Thank you so much, everyone. I bought the Singapore books, and we're going to give it a whirl. I feel a lot better about the whole thing! Thanks again 😊

It sounds like I need to increase the drills in a fun way. I'll try to look into that. I have looked at Teaching Textbooks, Singapore, and briefly at Beast Academy. I might need to just modify Saxon to make it more fun instead of switching curriculum again. I'm so bad at modifying. I struggle with supplementing because that means time away from the book, and I always get scared we'll get behind. If I have a plan, I do well, but I'm rotten at winging it.

Thank you- sounds like good advice.

She could figure out a way to multiply most things, so five times six might be counting by fives six times. Other ones were more complicated, but she could figure it out in a way I wouldn't have expected. She just didn't have anything memorized and could never recall anything that she'd worked out before. The bigger problems we had with RightStart were that I was pulling my hair out trying to teach it, and the games didn't get played often enough because the lesson took too long. I had a hard time understanding the lesson on the fly because I was constantly being interrupted by the younger ones. It took a lot of mental effort for me, and I never could get organized enough to prepare a lesson well. I wondered if having the second edition would have helped. Or if I could have adapted lessons better to suit her? Overall, I just burned out really badly and wanted something open and go. I'm revisiting it all right now.

Yes- we were doing RightStart when she liked Math. We jumped ship during third grade in level C. She could understand how to multiply based on what it meant and then spend thirty minutes trying to work out 5x6. She never could add or subtract quickly, either. She liked the games and the fact that it was a lot of mental math and just answering questions out loud but there was very little writing or drills (her least favorites).

My daughter is in 5th grade, and I'm looking for math curriculum suggestions. We did RightStart for three years then switched to Saxon. She loved RightStart, but I found it exhausting to teach. I also noticed that she was falling way behind on her basic math skills. She understood concepts flawlessly but spent ages trying to work out basic math problems. Switching to Saxon took care of this. She benefited tremendously from the constant repetition and really is doing well in math overall. We have two major problems, though. She hates it, and a lesson takes her forever. She has ADHD, and is extraordinarily inattentive (not at all hyperactive), and even having her do only evens or odds or shortcutting through a lesson in some other way, it still takes all morning. The bigger problem is that she hates math now. She thinks it's not Saxon but just math, but I remember when she liked math! I want to get back to that. I don't think it would take so long if she just liked it. She loves computer work, but I don't let her do much of anything on the computer since I want her learning with real pen and paper. I've considered letting her do math, though, since it could be motivating. She absolutely loves reading, for whatever that's worth. I have five kids, our youngest being medically fragile, and I'm now in my third trimester with #6. We are moving out of state in four months. I can't do anything teacher intensive, unfortunately! Any ideas??

Thank you for your reply. I'm thinking specifically of work that requires writing. He has to sit to do handwriting, spelling, and math just because it requires writing. He's fine with me reading to him or asking him questions. He loves sitting with me and talking about things. He just doesn't want to sit and write ever.

Wendyroo, thank you so much for your input and putting in the effort to share all the details. ADHD has been a huge struggle for me to deal with. It was the first thing to bring home the reality of how homeschooling isn't about me and what I want- it's about my kids and what they need. I still don't know if I have figured out what helps things go smoothly. I would say the fact that my children don't transition well from one thing to another is hard for me to know how to handle. I need to have complete consistency, but I burn myself out fast, and then we take breaks, and then we don't get back to it without an enormous amount of resistance. I also have no idea how to make school more enjoyable for everyone. My son hates it, and I think it's just because he has to sit still. I'm sure I could be more creative or fun, but I can't imagine how. I spent months of this past year in the hospital with the baby, so life has just been nuts. I'm so nervous about even starting school. Anyway, thanks again!

Okay, guys. I really need some help! To paint a picture of our family situation right now, my oldest is going into fifth grade, my second is going into second grade, and my third will be in kindergarten this year. I will have a three year old in tow (who does pretty well with being distracted with coloring books, busy toys, etc.), and my youngest just turned one. My one year old has a genetic condition that makes him medically fragile, significantly delayed, and very small for his age (in other words, even though he's a year, he's only rolling around in a small space right now, but he needs feeds, meds, flushes, etc, through his feeding tube). I also just found out that I'm pregnant. So far, I have done every subject separately with my two school aged children. That was okay for the last two years. Now, though, I'm adding a third kid into the school mix, and I really don't have enough time to keep doing it the way I've been doing it. I know that there are people doing at least a few subjects together with multiple grades, but I don't know how they are doing it exactly. I would think religion, history, and science could be together, but I am seriously struggling to figure out exactly how. I know we'll be doing American history this school year, but other than that, I don't know specifics. I have a History textbook that I'd like my 5th grader to do (From Sea to Shining Sea), but it would be too in depth for the others. We do Horizons for math for my 2nd grader and Saxon for my fifth grader. I don't have a clue what I'll do for my kindergartner. I've always just pieced together our curriculum, but I'm floundering a bit right now. My fifth grader has ADHD, inattentive. My second grader has ADHD, very hyperactive. My kindergartner is a completely traditional, straightforward kind of kid. I know there are plenty of moms who can just wing it and make things work, but I definitely cannot. I need to have a plan going in, or we just eventually stop doing school. Any advice is welcome. Thank you!!!

