Calling Zaccaro's users or former users!

[Maryam]

I am interested in using Zaccaro's Challenge Math series as supplements for dd 3rd grade (doing Saxon 54) and dd 6th grade (doing Saxon 87) to add more challenge and conceptual understanding. I may be switching the 6th grader to Derek Owens for Algebra and beyond, but either way will supplement with Zaccaro.

How do you successfully use it as a supplement: once a week? Daily? On summer holiday? And for how long?

Do you go in order or pick and choose whatever they're currently learning to give it more depth?

Thank you all in advance for your input.

[SilverMoon]

If I were using them once a week I'd do a whole chapter in one sitting. That's reading a handful of pages and doing 3-4 pages with 3-4 problems each. I'd use the big whiteboard as needed. I love whiteboards.

 

I've never used them daily alongside other full curricula. (For small daily bites I've found the Math Olympiad books more useful. We usually have two MOEMS problems up on our whiteboard every day. Everyone from the 3rd grader (in SM 4) on up does them during our family wide school time, since most are more about your ability to think/puzzle your way to the answer than they are about your math ability.)

 

On a summer holiday I'd probably assign one page of problems a day or so.

 

We do the book in order from front to back. Mixing it up and remembering where we are is too much work for very little benefit. It's okay if it overlaps with their main math in random places.

[Maryam]

Thank you for your detailed feedback. Very helpful! Ok, so I'm not quite sure how the difficulty of levels thing works. Say my 3rd grader could get through levels 1 & 2. Would you push through levels 3 & 4 or move on to the next lesson and do the next levels (3&4) of each lesson the following year?

[SilverMoon]

Thinking of my own current third grader, I wouldn't push exactly, but I'd get as much as we could out of the book on the first round and move to something else; there are gobs of good math supplements out there. I'd do it alongside her and try to finish the lesson. The first levels are usually pretty simple and you'd just be grazing the surface. On the other hand if exposure and grazing are your intention it could work out well that way. My particular 3rd grader would probably make such a stink about repeating the book that another round wouldn't be worth it.

Edited November 26, 2016 by SilverMoon

[Farrar]

Thank you for your detailed feedback. Very helpful! Ok, so I'm not quite sure how the difficulty of levels thing works. Say my 3rd grader could get through levels 1 & 2. Would you push through levels 3 & 4 or move on to the next lesson and do the next levels (3&4) of each lesson the following year?

 

Depends a little on the kid. If you think she'd benefit, I'd do levels 3 and maybe 4 together, just knowing that she'd be getting something out of watching you work it. But it would also be fine to save them for next year and do them all over again.

[SoCal_Bear]

Mine is like Silver Moon's kiddo...I waited until he could tackle the level 3 & 4 questions, and I selected chapters that would extend what he already was familiar with. For example, in the Primary Challenge one, I am waiting on ratios and percentages until we work with that more in SM. You might want to look at the Upper Elementary volume for your younger son instead of going straight into the Challenge one.

[SparklyUnicorn]

We used them about once a week.