Math angst

For the past seven years, I've always thought I would find THE math program and stick with it all the way through, but I haven't found it yet. We are getting very textbook bored of math. Over the years we've gone from the public school textbook to Singapore Math to Math U See to Saxon Math to the Key to Series. It's a lot of different math to try.

I really liked Singapore, but found there wasn't enough of an explanation of the concepts, however the lessons were short and sweet. In Math U See, for most of my kids, it was too much of one thing over and over again, nice manipulative blocks though. Saxon has great explanations, but too many questions and there's no workbook. In the Key to Series it has clear explanations, the pages aren't too overwhelming and it's a workbook. All in all, I like the Key to Series and my kids seem to like it so far, but again, each little workbook is on one concept. Right now, we are using the Key to Series and Saxon, but I wish there was some magic program out there that explained the concepts well, had a, fill in the answers, workbook, had a reasonable amount of questions, review of other concepts and was FUN.

I've looked into Teaching Textbooks and must find out from other kids, what they think of the computer math program. I think it was designed and developed by a couple of homeschooled brothers who went to Harvard(?). The kids can use a scrap piece of paper to work out the problem and then plunk their answer into the question on the computer. I came across Hands-on Equations while on another blog, it's a hands-on tool for learning algebra and it looks fun.

I guess we'll keep on using the Key to Fractions workbooks and Key to Algebra workbooks plus look at other concepts in Saxon for a while. Maybe I'll order the Hands-on Equations, because I know Owen would really like it as he is a hands-on kind of guy. In the late spring, I might consider using the Teaching Textbooks Algebra for the girls, maybe it will be THE math program. Apparently, this lady thinks there is no "one" math program, but her kids seem to enjoy the Teaching Textbooks, so I'm hopeful.

I just found this about "The Life of Fred" math books and copied it here, I wonder what these books are like:


"The Life of Fred books are self-teaching. Parents are encouraged NOT to teach the material. Here's why: I believe that English and reading are more important that mathematics (and I have a Ph.D. in math!) Increasingly, as the children go through their years of elementary school, high school, and college, they learn by reading more than by lectures. In kindergarten, virtually everything they learn is from the teacher's mouth. By graduate school, sitting around in seminars discussing what you have read becomes normative. And after college, the graduate faces 40 or more years in which virtually everything of importance that is learned is from reading---not from the Discovery Channel on television. Children are human. They seek labor-saving approaches to life. When reading in any math book, when they hit something they don't understand, they immediate choice is to cry from help from mama. And mama comes running (it's hard-wired into our species) and "helps" the little one. And this has several negative effects: (1) It teaches the child to whine (which can drive parents crazy) and (2) The child never learns to read in order to understand. If the parent says, "Dr. Schmidt says that I'm not supposed to help you," the child will go back and re-read the passage a second time--at a slower speed--and will find it understandable. The Life of Fred books are clear if they're not read at the same speed you read comic books. I have told parents that if the child still can't understand the material, they can phone me! I've had about five or six calls over the last half dozen years."