My three siblings and I did Saxon Math 4/5 through Algebra 2, and while it seemed to work for them, it was absolute misery for me. The constant spiral was the worst part. I never fully grasped a concept before moving on to the next so when concepts would come back, I had to go back to the lesson and reteach myself every time. Even then I would struggle to get the concepts and math would take hours every day. I just want to say, if your daughter is truly struggling with Saxon, she will be so so relieved to switch to something that works better for her brain. I really wish my parents had done that for me.
2 out of 3 of my kids were like this with Saxon so I decided to switched to Marh U See which is mastery based with a little review of super important past concepts . For my 5th child I’m just going straight to MUS 🤷🏻♀️
@@sciencemama glad my comment was helpful! It’s something I’m passionate about and excited for the opportunity to do things differently with my own children. I now have a major block with math and shut down immediately at the simplest math problems (thank goodness for phones!). I didn’t retain anything from Saxon, so I’ll be learning a lot alongside my kids when we get there 😅
My kids love math with confidence so much! We thought about switching to Saxon so that I could use Nicole the math lady so that I wouldn’t have to teach every subject but my kids begged me not to. They truly love and ENJOY it. It is developmentally appropriate & makes learning math fun. I can’t say enough good things about it.
My daughter struggled majorly with learning long division in a very spiral curriculum. She didn't get instruction reminding her of the steps often enough. I switched to Math-U-See Delta for a couple of months to just drill long division. After focusing on that for a good chunk of time, she got it settled in her head, and she was able to go back to a spiral curriculum and didn't struggle with it anymore.
I know you said you’re hesitant to switch math, but have you considered Math With Confidence for your daughter next year maybe? It is admittedly very teacher intensive, but the lessons don’t take more than 20ish minutes. That confidence boost, spiral review, and solid (but fun) math fact practice has been wonderful for our family. I’ve taught level K-3 and it’s been wonderful!
I second this!! MWC has been a breath of fresh air!! My daughter is finally ‘getting’ it. She’s technically 5th grade, but we started with grade 3 to insure no gaps because it’s been such a struggle. She is now breezing through it and those foundational concepts are really clicking and sticking. ❤
Thank you for sharing your experience ... I have looked at Math with Confidence before and it does look really good, it honestly might be something I look into for next year!
Agreed!! My kids love and truly ENJOY math because of math with confidence! We are not a mathy family. I was intimidated to teach math because it is not my strong subject but MWC makes me as the parent feel confident. The lessons take about 20 mins or so. The games are my kids favorite thing. Praying for you as you make the decisions that work best for your family. The Lord will lead you. 🤍
My daughter struggled similarly. Saxon was not the right fit and once I switched to a mastery approach curricula she’s understood and done sooo much better. She’s also the kid that will not be like her brother finishing algebra before high school, and that is okay! Not everyone is a math brain, a kid who learns from reading, etc. etc. I do not like weak math, but it’s also important to help make sure we build confidence and make sure she learns it, rather than struggles through and just completes it.
The Dive lectures have been a good fit for my son in Saxon 67. Short and sweet and easy to go back and re watch quickly to refresh on a topic. My 1st grader and Prek are enjoying Math With Confidence...so im not sure what ill do with them eventually. Move to Saxon? And still hanging with Logic of English. My oldest really enjoys Essentials in Writing. Its short and sweet, bite size. Its been my favorite from this year.
I’m just stopping to say that the color of your top looks great on you. That’s all 🙂 I’ve watched some videos on color assessments and now I’m noticing how certain colors look on people so I’m just mentioning it here. Good color selection.
📚Totally agree about Abeka’s lesson plans! They do so much review. We also just pick and choose. Recently, I have been combining all the lessons for the week into one lesson and have them do a work sheet each day which reviews all the skills they’ve learned. That’s been working for us this year.
I have 2 children using Nicole the Math Lady. Last year, (the first half of the year) my children used Nicole’s videos. It just didn’t work for us. Now I teach the lessons, and we use the NTML grading. They just seem to like the way I teach better. It’s a struggle to fit all the teaching into my day, though. We looked at My Math Assistant, but my kids begged me to teach their math lessons over MMA as well.
I suggest looking into MWC and MUSee. MWC is teacher intensive, but very short lessons. MUS has video lessons, so you might use it one day a week and the rest MWC. Its totally ok to use two math programs.