Thank you so much, everyone! I feel like I have a better handle on what's available. I appreciate it!

Janeway, thank you for taking the time to write all that out for me. That is extremely helpful information, and I will take it all into consideration!

Thank you all so much for the input. That's similar to what I've hear about Saxon in the lower levels- thank you for the input. I have not looked into Rod and Staff, so I will check that out! Thanks for the insight into Singapore. I do understand that I'm going to have to teach, I just need it to be a type of teaching that is simple and straightforward rather than something that takes a whole lot of brain power (like RightStart). I'm guessing that part of that is because it is teaching math in a way that is so dissimilar to the way I learned it. Thank you for weighing in! Glad to hear a positive experience with Horizons, and it's good to know the terminology for the differences (mastery vs spiral, etc.). I will keep that in mind. No, I have not- I don't know the first thing about Math Mammoth, but I will definitely check it out. I'm glad to hear more about Horizons. Can you tell me why you liked Horizons better than Abeka? Also, do you mind explaining the acronyms for me? I'm not sure what CWP, MiF, or HOE are. Sorry! And thank you!

Calbear- thank you so much for your response! I didn't mention Saxon only because I've never heard it recommended for the younger grades and don't know anyone personally who has used it for their littles. My understanding was that it is a different program for K-3 than it is for 4th and above. I've only used the fourth grade book, so I don't know anything about the younger grades. I thought it was more teacher intensive and manipulative heavy. Is that incorrect? Thank you for the link- I will check that out!

Hello, everyone. Here's just a little backstory to my question: I have two school-aged children plus a preschooler (3 yrs old) and an almost 2 year old. I am due with our fifth in about a month. I have been using RightStart Math with my daughter (levels A-D), until I finally switched to Saxon at the end of this school year. I started my son with RightStart A in kindergarten this year. I felt like RightStart was a great choice for my daughter since she has ADHD and really needed a hands-on, out of the box approach. She learned the concepts really well and her mental math was impressive to me. I finally stopped using it when her conceptual understanding became significantly better than her ability to "just do the math" so to speak. In other words, she could grasp concepts that were at a very high level, but any number of simple subtraction facts would stall her for hours. She could multiply by "figuring it out" but not by remembering any facts of any kind, so it would take a VERY long time. What finally did me in, though, was the intensity of teaching RightStart. I just don't have it in me! Not with the little ones all around demanding my attention, etc. Once we switched to Saxon, her ability to use her concepts to actually do the drills went up exponentially. She's filling in the gaps and doing really well in math overall. So that is the long version of my experience teaching math thus far. So my question is for my son. We are finishing up his kindergarten year, and I have not felt like RightStart was as good a fit for him. I already kind of hate teaching it (such strong words!), but it seems, if anything, too out of the box for him. He's a traditional sort of fellow and all the manipulatives and tally marks, etc. seem to round about for him. He just wants to get to the adding, subtracting, and using actual numbers already. He also enjoys sitting down and using workbooks (which my daughter couldn't do at his age). All that to say, I've looked at Abeka and Horizons which seem similar in their approach (is that right??), and I've looked at Singapore. Singapore seems to enjoy a great reputation that I'm not sure the others share, and all three seem to be a sit-down workbook type of program. Can anyone tell me anything more in detail about working with these programs? Singapore is pretty darn confusing with their myriad of textbook options. I feel like I should go with them since I keep hearing about it being better, but I'm not sure if it really is and if it is also a more "out of the box" kind of curriculum or not. My two goals are to find something that is really easy to use and something that doesn't re-invent the wheel but gives a rock solid math foundation. Since I'm just spinning in circles at this point, I would love it if someone could give me some advice from their own experience! Thank you so much!!!

We are also Catholic and concerned about many of the same things. We couldn't handle SOTW, so I switched us to The Human Odyssey by k12 (bought used on Amazon). It was MUCH better for us. I am also pregnant (due in August) and have three children, and I really can't do a lot of extra, but we felt that the book itself was engaging enough that we didn't need anything else. My plan was simply to read about five pages aloud and then ask a few questions (whatever I felt were the main points) and then let her dictate or write out the answers in her notebook. I always let her draw on her whiteboard while she listens since this helps her listen better :). Every now and then we'd grab some complimentary books from the library, but not often. We liked having real pictures instead of sparse drawings, and the text was engaging. I felt that it handled church history really well- it was certainly not Anti-Catholic, and it taught about Jesus, the apostles, saints, and even monks factually and favorably. I did skip some parts that I knew we could cover in our reading of the New Testament better than in the history book. Since I haven't come across anything that I like better, we'll be moving on to the next volume this year. I will say that it's intended for 8th graders, so I read aloud with the goal of adapting a bit more to her level as I go. I hope this helps!