We've been using the Horizons curriculum for third grade for about a month. The children enjoy having their own workbooks with the nice glossy covers. I enjoy having a teachers' manual with lesson ideas clearly numbered and coordinated with the workbook pages. I've taught some of the public school curriculum (Everyday Math), and I have to tell you that I have no idea how the teachers in public school don't go on a screaming, crazy rant trying to figure which worksheet goes with which lesson and where all 30 of her kids' notebooks are. It takes a lot of planning and digging through manuals to teach. And that's without doing the games and other extras they recommend!
I suppose what I *could* do is to figure out my own scope and sequence, and teach that from materials I glean from the internet. I could figure that the boys ought to learn multiplication this year, and print a zillion worksheets and tests for them to do that. I am just not that organized, and I like having someone else package the whole thing together for me. And while I'm totally responsible for my childrens' education, I like that someone else with experience knowing what a third grader needs to know in math has been working on the books I'm using.
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I can understand that! Im sure even the package it still must take a lot of organizing and skill.
ReplyDeleteI've heard good things about Saxon Math and Singapore Math, although I've also heard rumors that Saxon isn't what it used to be since it's been bought out by a big text book company. Have you worked with either of these programs?
ReplyDeleteI really LIKED the Singapore Math placement test although it was very "tricky" and my boys would be placed at about beginning second grade on some concepts, but when I got on the MOMYs board, I was told that they really don't have teacher manuals from their own company.
ReplyDeleteMath is a very BAD subject for me and honestly I need the answer keys and all the help I can get. I think that moving often in my childhood pretty well ensured that in addition to not knowing all the states and their capitals, I don't have a firm grasp on many math concepts. You'd think I'd just pick it up during "life," but it doesn't work that way.
A cheap remedial text or better yet video for people learning math at about a fifth-grade level would be great, but I don't know of any.
I got the Horizons because they have teacher manuals and an answer key.