Friday, November 17, 2006 - Shiller Math Kit 1 (4 to 8 yr. olds) Review
(Please note: this is an edited update from my original post about Shiller Math some months ago.)
I'm happy to share that we've been using Shiller Math since Sept '05 with my 6 year old and 4 year old and we are really enjoying it. We started them both on the very first book but as we went on, I had to start doing their lessons separately to accomodate their different levels of understand.
I have used Horizons K, BJU Math 1 & 2 with my oldest child, but I was yearning for something different for my middle and youngest. I too was intrigued when I received flyers in the mail last year about the curriculum. I'll give you my review in pros and cons:
Pros:
-Little to no prep whatsoever.
-No teacher's manual. Everything you need is right in the student workbook.
-Activities are very engaging; not much writing and lots of hands-on work.
-I'm a corny kind of person so I like the corny-but-catchy Math songs and so do my kids.
The songs have helped to solidify the concepts learned and made some easy to recall (ex. When doing examples that they need to find odd or even numbers all they have to do is sing the song).
-We can do as few or as many activities as we want. Sometimes I just ask my kids if they want to do more and they say "yes" and sometimes they are *begging* for more.
-The math is challenging and yet taught in such an effortless way that I have been impressed with what my children have been able to learn at such a young age (ex. Roman numerals, geometry concepts, probability, comparisons -- you know, greater than, less than, equal to and all their "cousins").
-My kids think working on the felt-type fabric is very *special*. Sometimes we work sitting on the living room rug and sometimes at the table.
Cons:
-I'm an apartment dweller so with limited space I have nowhere to set up my "math center". I keep all the materials in clear plastic containers and pull them out when we do it (about 1 - 3 x per wk). Oh, and I pull ALL the containers out (one big one and 3 smaller ones, plus the two wooden containers included with the program).
-Although the program boasts of a quick start method (just open the box and start) it took me a while to figure out what everything was for and then I discovered I had to assemble some of the cardboard thousand squares (mini-ugh). Some required reinforcing with clear packing tape.
-No teacher's edition means everything you need is right there in the student's workbook... including the answers !!! **NEWSFLASH** (July 2006) A very nice person from the Well-Trained Mind message board told me that this "problem" has been corrected in the newer books (hey, and thanks, Larry for doing that). The answers are in the back now.
-Some of the activities are hard to follow and sometimes my children don't understand or don't remember what to do in an activity (they sound pretty normal, right?
). I find myself having to lean on my natural creativity at times. For example, a couple of activities have asked for X amount of wooden circles and I had too few in my bag (hmmmm...) so I just substituted something else. And one activity *out of the blue* asked for "household materials" like Cheerios, paper clips, beans, etc. Another asked for dollar-bills (good thing we had them from using Saxon Math 3). We were already in the middle of our lesson I didn't feel like getting up to search for those items so I just substituted them for whatever was in my Shiller Math kit. Or, when my kids don't "get it" I pull out some unit cubes (included item here) to help make the mental word problem more concrete and if they still don't get it, give them the answer and start the exercise again to solidify the lesson. Something like this might be a turn-off for some.
-(Nov. 2006) Okay, I think I've decided that I don't like the tests. I basically treat them like any other activity, but if my children are expected to *know* what to do in each example without my help, leading and/or intervention, that's not going to happen. We've had to break up the tests, too, doing a few examples each time. I've logged the time it took us to complete some of these tests and it was well over 45 minutes. Again, having to lean on my natural ability to teach I now dub this curriculum a "teacher's curriculum" (meaning: if you're not good at making things up as you go along to make up for what's missing, you're probably not going to like this curriculum).
-(Nov. 2006) Customer service: Shiller Math has a nice website, but unless you can download you can't take full advantage of all they have to offer. I went on the site and requested they mail me a brochure of Kit II and they sent me the same ole general advertisement about the program that originally enticed me (I wanted to see what some of the pages for Kit II looked like. Maybe I wasn't clear). I requested a phone call which they said on the site would be "an immediate call back" -- I'm still waiting some weeks later.
-(Nov. 2006) Since no program is truly complete I do supplement with workbooks (DK's Math Made Easy Gr. K and 1, Golden Books "Numbers" and "I Can Add" and we're just about to embark on exploring a couple of Kumon Math Workbooks). This could be a pro as well as a con. Workbooks also are a nice way to see if your child is really learning from the Math curriculum you're using because s/he will be able to do the work from another publisher.
Well, I hope this is helpful. I now *hesistantly* recommend Shiller Math. It has been a success for our family, but I wonder how it's been for others (well, I know for one of my friends it wasn't. She posted her comment already. Well, I'm glad she's still my friend 
) .
Comments
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by hugs4Him
Monday, March 19, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by KayinPA
I am one who also recommends it hestitantly to the parent. It all depends on their teaching style!