I agree that sometimes when a kid is struggling with a subject it doesn't mean you gotta change the curriculum or go down a level. Maybe they just need more help. We use Primary Mathematics (2022 edition) and I like everything about it (colorful, short lessons, student textbook and workbook in one, etc). I looked into a level lower to see maybe if thats where we need to be and its just too easy and stuff i know she already knows. So i went and bought the additional practice books (which i guess in school settings would be for homework) and it helped a lot. We do the lesson and practice one day and next day do the additional practice and it works. Still some days are hard especially when it comes to word problems or things that require more thinking.
Your daughter sounds like ours. We finally found something that works. We use Christian Light Education, but if our daughter knows the information and can explain to me how and why the problem is solved a certain way, we let her skip every other problem. We then use a second curriculum that is the “fun math”. Part of this is to help cover any gaps or simply introduce the same ideas from a different viewpoint. Our daughter also wants to love math, it just takes more time, so we get through CLE for a good foundation and then use Primary Mathematics 2022 or BJU math for fun, to show some applied math, and to help build the mental math and math manipulation skills.
Question: I tried TGATB typing but my kids just look at the keys and peck it out. Did your son eventually just looking or did you have to monitor that ?
I don't know if your daughter would feel like it was too young but numberblocks ( they have all the episodes on RUclips) are amazing my 7 year Olds have learned how to add and subtract and multiplication all from watching the show.
Thank you for sharing your journey!! I always relate so much to you guys!! I have three boys, ages 11, 8 and 6... and I was just thinking how hard it is to have all elementary aged kiddos! It's so much hands on for me! Anyway, I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability!! We use BYL5 and some of the books are tough- especially in the first 7 weeks when the focus is on Native Americans. I think they are the best option to use those topics, but they were hard for my son too! We are now on week 17 and we LOVE all the books!! Let me know if you ever want advice on what is the best from BYL5- I'd be happy to chat about it!! Also, I just started scheduling this vocabulary book for my 11yo and he LOVES it!! It's called Vocabulary Cartoons- I just have him read one page a day and he really loves it!! We're also really loving Michael Clay Thompson for grammar- it's really nice because we read the book together for a few days, but now he just practices one sentence a day and so it's totally independent now! We were using LOE Essentials also and it was tricky to piece-meal an LA curriculum together, but I think we've landed on some gems! You are doing wonderful!! It feels hard because it is hard!! ❤
We have such similar curriculum choices! Thank you so much for your offer - I would honestly love to hear about your favorite resources from level 5. Please email me, my email is linked in the description box (I can't put it in this comment or YT will delete the comment!)
Although my son is older than your kiddos, I like watching your updates. I have learned about Novare curriculum from you. Thank you for the recommendation. We planning to use all of their science books for high school. We are using Biology right now. We love All About Spelling. My son is 12, and we are starting Level 7 (we did all levels). It is one of my son's favorite curriculums although he is a very reluctant writer. He loves funny sentences in AAS. At this point we skip some lessons or do 2 lessons in one sitting because he already knows how to spell pretty well. Level 6 took us 6 months. As for writing curriculums, have you looked into Brave Writer? IEW did not work for my son for similar reasons. He did not like banned words and that he artificially had to add words or clauses to his sentences. I did not force that too much. We dropped IEW after 4-5 months or so. Brave Writer classes work wonders for my son who does not like to write. Their instructors are really good. They give great feedback to the student - my son's favorite part of the class :). Their classes are pricey but we do only a couple of them a year.
We are planning Novare Life Science for next year and I am so excited! Also, I love Brave Writer, I was just pulling out my resources and seeing what we could use for the spring!
The most important thing you can do is ask your kid if they want school or to be homeschooled and listen to them. Homeschooling left me scu*c*d*al and i dont care mich for my parents and i trully believe its child abuse.
My three siblings and I did Saxon Math 4/5 through Algebra 2, and while it seemed to work for them, it was absolute misery for me. The constant spiral was the worst part. I never fully grasped a concept before moving on to the next so when concepts would come back, I had to go back to the lesson and reteach myself every time. Even then I would struggle to get the concepts and math would take hours every day. I just want to say, if your daughter is truly struggling with Saxon, she will be so so relieved to switch to something that works better for her brain. I really wish my parents had done that for me.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective, it is really helpful!
2 out of 3 of my kids were like this with Saxon so I decided to switched to Marh U See which is mastery based with a little review of super important past concepts . For my 5th child I’m just going straight to MUS 🤷🏻♀️
@@sciencemama glad my comment was helpful! It’s something I’m passionate about and excited for the opportunity to do things differently with my own children. I now have a major block with math and shut down immediately at the simplest math problems (thank goodness for phones!). I didn’t retain anything from Saxon, so I’ll be learning a lot alongside my kids when we get there 😅
I always love your check ins. You were one of the first mamas I started following when I started homeschooling and I just love your perspective.
