Whew. We have had great success so far, other than math. Math will always be a bump in the road, unless a miracle happens. And miracles do happen, so I could be wrong about "always". I watched the secondary math demo video at the Math-U-See website, and yes. Definitely. There is potential for a miracle to take place. But since we are not using MUS, it won't be today. I found two more very good resources here and here. The circle of letters (A-L-G-E-B-R-A) up there makes me think of my synesthetic kids!
Back in the Dark Ages, when I began to think about homeschooling, I decided we would NOT use ACE. ACE is too classroom-ish. Workbooks. Read and answer the questions. It looked toooo easy. Unchallenging, even insulting. And boring!!! ...But never say never. In the past twelve years I have tried everything else I could afford, except for just going to the library and inventing my own curriculum. So, where are we this year? Mostly with ACE! I still don't like it a lot, but there are things to like about it. One biggie is that my kids like it! Another biggie is that the curriculum acknowledges and honors God across all subject matter. I do like that. It remains to be seen whether the girls will still like it after a month or two.
Since this is homeschooling, that means the mother is learning, too. :D
We used Math U see for a few years. It was wonderful for us until I think "epsilon" That was frustrating to my son (that LOVES math) as well as to me. He totally lost me on his explanations. My hubby (also a math whiz) said the teacher was doing things the hard way in order to be able to "show" how to do the problem. We had much better luck with Shiller Math.
ReplyDeleteAt this point my oldest ("left brainer") is doing saxon math and my youngest ("right brainer") is doing Ray's. The combination seems to be working for us. In the past, math has always been our trickiest subject and biggest "bump" in the road each year.
Best of luck in your new school year!
Beth, thanks for your input! Epsilon is before algebra, correct? I'll have to check out Shiller. I am surprised your right-brainer does well with Ray's. Since it is mostly done in one's head, I expected it to be more left-brained. Huh. What do I know? I was thinking about starting with that for my second grader. She loves workbooks until she has to write in them. :) Adding you as a friend, if that's okay. I didn't know you are at HSB, too!
ReplyDeleteHi Sally~
ReplyDeleteI'm bopping around visiting tonight before I write my Tackle-It Tuesday post (which I totally blew this last week) because tomorrow we begin our lessons anew and I know I won't have time to visit for a bit. :( I'm so happy for you that your week was a success, and wish you much the same for the upcoming week. As for math, I leave you with two more options. First, the Life of Fred series by Dr. Stanley Schmidt. This is taught directly to the student, and the author is available via email or phone to clear up those problems that stick you. We've phoned him once, and he cleared oldest son's questions up in quick order. Lovely man.
The second option is a free British mathematics site for all grades. I know quite a few Charlotte Mason home educators use it, and I'm debating using it in conjunction with our current maths program as a double-check. You can check it out here: http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm. Good luck!
Thanks for your kind comments on my hexies. :) They make me smile just looking at them. As for the time I have, I try to get some crochet in every day, even if it's just one more hexie (which takes about 15-20 minutes). It's my down time - my therapy, lol - and when I don't get it I feel restless. I can't explain it; it's just important enough to me that I make time for it. Do you have something like that?
All right~ off to try to wrap up my time here in short order; I'm tired tonight. We were up and out the door to take oldest ds to a parade he was in today for Labor Day. :) Hope all is well in your home, and I'll catch up with you more later. Hope to see a finished project on Tackle-It Tuesday! :)
~Shani
Ugh. I feel your pain! We use Abeka for my 3rd grader. MUS Delta for my 5th. Teaching Textbooks 7 for my 7th grader. My 7th grader did MUS through Epsilon and loved it. Epsilon is fractions. So far TT is going well. I switched because a friend could loan it to me. I will pray that God will work out the details so that you have just the right math your ladies need. He can do that, you know! (I am living proof.)
ReplyDeleteGlad things are going so well with ACE. Anna keeps telling me how Amy likes it. Well, the worst they could do is turn out like me...an ACE grad. It was far better than public school for sure, but after a while, one does get very good at reading the material (or skimming it) and filling in the blanks.
ReplyDeleteOur first day went really well, but I think I wore myself out. I'm EXHAUSTED!!! Plus I don't feel well, maybe it was something I ate. Anna LOVES her new math with our 1 student class - me teaching it one-on-one with the whiteboard and lots of interaction. I really hate it -- not the time with Anna, but having to relive this math again, but whatever works for my little sweetie.