New Math Path, please assist!

[Murrayshire]

So the kids and I have decided to move away from Saxon math for the upcoming school year. My youngest ds has been working on Math Mammoth & LOF successfully after leaving Saxon after completing Saxon 1. My oldest dd (rising 8th grader) has done well with Saxon but really wants a change. She tried out Teaching Textbooks at our convention last week and loved it. She will be using TT Alg. 1 with LOF....supplementing with Khan Academy if needed. I hope I'm not messing up her future line of excellence in math. :sad:

 

Here is where I'm running into some issues. My rising 5th grader scored average in math calculation & math fluency but above average in applied problems. (First of all, she is my toughy child...hard to get her going unless it is something she is interested in, like horses.) She has used Saxon 5/4 all year...first part with Saxon Teacher (and mom looking over shoulder) then the rest of the year with Mom teaching it. I know it just didn't click with her. We finished Saxon 5/4 and I even purchased 6/5 (still in plastic). Oh, and she is a LOF lover, too.

 

I gave her the placement test(end of 3rd grade) for Math Mammoth last week ( I already own light blue 1-6) and she scored a 163/207 with 166 being 80%. Her greatest difficulty was the geometry, measurements, & fractions. I emailed Marie Miller, MM creator, and she suggested that I concurrently go over these 3 difficult chapters with first part of 4th grade MM.

 

Just out of curiosity, I gave her the TT placement tests and she ended up placing in 6th grade.

 

So, knowing my dd is excited about using MM, now she is excited about TT. :toetap05: I am thrilled that she is even excited about MATH at all!! :001_smile: That of course got me thinking....Would I be crazy to let her do Math Mammoth 4....(this is for 5th grade)....working to 5....concurrently with TT6....and LOF on Fridays? Alternating days maybe? Any suggestions? We will go ahead and start the MM3 difficulty chapters with MM4 very soon....then maybe in a couple months start TT6.

[IrishMum]

All my boys work on a few math curricula at the same time. For example my 4th grader is doing MM as a main math, revision with Beast Academy & LOF.

I looked into TT a few years ago, and found it placed my boys in higher 'grades' than I felt they were. So TT grade 6 is equivalent to a lower MM grade, IYKWIM?

[Mom0012]

My dd used TT 5 when she was doing her main 3rd grade math program and TT 6 when she was doing her main 4th grade math. She really enjoyed it. I think she did her regular math MWFS and then did 2 lessons of TT on Tuesdays and another 2 lessons on Thursdays. Something like that. Every once in a while a TT lesson would take her longer and she would ask to do only one lesson and I always said yes. I was just glad that she was enjoying math. She loved doing anything on the computer and she liked some of the cute features of TT.

[Murrayshire]

Thanks ladies for chiming in! I haven't quite figured out how to schedule them yet.

[Chrysalis Academy]

When I brought my dd home from ps at the beginning of 4th grade, she was pretty similar to what you are describing - she tested into MM4, with holes in mental math, measurement, time, stuff like that. She also tested into TT6, even though I knew she hadn't learned multi-digit multiplication and division yet!

 

What I did was start on MM4, but going back to grade 2 & 3 worksheets (printed out from the free worksheet bundle that comes with MM, so it didn't even have a grade level on it) in the areas where she needed it - sounds like what Maria is suggesting for you. It worked beautifully.

 

We also went through the whole LOF elementary series that year, which dd loved. That was really more about rekindling love & joy in math than anything else - it didn't teach her new stuff computationally, but it got her thinking about math as she never had done before.

 

She also used TT5 for awhile. At first she really liked it, the bells & whistles, the computer math, etc. But after awhile the novely wore off, and it got kinda boring compared to what she was doing in MM & LOF. And I kept having to accelerate it to get to anything new/interesting - and it's an expensive program if you end up using less than half of it! After a few months dd asked to drop TT and just stick with MM & LOF. That's been very successful (although she did other supplements - HOE & Zaccaro - in 5th grade).

 

Anyway, hope that helps, I thought I would chime in since your dd's situation rang a bell with me.

 

ETA - sorry, I just realized this thread has been moribund for over a month - I guess I found it during a search. Oh well, might be relevant to someone, so I'll leave it up!

[Storm Bay]

So, knowing my dd is excited about using MM, now she is excited about TT. :toetap05: I am thrilled that she is even excited about MATH at all!! :001_smile: That of course got me thinking....Would I be crazy to let her do Math Mammoth 4....(this is for 5th grade)....working to 5....concurrently with TT6....and LOF on Fridays? Alternating days maybe? Any suggestions? We will go ahead and start the MM3 difficulty chapters with MM4 very soon....then maybe in a couple months start TT6.

 

Not, not crazy at all! In fact, I only recommend TT if it's a supplement or well supplemented, and LOF is a big favourite around here. I think MM, TT and then some fun LOF on Fridays sounds like a great plan. If I were doing those 3 and chose to drop anything because it was too much, it would be TT .

 

My younger two did 2 math programs at once for years, but it was SM rather than MM (MM is newer & I don't think it was around yet when we started.)

[Murrayshire]

When I brought my dd home from ps at the beginning of 4th grade, she was pretty similar to what you are describing - she tested into MM4, with holes in mental math, measurement, time, stuff like that. She also tested into TT6, even though I knew she hadn't learned multi-digit multiplication and division yet!

 

What I did was start on MM4, but going back to grade 2 & 3 worksheets (printed out from the free worksheet bundle that comes with MM, so it didn't even have a grade level on it) in the areas where she needed it - sounds like what Maria is suggesting for you. It worked beautifully.

 

We also went through the whole LOF elementary series that year, which dd loved. That was really more about rekindling love & joy in math than anything else - it didn't teach her new stuff computationally, but it got her thinking about math as she never had done before.

 

She also used TT5 for awhile. At first she really liked it, the bells & whistles, the computer math, etc. But after awhile the novely wore off, and it got kinda boring compared to what she was doing in MM & LOF. And I kept having to accelerate it to get to anything new/interesting - and it's an expensive program if you end up using less than half of it! After a few months dd asked to drop TT and just stick with MM & LOF. That's been very successful (although she did other supplements - HOE & Zaccaro - in 5th grade).

 

Anyway, hope that helps, I thought I would chime in since your dd's situation rang a bell with me.

 

ETA - sorry, I just realized this thread has been moribund for over a month - I guess I found it during a search. Oh well, might be relevant to someone, so I'll leave it up!

 

Thank you for chiming in! I don't mind a bit that this thread is just a tad old......My rising 5th grader is slowly going through MM4 and I'm also filling in with certain topics from 3rd. I feel like she will be behind in math if she doesn't get to MM5 in 5th grade. I know that's crazy talk but I still have that thought in the back of my mind. It has been slow going with MM4....with all the mental math that she (nor I) are used to. Anyway....thanks for chatting!

[Chrysalis Academy]

I thought we would never make it through the mental math chapter in MM4! I posted here worrying that we'd not finish MM4 in 4th grade and be "behind" in math. People suggested I take a chill pill, and wait and see what happened, which was good advice - once she got through the mental math stuff and learned to really think through problem-solving, she started moving much faster, and we're now at the end of 5th grade, having gone through MM 4 & 5, LOF Apples-Decimals, plus a bunch of other supplements, and being right on track where I wanted us to be. So, courage!