Saxon Math K? (pre-CM) *Solved*

[Ecclecticmum]

Updated: I put this up last night (late, when I was reaching the bottom of the barrel patience-wise). With a clear head and the replies below, I re-thought about things, re-looked at everything, and decided on CSMP (and keeping a couple of math books I have for back-up incase things go south)

 

 

 

 

 

My three children are doing completely separate math programs, so this is for my youngest.

 

What I basically want for this year is exposure and simplistic activities (play store, do a calendar, kitchen math ideas) along with some living math books. I would prefer a math program/book/ideas guide that used natures math materials (beans, sticks etc) but all seem to use their own fancy schmancy plastic crud (like I don't have enough of that, LOL)

 

I have the Mathstart books I plan to use, and can use Living Math's Early concepts reader lists. If needed I *could* download some sort of calendar book (my youngest has an obsession that ebbs and flows with worksheets, so I'd rather have none or a teensy amount, so something like a calendar and the odd non-twaddle (we love fun activity sheets, just not ones that are busywork and have no point to them) sheet.

 

Mostly I want REAL-LIFE MATH EXPERIENCES/IDEAS. Like Kitchen measuring & weighing, playing store/vets, counting the pasta for dinner. I am really not good at all at coming up with those sorts of things, and don't really have time to research and put one together.

 

Books I have purchased (family math, math arts, math play) are all filled with mostly weird/twaddle ideas, stuff that takes forever to set up, has too many rules etc.

 

Next year she'll move on to using the Math Guide by SCM (which starts with numbers, but I would like a few counting experiences included this year) I'm mostly looking for non-academic math (LOL!) stuff that is purely real-life and fun ways to introduce basic concepts and that will just pique her interest and make her feel like she is doing math like her older siblings.

 

Also in the case of informal "don't do anything" I actually need to do something I can record that doesn't look like unschooling (long story) for her. So just educationalese-ing sandpit play isn't an option.

 

I've been searching for days but haven't found anything (ridiculous, why is there not a big, long list of math experiences?)

 

Two programs I have looked into:

 

Saxon Math K - Its Gentle, apparently includes calendar, store, and is non-worksheet based with activities coming straight from the parents guide, Only 12 new lessons a month, allowing for time/space in between, not too formal (or can be slightly tweaked to make it so).

 

Math By Hand - Waldorf based math set (was planning to get the Grade 1 one for her.) Downside is its a fair amount of green without many true samples and I don't think it would be worth the money (not enough ideas/games).

 

Stuff I have ruled out:

 

-Singapore (workbook)

- MUS (too workbooky/screeny)

-Rightstart (too much stuff, I resold it. the lessons bored the kids)

-MOTL (resold it)

-Horizons (workbook)

-Abeka (workbook)

-General Waldorf/Oak Meadow (too story based, my kids lose the point by the end of the story)

-Miquon (too advanced, I would really only be using pre-miquon and A1-A24 plus would need a lot of time with my mummy brain to understand the program properly)

-Shiller (annoying)

-Math Games by Peggy Kaye (too old/too many rules)

-Math Mammoth (too old for her)

-Critical Thinking (workbook)

-Math Play (too confusing, each thing too much time to set-up, too many rules)

-Math Arts (ditto)

-Family Math saga (ditto again)

-MEP (personal reasons)

-CSMP - too confusing

 

 

This is a child that needs constant practice with counting.
Ideally something that provided stuff like: Kitchen - Weighing - Let them play around with cans and your kitchen scales OR pouring different flours onto the scales OR simply measuring out items for dinner

 

Exploration, Exposure, Fun, Real & Hands-On.

 

Also if its not scheduled/written in by me, it won't get done here. I have too many other things going on, and I simply need to have that one-on-one math exploration fun time with her everyday :)

 

THANK YOU SO MUCH (from the bottom of my heart) to anyone who has any ideas, I am so at the end of my rope with looking and the new school year is almost beginning here~! :001_wub:

[Chris in VA]

We used Saxon K when dd was four (and continued in Saxon the rest of her homeschool journey). I loved it.

