thowell Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 This is mostly for dd9 who is in 4th grade now. She is currently using Abeka which is what she has used since K in the school she attended. We started the year with MEP Y3 and she was totally confused. She has never learned the conceptual thinking the program required. We went back to Abeka. She is not bad at math but not really a mathy kid. I should also mention that she hates math so making her happy is probably not going to happen. My biggest concern is making sure she learns what she needs to. What I have noticed, she needs review however, I dont feel that Abeka spends enough time on one concept for her to master it. We have to add in alot of extra worksheets to have her master the skill. She also seems to forget how to do problems if they are not reviewed alot. She would probably do better with shorter lessons, I cant see her spending an hour a day on math and making it through without a meltdown. As of now she works about 25-30 minutes a day and seems to be able to handle it. Sooooooo I have looked at a thousand different math programs and have no idea which one to chose!:confused::confused: Please help any suggestions welcome! (ohElizabeth, are you watching? would love to hear what you think) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thowell Posted January 19, 2010 Author Share Posted January 19, 2010 I should also mention that I cant afford to spend a fortune on math. $100 tops but would like to spend less than that. Of course if dd6 and dd9 can get in the same program I could reuse some things later for dd6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIch elle Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 (edited) Christian Light Math looks like it would fit but would perhaps take your dc longer than 30 min to complete. We started it in gr. 5 so I don't know about the younger grades. Short lessons, lots of continuous review, and drill too. CLE math is considered to be advanced so take a look at the S&S and the samples of grade 4 & 5 at clp.org EDIT: oops, we started CLE math in grade FIVE not 6! Edited January 19, 2010 by MIch elle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i.love.lucy Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Christian Light Math looks like it would fit but would perhaps take your dc longer than 30 min to complete. I started it in gr. 6 so I don't know about the younger grades. Short lessons, lots of continuous review, and drill too. CLE math is considered to be advanced so take a look at the S&S and the samples of grade 4 & 5 at clp.org :iagree:We've done well with it also. My dd is also 9 and in 4th grade, and sounds a lot like yours. When I pulled her from school I put her in Singapore which she and I both HATED. Now that we are in CLE I hardly get any grumbles except good natured ones and she is doing very, very well. FWIW, I did start her in the 300 level because I had heard the program is advanced and I wanted to make sure she didn't have any holes. So we breezed through the first several light units by doing 2 lessons a day (still only 30 minutes) but now we have slowed down to 1 lesson a day. She still likes it a lot. It's also inexpensive, but it's consumable, so I am not sure if it fits your criteria in that way. As a matter of fact, that's one of the things my dd loves about it. No textbook to copy out of, everything is in one place. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thowell Posted January 19, 2010 Author Share Posted January 19, 2010 :iagree:We've done well with it also. My dd is also 9 and in 4th grade, and sounds a lot like yours. When I pulled her from school I put her in Singapore which she and I both HATED. Now that we are in CLE I hardly get any grumbles except good natured ones and she is doing very, very well. FWIW, I did start her in the 300 level because I had heard the program is advanced and I wanted to make sure she didn't have any holes. So we breezed through the first several light units by doing 2 lessons a day (still only 30 minutes) but now we have slowed down to 1 lesson a day. She still likes it a lot. It's also inexpensive, but it's consumable, so I am not sure if it fits your criteria in that way. As a matter of fact, that's one of the things my dd loves about it. No textbook to copy out of, everything is in one place. HTH! I will look into this again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mystika1 Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 Christian Light Math :iagree: Great inexpensive choice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veritaserum Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 I was going to suggest CLE as well. My dd (9.5, 4th grade) has been having a really tough time with MUS Gamma. We started it a full year ago and it's just like pulling teeth to get her to do it. I switched dd7.5 to CLE 100 a few months ago and she loves it (cries at the merest hint of looking at any other math program), so I printed off some samples for my older dd. She loves it! Right now I'm going to have her work through the sample pages from each Light Unit of 300 and 400 and then I'll have her take the placement test for math. I think by doing this I can have her start either halfway through 400 or maybe start with level 500. Some nice things I noticed from the samples is that it's directed to the student (takes the pressure off of me to hold her hand through the whole lesson) and it has the student do a pretest. If the student passes the pretest, she can go on to the next lesson. If she doesn't pass the pretest, she does the lesson. I think that's a brilliant idea to prevent tears of bored frustration. Honestly, I'm surprised I like it as much as I do. I vastly prefer secular programs, but the religion in this is pretty toned down (in case you were wondering). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corraleno Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 Math Mammoth is cheap ($30 for a complete one-year curriculum, including chapter reviews, tests, and answer key), it's reusable for other kids (just print out new sheets), it's written to the student, and it teaches the kind of conceptual thinking that you get in Singapore or MEP, but in a much more gradual, step-by-step way. It's very thorough, and it's challenging in a way that makes kids think, without making them frustrated and confused. The lessons are short, only 1-2 pages per day ~ e.g. for 4th Grade, there are 312 lesson pages, so if you school 40 wks/yr, that's an average of 7-8 pages per week. My son does about 2 pages/day, my DD7 who loves math often does 4-5 pages. It takes her around 10-20 minutes per page, so you could easily get through the whole text just doing 15-30 mins/day. And even though it doesn't take a lot of time, the concepts really stick because of the way they're explained, illustrated, and reinforced. http://www.mathmammoth.com/complete-curriculum.php Jackie ETA: MM currently only goes up to 5th grade, but 6th Grade should be released this summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thowell Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 Do you need TE for CLE? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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