Curriculum Review: Math-U-See

by Jessica Peterman

Our family has been homeschooling for six years now, and I must confess, we’ve done our fair share of curriculum hopping.  But there is one area, however, where I’ve been happy from the start.  Enter Math-U-See. 

Math-U-See was created by Steve Demme, a math teacher and homeschooler of 4 boys.  In my estimation, it is very different than many of the mainstream math textbooks out there. 

First (and perhaps most important for me), the program includes an instructional DVD to teach the parent how to teach the lessons.  Or you and your child can watch the DVD together, which is what we do most of the time.  This is a step not to be skipped, because although I did fairly well in math, I’m learning so much more of the why’s and how’s from Mr. Demme’s methods.  He also gives you a few different ways to solve problems that you most likely didn’t learn in school. 

The program only covers one new skill at a time, and works on review after the first few pages of introducing the new topic.  This worked well for my kids who would be thrown off by busy math pages that skipped from addition, telling time, and a couple other skills all at the same time.  The program’s goal is for the student to practice the skills, master the skills, and ultimately, be able to teach them back to you. 

My kids’ favorite part of the program is the blocks.  Starting with the first level, the Primer, the kids work with and solve problems with colored blocks.  They build large numbers, learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and even fractions with these manipulatives.  (The fraction ones are especially cool!)  All of which is great for hands on or visual learners.  After they get the hang of things with the blocks, they move towards regular computations.

I would say that the only areas that aren’t covered as thoroughly as I’d like are money, time and measurement.  He does touch on these things, but if these don’t come easily to your child, then you might want to supplement a bit. 

Check out the program and get a free sample DVD at Mathusee.com

Curriculum Review: Learning Language Arts Through Literature

by Jessica Peterman

In our home we’ve used Learning Language Arts Through Literature for 3 years.  I wasn’t entirely unhappy with the program and I know some really love it.

I’m switching things up next year for a few different reasons.   Here is a quick pro and con look at LLATL from what I observed from the 2^nd –6^th grade levels).

Pro:

• Focus on good literature  (this is my FAVORITE part) and lots of exposure to excerpts of different books.
• Built in practice for copywork and dictation for those who follow the Charlotte Mason Method or Classical Education.
• Gentle, not overwhelming introduction of grammar concepts
• Book studies on complete novels
• Units for additional skills such as poetry writing, journaling, story writing, research that are spread out over a few weeks. 

Cons:  (for my family anyway :-)

• Not much in the way of spelling or vocabulary.  There are some short lists taken from the dictation and vocab from the book studies.  But one of my children needed more challenge, while the other needed a more systematic approach to spelling, so I ended up supplementing a lot.
• Not a lot of direct writing instruction—as in how to construct a sentence or paragraph.  I believe that the authors’ philosophy is that the students will learn this as they complete their copywork and dictation.  And I have to admit, they have picked up a lot that way.  But if you have a struggling writer, you might need a little extra in this area.
• Grammar might err on the side of too gentle?  Again, I have one that needs challenged a bit more and one that needs more practice than what this program provides. 

Final thought… There are so many parts of the language arts puzzle, and every child has strengths and weaknesses.   I have no doubt that there are many children who would do great with this program all the way through.  There are so many good things about it; I hate to move on.  It served us well for three years, but kids change and grow and sometimes you’ve got to make a switch.  Who knows, it might end up being just what my youngest needs!

Curriculum Review: Saxon 3 Math

by Selena Campbell

I used Saxon 3 Math with my two youngest children, Sara (age 7, 2^nd grade; and Iain, age 8, 3^rd grade). It was easy to teach them both, as Saxon is very repetitious.

If you don’t like to plan lessons, this is the math program for you. It is fully scripted, down to what to say to your children. Your only requirement as teacher is to read the lesson and get the required manipulatives and worksheets together for your kids (which you do need to do in advance).

After the first few lessons where the basics were introduced, each lesson started out by filling in a “meeting strip.” This includes the date, the “number of the day,” which is that day’s lesson number, and creating some equations using that number (e.g., Lesson 9 would have “9” as number of the day, and equations could be 4+5, 10-1, etc). There is a number pattern to complete (counting by 5’s or 7’s, etc). A “clock” fill-in-the-blank works with telling time, and there are coin cup blanks for counting coins in a cup—one of my kids’ favorite parts. The last thing is the “problem of the day,” a very age-appropriate/lesson-driven word problem.

In addition to the meeting strip, a monthly calendar is maintained in a meeting book, with daily temperatures recorded and comparisons made between daily temps, as well as other activities.

All of the above are done with each lesson, then a new concept is introduced, ranging from “Telling time to the Hour” (Lesson 1) to Graphing Points on a Coordinate Plane (Lesson 140). As you can see, much is covered in this program.

This program does use several manipulatives in addition to the workbooks:

o   pattern(geometric-shaped) blocks

o   counting chips/colored tiles

o   number charts

o   clocks

o   thermometer

o   rulers

o   yardstick

o   and other misc things.

Most items are available for purchase from sellers of the Saxon program (I purchased it from Rainbow Resource), but you could easily buy this curriculum and look through what is required before making a decision to buy the supplemental materials. If you are creative, you can use something else you already have (such as M&Ms for counting and sorting—yum!).

My children had fun with this math, and I enjoyed teaching it. The variety of activities kept it fun, and my kids had a ball checking the daily temperature (especially when our thermometer broke and they got to take turns calling the time & temperature number.)

My only complaint is the program is black and white (no colored pages at all), and the worksheets are printed on very thin paper, which makes it hard to tear them out (and easy to damage them when erasing).

Curriculum

Hello Everyone!



I know we just finished up our school year, but there are many families who begin planning next year's curriculum right away. In light of that, we are going to have some curriculum reviews posted soon.

Please leave a comment, if there is a particular curriculum you are interested in, and we will do our best to post a review for it. (And, if you are willing to write a review for a curriculum, please leave a comment regarding which curriculum you've used.)


One more thing --  there is a new homeschooling mom who is interested in the Sonlight readers for this coming year (this is the 4-book set with the yellow word list book, and the red, blue and green readers). If you have this set and would like to sell it, please leave a comment.

Curriculum Reviews

Hello Everyone!

Yes, the school year is winding down--just a few more weeks to go, can you believe it?

If your thoughts have turned to what to do for next year, and you aren't sure what curriculum to use, we are here to help! Beginning soon, we will be posting reviews of various curricula, written by actual local users of said products, so you will get a first-hand idea of what they are like (and you can ask the users more questions, and possibly examine the materials yourself).

Here are a few we will cover . . .

Sonlight
Konos
Saxon Math
Horizons Math
Miquon Math
Winston Grammar
Explode the Code
Beyond the Code
Mystery of History

If you are especially interested in reading about one of the above, or if you are interested in a particular curriculum that is not listed, please leave a comment. We will do our best to get some info posted regularly over the next few months, so you will have some time to make an informed decision about next year.

Speaking of making a curriculum decision, this video lists 5 mistakes that families make when buying curriculum:




If you have you used a curriculum (whether listed above or not) and would like to write a fair, balanced (pros and cons) review for the product, please contact me.

In the meantime, click here to visit a link with curriculum reviews written by other homeschoolers.

Blessings,
Selena Campbell