Math suggestions, please!

[AsgardCA]

Crossposted.

 

DS7 does math for fun. He uses his birthday money to buy workbooks from the store. I've bought them to tide him over until I can find a new curriculum for him, but he breezes through them. I'm lucky if I can pace him and make them last a week.

 

He was doing Saxon 1 last year, but it was just so easy for him. I was going to bump him up to Saxon 2, but I don't think Saxon is a good fit for him. The (store-bought) workbook he just finished was labeled Grade 3. He finally got some stuff he hadn't seen before. I'm not sure where to go from here though. I need to find him something that will keep him progressing. I was thinking maybe I should buy a textbook, like public schools use, and let him work through it or assign him pages. At least the pages and pages of problems would give him extra practice where he needs it.

 

Am I supposed to be teaching him math? I know that probably sounds like a silly question but he's been pretty much self-sufficient in math since he was 4. When he gets stuck, he asks for clarification, but he can usually figure it out himself and seems to prefer that. Sometimes I do explain a bit before he tries something new, but only a few minutes. Is that enough?

 

He's been finished that last workbook for a while now and I've been trying to find something more substantial than getting a grade 4 workbook, but maybe I should get one to hold us until curriculum?

[sbgrace]

Are you also using MEP (in your signature)? Are you looking for just fun stuff for him to do on the side, then, in addition to MEP? Or are you instead using Saxon (I see you have lots of littles, and I know MEP is teacher intensive)?

 

I think I would pick up some more challenging materials--maybe Singapore Challenging Word Problems or Intensive Practice workbooks maybe? There are probably other ones too! But maybe the different approach would be interesting and also more challenging to him.

[ByGrace3]

Sounds like math mammoth might be a good fit. It is on sale for the next few days on the homeschool buyers co op and you can get grades 1-6 for an amazing price. Then you can speed through as you want without spending a ton of money. Also it is a work text so often is pretty independent.

[boscopup]

I'd also suggest Math Mammoth in your case. My son was similar at that stage. We eventually got to math that required teaching. :D

 

 

I'd also take a look at Beast Academy.

[AsgardCA]

Are you also using MEP (in your signature)? Are you looking for just fun stuff for him to do on the side, then, in addition to MEP? Or are you instead using Saxon (I see you have lots of littles, and I know MEP is teacher intensive)?

 

I think I would pick up some more challenging materials--maybe Singapore Challenging Word Problems or Intensive Practice workbooks maybe? There are probably other ones too! But maybe the different approach would be interesting and also more challenging to him.

 

I haven't updated my signature, but yes, we did try MEP. It was, well, different than what they're used to. I started him off at the beginning so he could get used to the idea of doing math that way, and figured he'd go through relatively fast to where he needed to be. He says he liked it, but again, he wants to do things by himself, so other than explaining how a few questions were supposed to work, he didn't want to deal with me teaching a lesson. I understood though, because he was back at stuff he knew very well.

 

I think we do have the Challenging Word Problems, and we used it today for lack of anything else for me to give him at the moment.

[AsgardCA]

Sounds like math mammoth might be a good fit. It is on sale for the next few days on the homeschool buyers co op and you can get grades 1-6 for an amazing price. Then you can speed through as you want without spending a ton of money. Also it is a work text so often is pretty independent.

 

 

I'd also suggest Math Mammoth in your case. My son was similar at that stage. We eventually got to math that required teaching. :D

 

 

I'd also take a look at Beast Academy.

 

I will definitely look into Math Mammoth. Is it the Light Blue Series that I would want? Or the Blue? I'll explore their website. Thank you :)

 

Yes, Beast Academy has been on my wishlist for a while. I wasn't sure DS was really at that level but he picks things up so easily that I don't think he'd miss a beat.

[...................]

If I could start over, I would start with Singapore or Math Mammoth for my mathy daughter.  Math in Focus has wonderful lesson manuals and very colorful, bright pages with interesting layout...MM is black and white but easier to teach and less cluttered.

[boscopup]

I'd do light blue (and did - I used it to get my son to where he really was, then I switched to Singapore once we weren't doing 3-4 levels in one year)

[ByGrace3]

If I could start over, I would start with Singapore or Math Mammoth for my mathy daughter. Math in Focus has wonderful lesson manuals and very colorful, bright pages with interesting layout...MM is black and white but easier to teach and less cluttered.

Math mammoth is only b&w in the printed materials. The download or CD is color and you can print in color. That's what we do :)

[OneStepAtATime]

I found that Math on the Level was great for helping me determine what still needs to be learned and what is missing, but I am uncertain if a child could navigate it without teacher assistance.  We actually pair Math on the Level with Math Mammoth and Teaching Textbooks.  Math on the Level is not structured by grade.  It gives you a way to look at ALL math concepts that are supposed to be learned by 8th grade and then shows you how to learn those concepts and when to interweave new ones.  It also gives lots of real world examples, since the goal of this system is not to teach to standardized tests but to give really good comprehension skills for math concepts and how those concepts will be needed throughout life.  I had never thought of math holistically before.  This gave me a whole new perspective on math.