More math advice please

[HollyDay]

Our local conference is cancelled this summer due to the economy. Math is my question mark this go round.

 

I need something for my 5th grader next year. She is doing BJU 4 this year but I want something that has more review built into the chapters.

 

I dont want Saxon or MUS. I am considering MUS for algebra but not for 5th grade math.

 

What else should I consider??

[Mandamom]

Rod and Staff has a lot of review.

[iamrachelle]

We are loving CLE ... we're finishing up the 3rd grade program (I haven't used 5th grade) but am planning on continuing with CLE. The lessons are in an easy format, run slightly above grade level, is a spiral program and my DD loves it. Minimal teacher prep. CLE offers placement tests if you are unsure of what level to place your 5th grader in.

 

HTH

[PeterPan]

Holly, are you doing the Reviews and Spring workbooks along with the BJU4 student text? We're doing the BJU5 now, and we've FINALLY hit our stride. In fact, I like BJU5 better than BJU4. She works on the flashmaster while I skim through the lesson, then I teach her the lesson from the tm. I wasn't doing that last year, but I decided to buckle down and do it. She LOVES it!! Go figure. So after I teach her the lesson from the tm (a little condensed, but basically what they said to do), then I have HER read the student text. See starting in gr 5 there's a student textbook and separate workbooks (spring, stretch, spread, reviews). So I have her read the instruction page in the student text, just to get another way of it going into her brain and so she learns to read a textbook. Then we do the problem in the student text together ORALLY. This is so cool! Sometimes we do just odds or evens, whatever seems appropriate. What's cool is that by the time we've done all that, she FLIES through her Spring Into Action page all by herself, confidently and happily. If we have time, she then does the Stretch Your Mind page. Anything not done becomes homework for after dinner.

 

It's working out really well doing math this way, and I wonder if maybe some of your issues would change by doing something like this? I wouldn't have thought to do it with the gr 4 stuff because the student text was a workbook, implying they ought to write it all. But with the gr 5 being a textbook and becoming too much writing to be sane, I really had to change. So far, so good. So that might be something to consider, that gr 5 will go better than you anticipate. Also, gr 4 is harder than gr 5 in a sense, because so much is new. In gr 5 you repeat stuff and then just refine the approach, adding a few twists. It might not be nearly as bad as you're thinking. I just know we had issues in 4 and are now really happy with 5. Maybe it will be the same for you? I'm happy I stuck it out. :)