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how long does Saxon 5/4 take your child?


caedmyn
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How long does a lesson of Saxon 5/4 take your child?  My 4th grader used Saxon 1-3 and this year we switched to Math Mammoth, but I am not loving it and thinking about switching back to Saxon 5/4.  But then I look at the Saxon lessons and think that they will take her forever to do because they are so much longer than the math 3 lessons.  

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My son is only on lesson 10 right now, so they may get more involved, but I have him do the drill worksheet in the morning, and then we do the lesson later to break things up a bit. If I sit and do the Mental Math and Lesson portions with him, that takes less than 10 minutes. If I allow him to use our large whiteboard to do the lesson practice and mixed practice as I observe, that portion takes 20ish minutes. However, if I task him with pencil and paper and ask him to complete it on his own, it probably takes twice as long. The lessons go by so much more quickly if I "assist" by letting him answer orally and use the whiteboard.

 

When my daughter was doing 5/4 completely independently, she could easily spend an hour and a half on a lesson, until I implemented a timer and told her that she'd be done with the day's lesson after an hour regardless of how far she had gotten. That really motivated her and kept her on track to finish. (She's a daydreamy kid and not typical speedy.) But since I think she learns better when she has to read and write things for herself, I didn't use a whiteboard and sit in on lessons with her.

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My dd is doing Saxon 6/5 this year. She works for one hour. If she is still working on the lesson at the end of the hour we just stop and pick up where we left off the next day. After an hour of math her enjoyment and productivity go way down so this works well and she still gets a lot done. 

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For Saxon 54, my 8.5 year old spends probably 45-60 minutes total (including drills and the lesson).  I'll admit I've never timed her - she seems to finish in a good amount of time.  My 10.5 year-old, though - on Saxon 65 - UGH - she spends 2-3 hours straight some days.  And it's not "working" - it's looking at the walls, doodling, picking her nose, I don't know.  I find the timer ideas interesting, but then we'd never get through the material!  She knows the math - I think she just finds it boring and makes it longer and longer (and hence more boring!).  I'll think about the timer, though - see if it helps...

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I bought intermediate 4 for my son because you can buy the workbook to write in for around 10 dollars so he doesn't have to write out the problems. I think all the problems are the same except the intermediate level has an early finishers questions at the end and it always has 30 mixed problems at the end (I think someone told me saxon 5/4 sometimes has one or two fewer problems). He does the fact practice, mental math, then we discuss the new problems which takes 5 to 10 minutes. This can take 5 to 10 minutes if it an easy topic for him. If it is a new topic that I feel is really important then we might discuss the topic and I will explain alternative ways to solve the problems, take out graph paper or manipulatives, etc. That might take 30 minutes. If he is paying attention and focused he can complete all 30 mixed problems in around 30 minutes or less. So it can take anywhere from 40 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes. 

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