics.  The instructor on the videos makes a lot of errors. Some, his students (grandkids) catch, others go uncorrected.  It became so frustrating for my son that we decided to drop it and find something else – I just didn’t have the time (or patience) to monitor for errors. :-/   When I contacted the company, they said they had no plans of correcting the videos and did not offer an error page on their website. I really wanted to like this program but it became a no-go.

As for Strayer-Upton, we loved these books! My student’s only complaint was that the books were small and thick which made them difficult to lay open nicely while they did their work.