khan academy vs teaching textbooks

[ktgrok]

I've been planning on teaching textbooks for DD next year, for 4th grade. I've used it before, so I do know the limitations, that I need to check she really is doing all the problems, really understanding, etc. But it would work well for our circumstances. We've been using CLE up until now. However....over the year we had a lot of medical issues with my youngest son and lost a lot of school days to that. Which meant I've been trying to play catchup with CLE and it wasn't working well...we were feeling defeated looking at how much we had left to do. 

So, I made an executive decision to switch to Khan Academy for the rest of the year, since the "missions" adjust to what you have mastered and I figured we could speed up a bit that way. And we have...DS has finished the K level and is over halfway done with 1st grade. DD is 80% done with 3rd grade. They really like it. Sometimes they watch a video or a hint, or I just explain it myself. So now I'm wondering if we should do that next year for DD9? Or stick with Teaching Textbooks as was the plan?

Not sure what I'm going to do with DS6. 

[Zoo Keeper]

Well, obviously KA would be much cheaper.  🙂

I am a firm believer in using *whatever* math that can get consistently done with the student (mostly) understanding it and without Mom wanting to run screaming into the woods.  Especially if things you can't control (health issues in the family) are eating into your hours and your mental space. 

So, maybe KA is working just fine and will continue to be fine.  Here's a blog post (not mine) that gives food for thought... http://www.mthopechronicles.com/2016/02/in-which-i-pour-out-my-love-for-khan.html

I do think that KA *could* offer more depth and breadth than TT. 

 

 

[ktgrok]

34 minutes ago, Zoo Keeper said:

Well, obviously KA would be much cheaper.  🙂

I am a firm believer in using *whatever* math that can get consistently done with the student (mostly) understanding it and without Mom wanting to run screaming into the woods.  Especially if things you can't control (health issues in the family) are eating into your hours and your mental space. 

So, maybe KA is working just fine and will continue to be fine.  Here's a blog post (not mine) that gives food for thought... http://www.mthopechronicles.com/2016/02/in-which-i-pour-out-my-love-for-khan.html

I do think that KA *could* offer more depth and breadth than TT. 

 

 

I totally agree with the bolded!

I think Khan probably does some stuff more conceptually. On the flip side, less practice. 

If I remember correctly TT is a short year, so maybe we can work in Khan one day a week or something...hmmm. 

[hollyhock2]

2 hours ago, Ktgrok said:

If I remember correctly TT is a short year, so maybe we can work in Khan one day a week or something...hmmm. 

 

That would totally work. At the lower levels, TT is easily done in 4 days per week.