What is your favorite tools or curriculum for teaching math?

[homemommy83]

Hey ladies and gentlemen,

 

I was interested in what has been you favorite programs and why😁 you love them.  Thanks for you inputs.

I personally used Rod and Staff and CLE for my earliest years teaching math and found both to be excellent programs.  Both are strong at math facts and concepts when taught as it asks in the manual. 

I switched to a mix of Singapore Textbooks for the amazing pictoral style of teaching concepts and MCP math manual as my teaching base.  I switched only because I loved the manuals of MCP and felt I could teach and assign problems easier with this program.  Rod and Staff has a lot of review problems built into the program which is one of its strengths as a program, but to be used in a mostly tutoring senario I found it more than my students needed and I could streamline easier with MCP manuals.  Each summer we also go through Life of Fred and our children LOVE Fred. Fred in my opinion in the younger years is best added to a tutoring style program, but the High School level is excellent and strong.  I tend to have my children do the level of Fred below their tutored abilities making it a fun refresher instead of as the core program.

This winter we began Teaching Textbooks for a little while to allow me to focus on other needed topics.  The children have enjoyed the computer time and really enjoy this program as well.  I am using it similar to how I use Fred, as a refresher while I focus on something else.

Once they get past MCP our children do Saxon and I tutor with BJU, as it is mastery based and how I think.  

 

Blessings,

Brenda

P.S.  I find it fun to see what people use and how it works in their homes, thank you for sharing😁.

[HomeAgain]

I prefer programs that have explicit instruction in how numbers work.  There's a lot of them out there, and usually the kids I work with end up with different ones that focus on their strengths/weaknesses.

My favorite tools for all of them, though are these:

• c-rods / MUS blocks
• Base 10 hundreds & thousands blocks
• number cards
• dry erase centimeter graph boards
• counters of some sort, preferably in more than 1 color

With these I can help them see the math in any program they use, and help them figure out how to prove their work. 

I will say you and I have different opinions of Life of Fred.  I found them weaker in the later years with poor explanations beyond procedure and not well set up (questions and answers on the same page).  While I have them all from Apples to Geometry, I have never had a student that was satisfied when they compare the Fractions book and above to a working math program.  The inconsistencies and lack of explanation are perfect for development in the logic stage, but I don't think that's what the author intended. 😄 Apples-Mineshaft are fun, but nobody is expecting them to be more than a supplement so that's what they are here.

[homemommy83]

32 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

I prefer programs that have explicit instruction in how numbers work.  There's a lot of them out there, and usually the kids I work with end up with different ones that focus on their strengths/weaknesses.

My favorite tools for all of them, though are these:

• c-rods / MUS blocks
• Base 10 hundreds & thousands blocks
• number cards
• dry erase centimeter graph boards
• counters of some sort, preferably in more than 1 color

With these I can help them see the math in any program they use, and help them figure out how to prove their work. 

I will say you and I have different opinions of Life of Fred.  I found them weaker in the later years with poor explanations beyond procedure and not well set up (questions and answers on the same page).  While I have them all from Apples to Geometry, I have never had a student that was satisfied when they compare the Fractions book and above to a working math program.  The inconsistencies and lack of explanation are perfect for development in the logic stage, but I don't think that's what the author intended. 😄 Apples-Mineshaft are fun, but nobody is expecting them to be more than a supplement so that's what they are here.

Love your choices for tools!  I love my abacus, cRods, and place value cards as well.😁. Life of Fred is just for fun here as well.  We find the storyline of Coalback to be hilarious, we have a bit of onery humor😉.

Thanks for sharing!

[Rosie_0801]

My daughter wouldn't have learned maths at all without CSMP.

[Clarita]

Favorite curriculum for me is Singapore Math. I'm pretty disappointed my eldest prefers Beast Academy, hopefully my youngest will like Singapore Math (I think she would really thrive on it, the cute monsters in BA might too appealing though). 

I think Singapore Math is a brilliant way to teach math especially when you use the HIG, textbook and workbook altogether. I do think you lose out on some of it when you cut parts of the lessons out. I like how it makes math easy, not intimidating and not mysterious. Although I can see how it can be difficult for a parent who is not strong in math to teach, because it's so different than the math they learned and I think the HIG could be better formatted and include more parent training. So for a parent who is intimidated by math I would probably suggest Math with Confidence instead because I think Kate Snow includes much more parent training and makes it more obvious why she is teaching a certain way or where we are going with it all. 

As for manipulatives, my favorite is the base-10 blocks or the golden beads. Also something like the Montessori stamp game, essentially anything where you have different markers symbolizing 1's, 10's, 100's and 1000's (I think @Not_a_Numberuses poker chips, I've seen people use cut up paper too). Makes it clear what all those arithmetic algorithms are doing and makes it clear how to do math quickly. (I think the official term is provides a good number sense.)

This last one though I just like for all education which is a magnetic white board. I don't know what it is about a dry erase marker and a small white board but somehow it is 10x more interesting than pencil and paper. 

[countrymum]

My favorite materials:

The 2 color Abacus from RightStart 

Base 10 block set (we have several 1,000 blocks even)

Overlapping Place value cards

Counters in several colors

Popsical sticks

Real coins

Later appropriate calculators

 

Some programs I like

RightStart A-F (It was missing slowly building drill for confidence. Though this could likely be achieved with dedicated application of the games)

Math with Confidence (I like 1st better than K no experience above that yet)

Math Mammoth (plenty of incremental skill building and practice)

Facts that stick series

Calculadder drill pages

[Clarita]

51 minutes ago, countrymum said:

My favorite materials:

The 2 color Abacus from RightStart 

Base 10 block set (we have several 1,000 blocks even)

Overlapping Place value cards

Counters in several colors

Popsical sticks

Real coins

Later appropriate calculators

 

Some programs I like

RightStart A-F (It was missing slowly building drill for confidence. Though this could likely be achieved with dedicated application of the games)

Math with Confidence (I like 1st better than K no experience above that yet)

Math Mammoth (plenty of incremental skill building and practice)

Facts that stick series

I second overlapping place value cards. I store mine with the golden beads so I lump them together sometimes.

