Thursday 8 August 2013

Day 4 - Math Curriculum

Welcome to Day 4 of the Schoolhouse Review Crew 5 days of ... blog hop.

The theme for my 5 days is Curriculum Choices. My aim is not to list every single resource out there (That in itself would be almost impossible as the Internet is an ever changing place). My aim is to give you some ideas to start you off.

Today's theme is Math.
One of the defining moments of understanding teaching math came after I read the article History and Research on the Teaching of MathI highly recommend you read this article before you make a decision on your math curriculum.

Scope and Sequence
When looking at changing math programs remember to take  scope and sequence into account.
  • Scope refers to the content.  In other words these are the topics covered(A to Z)
  • Sequence is the order in which the scope is taught (IE the order in which things are covered within the program)
It is important to know this about your math product or you might end up redoing math your child is already familiar with or you might end up skipping a whole lot of important content that your child needs in order to succeed at math.

Resources
Teaching Textbooks. 
I ♥ this curriculum.  Easy to use and home school friendly.
TouchMath
I used this earlier this year and am very impressed with this hands on approach to teaching math.
Saxon Math
Singapore Math
Horizons Math
Miquon Math
Math U See
More Companies to look at
Pinterest
What are you using to teach Math ?  I'm looking for a few more links for my page
Blessings
Chareen 
** List updated 9 August

So Far in the series
  1. Geography 
  2. History
  3. Science
 Summer Blog Hop
Be sure to hop on over to the crew blog to read more posts from this series

6 comments:

  1. Great list!

    You might want to add Life Of Fred to your list - we've found it to be one of the few math texts that my very artsy and creative, but very math-challenged daughter can stick with and actually enjoy. We also like Math Mammoth resources - lots of choices at a great price.

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  2. We use Math-U-See. It is very homeschool friendly, and made for all types of learners. It has made math understandable and fun for my ones that hated math. It is a full program from Pre-K thru 12.

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  3. We started using Saxon but shifted to Math U See after the first year. Saxon is brilliant but was a bit time consuming and meant a lot of work for me. Math U See has that wonderful Mr Demme on DVD to explain things which saves me so much time. You can move as swiftly or as slowly as you need to. We've never had any issues with maths here. I also use a lot of living books, cause let's face it workbooks can be a bit dull. ;) Loving your series Chareen - Tkx.

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  4. I'm using a free math program from the UK and love it. Google Mathematics Enhancement Programme. (MEP). Can easily be used in the US by changing pounds to dollars. Metric system taught which is easier for kids to learn in my opinion than our crazy inch/foot/yard system.

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  5. Life of Fred is gravy and candy. We like it. I wouldn't make it my main core though - well in the elementary years at least. I can't speak for the upper grades as I haven't seen those.

    The way I tend to see maths these days is that we are only really focused and looking at the basics. Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division before the age of ten. Even then, it is more about just rote memorisation and abacus work { hands on }. Nothing fancy, but enough to get them started. This is one of the main reasons that I really like Rod and Staff - not a lot of deviations, just focus on the basics - which in turn lays a great foundation for later on.

    We do use workbooks early on, but I don't want them to get serious on maths until they are older than 10.

    Something that I have noticed is that algebra has even made it's way to grade 1. I'm totally not in favour of that. Just thought I'd chuck that in there. It's crazy how they want littles to understand how to find x when they are struggling to count and do addition.

    MEP - that's my idea of a circus. All fancy acrobats and not enough time spent on mastering the basics. Maybe I didn't spend enough time on it? Who knows. But it's just not for us.

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