Ahh, thank you!
My kids love math with confidence so much! We thought about switching to Saxon so that I could use Nicole the math lady so that I wouldn’t have to teach every subject but my kids begged me not to. They truly love and ENJOY it. It is developmentally appropriate & makes learning math fun. I can’t say enough good things about it.
I've heard such great things!
"Write out your work." is math slogan here, too. My oldest prefers mental math but the skill of being able to write out the steps is SO helpful!
Haha, glad we are not the only ones struggling with that!
My daughter struggled majorly with learning long division in a very spiral curriculum. She didn't get instruction reminding her of the steps often enough. I switched to Math-U-See Delta for a couple of months to just drill long division. After focusing on that for a good chunk of time, she got it settled in her head, and she was able to go back to a spiral curriculum and didn't struggle with it anymore.
That is a really good idea!!
Christian Light Education Math might be worth looking into. We changed from Saxon, and it has been a good change so far!
I've heard good things about CLE!
I know you said you’re hesitant to switch math, but have you considered Math With Confidence for your daughter next year maybe? It is admittedly very teacher intensive, but the lessons don’t take more than 20ish minutes. That confidence boost, spiral review, and solid (but fun) math fact practice has been wonderful for our family. I’ve taught level K-3 and it’s been wonderful!
I second this!! MWC has been a breath of fresh air!! My daughter is finally ‘getting’ it. She’s technically 5th grade, but we started with grade 3 to insure no gaps because it’s been such a struggle. She is now breezing through it and those foundational concepts are really clicking and sticking. ❤
I couldn’t do IeW either, way too formulaic and unnatural. Rod & Staff has been a constant for us plus we add in Sonlight la.
Thank you for sharing your experience ... I have looked at Math with Confidence before and it does look really good, it honestly might be something I look into for next year!
Agreed. We do MWC 4th,3rd and 1st and it has been great for my kids.
Agreed!! My kids love and truly ENJOY math because of math with confidence! We are not a mathy family. I was intimidated to teach math because it is not my strong subject but MWC makes me as the parent feel confident. The lessons take about 20 mins or so. The games are my kids favorite thing. Praying for you as you make the decisions that work best for your family. The Lord will lead you. 🤍
Thanks as always for sharing your updates! Could you please do a flip-through/review of Grammar Ace?
Sure! I was just thinking about which programs I could film flip-throughs for!
My daughter struggled similarly. Saxon was not the right fit and once I switched to a mastery approach curricula she’s understood and done sooo much better. She’s also the kid that will not be like her brother finishing algebra before high school, and that is okay! Not everyone is a math brain, a kid who learns from reading, etc. etc. I do not like weak math, but it’s also important to help make sure we build confidence and make sure she learns it, rather than struggles through and just completes it.
I love your perspective, thank you so much for sharing!!
We also love the younger Abeka subjects! I’m thinking of using HBL K & D this coming school year!
How fun, we have been loving HBL-D this year and the read alouds from K are some of our favorites 😀
I’m glad you skim the Abeka instructions too. We are doing abeka first grade math also and it was so overwhelming at first.
Glad I'm not the only one!!
The Dive lectures have been a good fit for my son in Saxon 67. Short and sweet and easy to go back and re watch quickly to refresh on a topic. My 1st grader and Prek are enjoying Math With Confidence...so im not sure what ill do with them eventually. Move to Saxon? And still hanging with Logic of English. My oldest really enjoys Essentials in Writing. Its short and sweet, bite size. Its been my favorite from this year.
Yeah, the DIVE lectures are top on our list if we switch for him!
I’m just stopping to say that the color of your top looks great on you. That’s all 🙂 I’ve watched some videos on color assessments and now I’m noticing how certain colors look on people so I’m just mentioning it here. Good color selection.
Ahh, thank you!
📚Totally agree about Abeka’s lesson plans! They do so much review. We also just pick and choose. Recently, I have been combining all the lessons for the week into one lesson and have them do a work sheet each day which reviews all the skills they’ve learned. That’s been working for us this year.
I really like the Abeka readers and Sonlight readers. It’s so hard to choose and not try to do too much.
That is a BRILLIANT idea, I'm going to try that!!
I have 2 children using Nicole the Math Lady. Last year, (the first half of the year) my children used Nicole’s videos. It just didn’t work for us. Now I teach the lessons, and we use the NTML grading. They just seem to like the way I teach better. It’s a struggle to fit all the teaching into my day, though. We looked at My Math Assistant, but my kids begged me to teach their math lessons over MMA as well.
I was thinking about trying MMA for my son next year - we will see!