I like Math with Confidence K for my preschooler. And the math that sticks series too.

[daijobu]

Singapore Math (US edition) was solid for elementary for us.  I'm kind of glad Beast wasn't around when my kids were younger because I don't think that would have been a good fit.  

Also, we used MOEMS books like once a week which was excellent preparation for math contests later on, like MathCounts and AMC 8.  

[homemommy83]

Thank you ladies!  I have a couple new programs to look at😁.

Brenda

[lulalu]

C-rods and Gattegno is my favorite. 

I have a lot of manipulatives from RightStart and they are all good. But I don't turn to them as often as c-rods 

[Xahm]

My kids have done really well with Beast Academy, mostly online, though my 5th grader is taking a break here in the middle of Beast 5 to do extra manipulating fractions practice in Math Mammoth. I'm glad I bought all the PDFs of Math Mammoth so I can pull that on from time to time. If I used it with my second, he'd find it a punishment, I think, but the oldest likes the change. My older kids get impatient with manipulatives. I've used Kate Snow's  Facts that Stick books, and the 10 frame has been useful for my now 6 year old. We're doing Hands-on Equations right now. My 9 and 10 year olds are impatient, solving things mentally without the hands-on aspect, but the 6 year old is getting a lot out of it.

We also did a lot with MEP when the kids were very little. I may pull that back out for my 4 year old to do a bit of school. We went from reception through level 2 or 3 with various kids ages 3-6, mostly orally or with me scribing. 

[lmrich]

Materials the others  have mentioned - base  ten blocks, unifix cube.. but the  one that was so helpful  was the Judy  clock for learning how  to tell time. But the most helpful - big white board with fresh expo markers. 

I have used several curriculums mentioned here and have combined many to  do math in the morning in one and math  in the afternoon in another  one. 

[homemommy83]

10 hours ago, lmrich said:

Materials the others  have mentioned - base  ten blocks, unifix cube.. but the  one that was so helpful  was the Judy  clock for learning how  to tell time. But the most helpful - big white board with fresh expo markers. 

I have used several curriculums mentioned here and have combined many to  do math in the morning in one and math  in the afternoon in another  one. 

I love doing multiple maths as well.  All of my children's favorite toys have been math manipulatives😁 and Legos.   

Edited January 8, 2023 by homemommy83

[8filltheheart]

I like a combo of Horizons Math with Hands On Equations for elementary, MUS alg and geo for pre-alg and pre-geo, Foerster's for alg 1&2, Chalkdust geometry, Derek Owen's for precal, and Thinkwell for cal.

[Not_a_Number]

As Clarita said above, I love place value poker chips. Here's a wordy but fun guide to how they help: 

http://www.garlikov.com/PlaceValue.html

I also really like using basic playing cards -- kids think they are fun, and there are tons of games (Blackjack, Addition War, etc) that are both fun and involve adding. And then you can actually demonstrate with counting on if you like.  

I've never been all that impressed by C-rods, although I'll admit I've never given them a serious try, either. 

For multiplication, I really like games involving rectangles like Blockout. 

[Nm.]

Math mammoth

[Malam]

On 1/6/2023 at 2:05 PM, Rosie_0801 said:

My daughter wouldn't have learned maths at all without CSMP

That's high praise! What was it about CSMP that led math click where no other program could for your daughter?

[Rosie_0801]

Just now, Malam said:

That's high praise! What was it about CSMP that led math click where no other program could for your daughter?

Her non-verbal intelligence was about 6 years higher than her verbal, back then. 

The program is big on relationships between numbers, which provided a foundation I didn't even know to think about. The practice of building, deconstructing and rearranging numbers, which comes from the mini computer lessons, meant the concept of fractions was already in her head when it was time to give it a name. They're a bit light on with standard notation, but I often had her translate from their pictorial "languages" into standard notation or vice versa. She has dyscalculia, so the actual computing was exhausting work for her, but the surrounding concepts often weren't. Even when she was done with the lessons, she could handle a bit more of the translation work. It was good for her character too, I think. She takes it for granted that there's more than one way to skin a cat, even if she can't think of a way at the moment.

[Malam]

6 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Her non-verbal intelligence was about 6 years higher than her verbal, back then.

How did you first learn about this? I can easily imagine this going undetected for a long time

Edited January 11, 2023 by Malam

[Rosie_0801]

22 minutes ago, Malam said:

How did you first learn about this? I can easily imagine this going undetected for a long time

A very expensive test with a neuropsych.

[Momto6inIN]

Math Mammoth

I think I would have enjoyed math when I was in school if I'd been taught this way. I remember thinking how much more sense math made the first time I went through the whole thing and how logical and beautiful it was, and I NEVER would have thought that when I was in ps lol!

[goldenecho]

I love the Math Facts that Stick program (sold through Well Trained Mind).   It worked after trying several other things with my son to help him get through addition and subtraction, and somewhat multiplication (I feel like they missed some key tricks on multiplication, like the 9 trick, but we still  learned others).  I didn't try the division because my son went back to public school for a while when he was learning that.

It ONLY teaches the math facts to 10, but it does that well.   The lessons are short, easy to do, and really helped my son (and kids I've tutored using this program) figure out reason behind what the math was doing.   The practice was with games which my son loved.   We did double the games in stead of doing the worksheets (my kiddo hated worksheets).  The games helped him commit these facts to memory.