I thought Flower could benefit from these PBS math videos.......The girls on here seem pretty silly & annoying at times, but.....there are some helpful math tips explained!
Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
A New Path in Math!
Up until now we have used Saxon Math. We've used K, 1, 2, 3, 5/4, 7/6, 8/7.
Flower used 7/6 and 8/7 (6th & 7th grades) but isn't keen with staying with Saxon for Algebra I (8th grade). We choose to go with Teaching Textbooks Algebra I concurrently with Life of Fred books and Khan Academy if she runs into problems. I "think" with these together, we will have a well rounded Algebra year. (She is using the pre-algebra LOF now)
Thumper has been pretty happy with Math Mammoth and Life of Fred together. He always opts to do LOF first and then MM. After using Saxon K &1st with him, I decided to not move on with 2nd level for him. He dreaded math every day and that is not the hopes of any parent. In the middle of the year we started MM (that's when we completed Saxon 1) starting with MM 1-A. He is nearly finished with 1-A and I hope we can get through 1-B before September, but I'm not going to rush it. He'll get there when he gets there as long as we stay on track and not go over too many bumps. We have read LOF Apples and are halfway through Butterflies, now. I catch him drawing Fred and Kingie a lot and on everything. For review and more practice, we use ixl.com....Thumper isn't crazy about it but that's because some of it is challenging for him. We are working through that!
Bambi has used Saxon 2/Horizons 2 in second grade, Saxon 3 in 3rd, and has just finished Saxon 5/4 for 4th. This year has been tough in math for her. She tested just dandy on her yearly testing in May and outstanding in applied problems in math. Saxon 5/4 I feel just jumped around too much for her to handle this year. This the reason for switching.....I gave her the end of grade 3 placement test for MM last week and she scored a 163. A score of 166 is 80% which would qualify her to move on to grade 4 MM. Just looking at grade 4 MM, I knew we wouldn't even attempt it. It's that advanced compared to Saxon. So, unsure of where to place Bambi, I emailed the creator of MM (Maria Miller) for her advice. The difficult parts for her in the test were Fractions (which we only touched on in Saxon), Measurements, & Geometry. Her advice was to go over those three topics in grade 3 then move onto grade 4. Or, we could do them concurrently. Luckily, I bought levels 1-6 of MM on Buyers Co-op for a ridiculously low price. Bambi has started LOF Goldfish and will work on her own pace through intermediate by the end of 5th grade. This summer her goal is to catch up with difficult areas and master facts!
Out of curiosity, I gave Bambi the placement tests for Teaching Textbooks. She took the placement test for Math 5 and Math 6. She ended up on Math 6 TT. Over the summer, we are going to think about letting her use Math 6 with MM and LOF. Doing the demo on TT, got her excited about math. So, if we just try to find a used copy to let her use to boost moral, then so be it! Plus she will be learning!
I know this was a pretty lengthy math post but it was much needed on my end. I see the whole path before me when I read it!
Flower used 7/6 and 8/7 (6th & 7th grades) but isn't keen with staying with Saxon for Algebra I (8th grade). We choose to go with Teaching Textbooks Algebra I concurrently with Life of Fred books and Khan Academy if she runs into problems. I "think" with these together, we will have a well rounded Algebra year. (She is using the pre-algebra LOF now)
Thumper has been pretty happy with Math Mammoth and Life of Fred together. He always opts to do LOF first and then MM. After using Saxon K &1st with him, I decided to not move on with 2nd level for him. He dreaded math every day and that is not the hopes of any parent. In the middle of the year we started MM (that's when we completed Saxon 1) starting with MM 1-A. He is nearly finished with 1-A and I hope we can get through 1-B before September, but I'm not going to rush it. He'll get there when he gets there as long as we stay on track and not go over too many bumps. We have read LOF Apples and are halfway through Butterflies, now. I catch him drawing Fred and Kingie a lot and on everything. For review and more practice, we use ixl.com....Thumper isn't crazy about it but that's because some of it is challenging for him. We are working through that!
