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Our Math Curriculum Journey
Our math journey has been very winding. We’ve gone through 11 different curricula!
A bit about us and our kids: we're both math minded and our kids are also good at math. They pick up on concepts quickly and easily and don't need a lot of repetition.
We went through 11 different curricula from Kindergarten through High school. We don't recommend changing lightly, so we thought we'd talk about our experience with each one and why we changed each time.
1. Kinder-math - Good, beyond counting, skip counting, clocks, money
2. Rod and Staff - Good and solid, plain. Pretty dry, bare bones math practice. Too many practice problems. Too much instruction since kids were fast.
3. Horizon - Similar to Rod and Staff—Geared for kids that aren’t as great as math.
4. Saxon - Too spirally. Slow path to mastery. Keeps it interesting and prevents pages of math problems in one crack but spaced it out over weeks.
5. Life of Fred - Still love the idea. Good for kids who are scared of math. As a parent it’s Difficult to reference to figure out the teaching when the kids need help. Stories slow down math lessons for math-minded kids.
6. Math on the Level - Good for the kids, bad for mom. May have fixed the problem recently.
7. Beast Academy - Comic book form. Only did 1 book of 4 for a year. It Tried to teach shortcuts, but the kids found it obvious and intuitive. Our kids don’t like comic books and one student didn’t think that way so it was confusing.
8. Khan Academy - At the time, bad answer recognition online. Self pace was good, but made it hard to know how to assign work. Online only (YouTube access required) and coordinated problems.
9. Prentice Hall book (Algebra 1) - Old school. Lesson a day. Directed by Lisa entirely. Arguing a ton.
10. BJU videos (Geometry, Algebra 2) - Chose because they had discs. It was OK, worked for our needs, but it was dry. Geometry guy was pretty dry, Algebra 2 lady more engaging. Usually reasonable number of assigned problems. Manual grading with answer key.
11. Shorrmann (PreCal) - Online, videos, preparing for calculus. Answers with immediate feedback, questions linked to guidance. And could submit questions if you were still stuck.
How can this work? We're confident in OUR math skills and our kids were good at math. Since elementary math was quick and easy for them we weren't worried that the frequent changes would get them behind.
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By Doug Clark, Lisa ClarkOur math journey has been very winding. We’ve gone through 11 different curricula!
A bit about us and our kids: we're both math minded and our kids are also good at math. They pick up on concepts quickly and easily and don't need a lot of repetition.
We went through 11 different curricula from Kindergarten through High school. We don't recommend changing lightly, so we thought we'd talk about our experience with each one and why we changed each time.
1. Kinder-math - Good, beyond counting, skip counting, clocks, money
2. Rod and Staff - Good and solid, plain. Pretty dry, bare bones math practice. Too many practice problems. Too much instruction since kids were fast.
3. Horizon - Similar to Rod and Staff—Geared for kids that aren’t as great as math.
4. Saxon - Too spirally. Slow path to mastery. Keeps it interesting and prevents pages of math problems in one crack but spaced it out over weeks.
5. Life of Fred - Still love the idea. Good for kids who are scared of math. As a parent it’s Difficult to reference to figure out the teaching when the kids need help. Stories slow down math lessons for math-minded kids.
6. Math on the Level - Good for the kids, bad for mom. May have fixed the problem recently.
7. Beast Academy - Comic book form. Only did 1 book of 4 for a year. It Tried to teach shortcuts, but the kids found it obvious and intuitive. Our kids don’t like comic books and one student didn’t think that way so it was confusing.
8. Khan Academy - At the time, bad answer recognition online. Self pace was good, but made it hard to know how to assign work. Online only (YouTube access required) and coordinated problems.
9. Prentice Hall book (Algebra 1) - Old school. Lesson a day. Directed by Lisa entirely. Arguing a ton.
10. BJU videos (Geometry, Algebra 2) - Chose because they had discs. It was OK, worked for our needs, but it was dry. Geometry guy was pretty dry, Algebra 2 lady more engaging. Usually reasonable number of assigned problems. Manual grading with answer key.
11. Shorrmann (PreCal) - Online, videos, preparing for calculus. Answers with immediate feedback, questions linked to guidance. And could submit questions if you were still stuck.
How can this work? We're confident in OUR math skills and our kids were good at math. Since elementary math was quick and easy for them we weren't worried that the frequent changes would get them behind.