CLE 6 vs Chalkdust Basic College Math

[Home4schooling]

My brain is going to explode! Struggling to decide between Christian Light Education (CLE 6) and Chalkdust Basic College Math for 6th grade. CLE looks so solid and thorough. It really drills down skills. I’ve used Chalkdust with two other siblings and I loved it because it asks the student to apply math concepts to different practical situations. 

For a child who is interested in math and may use math in a future profession, would it be more important to get super solid in math functions (CLE) in 6th grade, or be challenged to apply math to different real world situations (Chalkdust) and trust that the mechanical skills will grow sufficiently along the way?

I’m leaning toward CLE to solidify skills before doing Chalkdust Prealgebra, but at the same time I’m concerned about CLE’s lack of dimension. Thoughts? 

[8filltheheart]

6th grade is typically just a review of all basic elementary math operations. If both cover that, it is doubtful either would be a wrong choice. I have never seen either one, but Mosely's math courses are solid, so for sure it would be fine. I'm using his prealg with my 7th grade granddaughter and his geometry with my 8th grader. Both are great.

[Mona]

I tried this with my oldest son. CLE is weak in word problems. That is my only complaint. The first lesson in Basic Math is about 20+ word problems and nothing else. I remember that being a bit jarring. Of course, you don’t have to do all of them. Make it work for you. 

If you do switch, you might consider picking up a workbook on banking/personal finance/budgeting topics to supplement with. I think CLE 7 covers those topics, but I don’t remember if Basic Math does or not.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Mona

[Malam]

8 hours ago, Mona said:

but I don’t remember if Basic Math does or not.

https://coolmathguy.com/arithmetic this has it in chapter 6

[Home4schooling]

Hmm, great input! I read another thread about CLE Math where mom dropped booklets 1 and 10 because they were review. Also, we already did fractions in another program.

So, since we do math year round, maybe we could do books 2-9 of CLE 6, skipping a large portion of the fractions sections, and THEN do the more challenging Chalkdust once the mechanics are thoroughly drilled down. 
 

I’m not sure if that’s wise or redundant. In any case, he certainly needs to get more consistent and quicker at mechanics. 

[Brittany1116]

52 minutes ago, Home4schooling said:

Hmm, great input! I read another thread about CLE Math where mom dropped booklets 1 and 10 because they were review. Also, we already did fractions in another program.

So, since we do math year round, maybe we could do books 2-9 of CLE 6, skipping a large portion of the fractions sections, and THEN do the more challenging Chalkdust once the mechanics are thoroughly drilled down. 
 

I’m not sure if that’s wise or redundant. In any case, he certainly needs to get more consistent and quicker at mechanics. 

I wouldn't say book 10 is review. We have used from 100s up through 600s, skipping only book 1 once we passed 100s. Book 1 is review and check for skills, but 10 is still part of the core learning. We also only skip book 1 because we do math all year without any long breaks. 

I would advise someone considering using CLE to actually use book 1 if they were brand new to the program, to suss out missed skills necessary to advance. That book can be done quickly as a series of quizzes. It does not take 17 days. To abbreviate the remainder, you can easily skip quizzes to regain 2 days per booklet. You could skip all quizzes and tests if you so desired, or only take test 5 and test 10. 

[Home4schooling]

Ahh, okay. That makes total sense. It’s so helpful to hear from someone very familiar with CLE! Thank you!

I’m not a super fan of math tests anyway since I can tell what level of mastery we’re at from our daily work. Testing mastery again seems redundant.  Thank you for the detailed recommendations.