Professor B math…anyone used?

Hello!

Sorry I haven’t been on much lately and am just seeing your question. I learned of ProfB on this forum, so I’m sure there are others that have used it. But we did use book one – the print book – and then subscribed to the online version for some review. My ds had a hard time remembering those basic math facts. We had used Ray’s and Math Mammoth and copywork and all kinds of drill and review – over and over . . . We just kept hitting a wall. The way Prof B presented it seemed to really help him and got us over that hump. I was planning to continue through the other books, but had to give up that idea. We are now using TT, per his choice (he’ll be 11 soon). While he likes doing history and science with mom, math, not so much. Go figure! I am more of a literature person, myself, so its probably all for the best.

I hope that helped a bit. If your kiddo is struggling with basic math, I’d say its worth a try to see if the Prof B approach may help. I had acquired books both on Paperback Swap and used on Amazon.

Happy New Year!

Melissa

We use Professor B Math in grades 1 through 5 for our home school and day school programs associated with Ambleside Schools International, a Charlotte Mason-based educational organization with schools in the United States and across the globe.

Professor B teaches math from a mastery approach as opposed to a cyclical approach, although the curriculum does provide for review of previously-learned concepts throughout the practice exercises. The mastery approach ensures that students fully learn the material presented in each lesson before continuing to the next concept. 

Some strengths of the program are:

• Math is retained by connections, not memorization. These connections flow in a child’s brain much the same as in reading.
• Students are taught and able to perceive structures in math, acquiring a clear picture of the order and sense of numbers.
• The approach treats children as persons, as it allows for individual growth of the student’s math knowledge.
• The scope and sequence involved extensively covers those areas most vital to the mastery of arithmetic; namely place value, use of the decimal system, and algorithms involving the four operations.
• The text and workbooks are free of distracting pictures or photographs, which better enables the student to practice the habit of attention by concentrating on the mathematical symbols and algorithms.
• It is easy to supplement a lesson or try a different approach or demonstrative/manipulative activity if necessary, and still keep the scope and topic of the material in focus. 
• The text works well in a home school environment as the student must work toward mastery before beginning a new topic or enhancing the old.
• The curriculum requires and encourages articulation of arithmetic. Language use and the requiring of students to articulate through narration what they know is key to gauging their understanding and achieving mastery of a topic.

We have had wonderful success using Professor B for our students, both for those learning a new concept and for those needing to review. One of our homeschool parents, who had been a math teacher before having children, testified that she had never seen a better approach for math for her 5th grader struggling with fractions!

Hopefully these points will be of help in deciding on an effective math program for your daughter.

This is so timely!  I came on here to look for old posts and was shocked to find a recent post!!  I love when that works out like that.  Thanks for the feedback. 

-Leslie