I suggest looking into MWC and MUSee. MWC is teacher intensive, but very short lessons. MUS has video lessons, so you might use it one day a week and the rest MWC. Its totally ok to use two math programs.
Good idea!
I’ve heard great things about BJU Press for writing
What are you using for testing?
I like the CAT tests (California Achievement Test)
I agree that sometimes when a kid is struggling with a subject it doesn't mean you gotta change the curriculum or go down a level. Maybe they just need more help. We use Primary Mathematics (2022 edition) and I like everything about it (colorful, short lessons, student textbook and workbook in one, etc). I looked into a level lower to see maybe if thats where we need to be and its just too easy and stuff i know she already knows. So i went and bought the additional practice books (which i guess in school settings would be for homework) and it helped a lot. We do the lesson and practice one day and next day do the additional practice and it works. Still some days are hard especially when it comes to word problems or things that require more thinking.
That is such a good idea!
Your daughter sounds like ours. We finally found something that works. We use Christian Light Education, but if our daughter knows the information and can explain to me how and why the problem is solved a certain way, we let her skip every other problem. We then use a second curriculum that is the “fun math”. Part of this is to help cover any gaps or simply introduce the same ideas from a different viewpoint. Our daughter also wants to love math, it just takes more time, so we get through CLE for a good foundation and then use Primary Mathematics 2022 or BJU math for fun, to show some applied math, and to help build the mental math and math manipulation skills.
I've heard good things about CLE!
We had the same problems with IEW and made it about the same length into it.
Glad I’m not the only one!
Question: I tried TGATB typing but my kids just look at the keys and peck it out. Did your son eventually just looking or did you have to monitor that ?
He did that at first, but he does better now! I never monitor it, I just hope for the best 😂
Does all about spelling have an 8th grade level? I (usually) do ok in most subjects, but I basically failed spelling last year.
AAS isn't necessarily grade level - it's more skill level, you just work through the program at their pace!
I don't know if your daughter would feel like it was too young but numberblocks ( they have all the episodes on RUclips) are amazing my 7 year Olds have learned how to add and subtract and multiplication all from watching the show.
Thank you for the suggestion!
Thank you for sharing your journey!! I always relate so much to you guys!! I have three boys, ages 11, 8 and 6... and I was just thinking how hard it is to have all elementary aged kiddos! It's so much hands on for me! Anyway, I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability!!
We use BYL5 and some of the books are tough- especially in the first 7 weeks when the focus is on Native Americans. I think they are the best option to use those topics, but they were hard for my son too! We are now on week 17 and we LOVE all the books!! Let me know if you ever want advice on what is the best from BYL5- I'd be happy to chat about it!!
Also, I just started scheduling this vocabulary book for my 11yo and he LOVES it!! It's called Vocabulary Cartoons- I just have him read one page a day and he really loves it!! We're also really loving Michael Clay Thompson for grammar- it's really nice because we read the book together for a few days, but now he just practices one sentence a day and so it's totally independent now! We were using LOE Essentials also and it was tricky to piece-meal an LA curriculum together, but I think we've landed on some gems!
You are doing wonderful!! It feels hard because it is hard!! ❤
We have such similar curriculum choices! Thank you so much for your offer - I would honestly love to hear about your favorite resources from level 5. Please email me, my email is linked in the description box (I can't put it in this comment or YT will delete the comment!)
Although my son is older than your kiddos, I like watching your updates. I have learned about Novare curriculum from you. Thank you for the recommendation. We planning to use all of their science books for high school. We are using Biology right now.
We love All About Spelling. My son is 12, and we are starting Level 7 (we did all levels). It is one of my son's favorite curriculums although he is a very reluctant writer. He loves funny sentences in AAS. At this point we skip some lessons or do 2 lessons in one sitting because he already knows how to spell pretty well. Level 6 took us 6 months.
As for writing curriculums, have you looked into Brave Writer? IEW did not work for my son for similar reasons. He did not like banned words and that he artificially had to add words or clauses to his sentences. I did not force that too much. We dropped IEW after 4-5 months or so. Brave Writer classes work wonders for my son who does not like to write. Their instructors are really good. They give great feedback to the student - my son's favorite part of the class :). Their classes are pricey but we do only a couple of them a year.
We are planning Novare Life Science for next year and I am so excited! Also, I love Brave Writer, I was just pulling out my resources and seeing what we could use for the spring!
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The most important thing you can do is ask your kid if they want school or to be homeschooled and listen to them.
Homeschooling left me scu*c*d*al and i dont care mich for my parents and i trully believe its child abuse.
I’m so sorry to hear that was your experience. I hope you are in a better place now!
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