 

You could easily make it your structured part of math, and then just add in "stuff." Cooking, counting books and songs, playing games like Trouble (counting to 6 and seeing the dice pattern over and over), setting the table (one to one correspondance), playing with a geoboard, playing with pattern blocks and tangrams, puzzles (very good for part-whole relationships and shape recognition)....If you need "evidence" of learning (your "sandpit play" comment), you don't need to worry; play/experience with the above items is real, accepted means of education in K. 

[Staysea]

I use Mcruffy K Math.  Its not exactly what you are talking about, but I've heard its more fun then saxon.  DD loves it.  Its lots of manipulatives, very little workbook work and some fun games thrown in.  Its spiral, and just really fun.  You could even tweak some of the lessons.  Like instead of just counting the money, set up a quick store. 

[Classically Minded]

Honestly, you don't need Saxon K because Saxon 1 will work in K.  I started my dd with Saxon 1 in K and she did fine because it really is that simple.  I can't remember if it was Saxon 1 or 2, but one of them does add in the "store lessons" and my daughter loved those!!  You could take 2 years to go through Saxon 1 if you wanted to.

[RootAnn]

I use Mcruffy K Math.  Its not exactly what you are talking about, but I've heard its more fun then saxon.  DD loves it.  Its lots of manipulatives, very little workbook work and some fun games thrown in.  Its spiral, and just really fun.  You could even tweak some of the lessons.  Like instead of just counting the money, set up a quick store. 

 

I'm using McRuffy K math with my ds#1 right now. LOVE it, but it isn't what OP is looking for. There is a lot of hands-on & game playing and I think you could do it w/out the workbook (just using TM materials), but it isn't real life math experiences (and they do have their own manipulatives - but I use the stuff we already had).

 

Have you already looked at Kitchen Table Math?

[Miss Tick]

"I've been searching for days but haven't found anything (ridiculous, why is there not a big, long list of math experiences?)"

 

You have the longest list I've seen, unfortunately you have reasons to eliminate most of them.

 

I basically gave up on Saxon K when we got to the lesson teaching what a triangle is. I don't know enough about your student, but if Saxon suits you, I, too, recommend starting with Saxon 1. It reviews everything from K, and you can skip ahead if you like.

 

Sorry I don't know anything about Math by Hand.

[ChrissySC]

Two websites came to mind immediately ...

 

Hand2Mind  I linked you to the catalog, but there is a wealth of info to be had.

 

MathFour  I linked you to the about page.  I love many of these hands-on idea - ex.  symmetry taught by using snowflakes and Christmas decorations.  :)

[Ecclecticmum]

Thank you.

 

I wrote this last night, when I wasn't in the best of minds (being tired, and kind of sick of looking at math materials, and after I had to switch tracks with my son, I was a little loopy).

 

I re-looked into everything and took the replies into account. McRuffy is cute, but not really what I am after (and the "Exploded paper" things listed as the manipulatives give me hives lol, my eldest is obsessed with paper craft, and there is always loose papers everywhere.

 

I think whilst I like the *idea* of Saxon (the real down-to-earth playing) the reality would be too strict and require too much tweaking to use (and the things I like in the program seem to be few and far between, that or the only samples I found were not very good.

 

Someone reminded me I have Kitchen Table Math in my top cupboard, so I'm going to keep that, Math Play & Family Math for Young Children, in case everything goes south.

 

I would of been nice to find a nice long living learning list (one of the girls on here compiled short ones for a fair amount of subjects, but I haven't seen any long ones anywhere, and since most sites just have 1 or 2 vague ideas, it would take a while to collect up a nice long list.

 

So I sat down and randomly read/scanned through CSMP K and its actually quite beautiful, and understandable. So I'm going to try going with that.

 

Thank you so much for everyone who replied, I really needed thoughts from outside my own head to see things more clearly as it was pretty much like a tennis match in my head.

 

xxx

[RootAnn]

I re-looked into everything and took the replies into account. McRuffy is cute, but not really what I am after (and the "Exploded paper" things listed as the manipulatives give me hives lol, my eldest is obsessed with paper craft, and there is always loose papers everywhere.

 

:confused1:  I'm not sure what "exploded paper" things you saw, but there isn't anything like that in the manipulatives for McRuffy Math (preschool or K).  Just pointing this out for anyone who sees this thread later and shys away from McRuffy for this reason. 

 

Found an interesting "preschool" math check list the other day I thought I would link in this thread for anyone who runs across it later. (See appendix material at the end of the link.)