Artwork by Thumper
Bambi has used Saxon 2/Horizons 2 in second grade, Saxon 3 in 3rd, and has just finished Saxon 5/4 for 4th. This year has been tough in math for her. She tested just dandy on her yearly testing in May and outstanding in applied problems in math. Saxon 5/4 I feel just jumped around too much for her to handle this year. This the reason for switching.....I gave her the end of grade 3 placement test for MM last week and she scored a 163. A score of 166 is 80% which would qualify her to move on to grade 4 MM. Just looking at grade 4 MM, I knew we wouldn't even attempt it. It's that advanced compared to Saxon. So, unsure of where to place Bambi, I emailed the creator of MM (Maria Miller) for her advice. The difficult parts for her in the test were Fractions (which we only touched on in Saxon), Measurements, & Geometry. Her advice was to go over those three topics in grade 3 then move onto grade 4. Or, we could do them concurrently. Luckily, I bought levels 1-6 of MM on Buyers Co-op for a ridiculously low price. Bambi has started LOF Goldfish and will work on her own pace through intermediate by the end of 5th grade. This summer her goal is to catch up with difficult areas and master facts!
Out of curiosity, I gave Bambi the placement tests for Teaching Textbooks. She took the placement test for Math 5 and Math 6. She ended up on Math 6 TT. Over the summer, we are going to think about letting her use Math 6 with MM and LOF. Doing the demo on TT, got her excited about math. So, if we just try to find a used copy to let her use to boost moral, then so be it! Plus she will be learning!
I know this was a pretty lengthy math post but it was much needed on my end. I see the whole path before me when I read it!
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Subscribe to Free Math Worksheets from Classroom Professor
Classroom Professor is awesome! These are all free and he sends the videos, with corresponding worksheets, to your inbox each week!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Changing up Curriculum
Thumper has completed All About Spelling 2 yesterday. For the rest of the week we are just reviewing key cards, phonogram cards, and word cards. I think instead of moving to Level 3, we are going to go over words from AAS1 and AAS2. I'm not in any big hurry to get him into level three yet. I much rather know that he is absolutely ready to move on and I don't feel that way yet. He is an almost natural speller. He rather study like it was a spelling bee than writing it down! But he has kept up with his AAS notebook for each step. You can see the one I made for him on "1st Grade Learning" page.
We finshed Saxon Math before December and since then we have been just reviewing math facts using his flash cards, XtraMath, and Right Start Games. He has been doing his calendar wall each day, too! I already had Saxon2 for him to start but then I discovered Math Mammoth and even though I think Thumper would learn better with more review, Math Mammoth was just too inticing. I love the simplicity of it but it is mastery based and that's not what Thumper needs. So right now we are using Math Mammoth Grade 1, Saxon 2, and filling in gaps with ixl.com & Right Start games. I know it seems like a lot of MATH but we don't use it all in one math lesson. Much of the beginning of Saxon 2 was review of Saxon 1.....so I gave Thumper the first written assessment in the book and he didn't have any problems with it! This morning we had our first lesson with Lesson 11 instead of 1. This afternoon he did a little bit of Math Mammoth independently, too. I will probably save Fridays open for just math games and math facts. That's the plan right now but we homeschoolers know that everything is subject to change without notice!:)
We finshed Saxon Math before December and since then we have been just reviewing math facts using his flash cards, XtraMath, and Right Start Games. He has been doing his calendar wall each day, too! I already had Saxon2 for him to start but then I discovered Math Mammoth and even though I think Thumper would learn better with more review, Math Mammoth was just too inticing. I love the simplicity of it but it is mastery based and that's not what Thumper needs. So right now we are using Math Mammoth Grade 1, Saxon 2, and filling in gaps with ixl.com & Right Start games. I know it seems like a lot of MATH but we don't use it all in one math lesson. Much of the beginning of Saxon 2 was review of Saxon 1.....so I gave Thumper the first written assessment in the book and he didn't have any problems with it! This morning we had our first lesson with Lesson 11 instead of 1. This afternoon he did a little bit of Math Mammoth independently, too. I will probably save Fridays open for just math games and math facts. That's the plan right now but we homeschoolers know that everything is subject to change without notice!:)
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Pearson Math Games
I found this site through facebook.....they sent this site with some math games. I found it to be very helpful with my 4th grader!
Math Games
Math Games
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)