It's that time of year again to order curriculum for the new school year!  Hmmmm, well we are not yet done with last school year, since we have been extra busy with our move from Texas to Virginia. Ordering curriculum is the furthest thing from my mind right now.  However we are winding down and I did promise to share how some of our new curriculums worked for us.

     Math has always been a torture around here, probably because I don't enjoy math. The kids tend to pick up on my interests.  Although I have tried to approach math positively, I'm afraid I didn't exude enough enthusiasm for the endeavor. (Alliteration is more fun.)

     We have always used A Beka math and as my daughter started ninth grade this past year, I knew I met my match. Even though I took honors math courses in high school, and the easiest math class I could take at Trinity University (a private college in San Antonio) was pre-calculus, I spent a ot of time with our neighbor who enjoyed math. He was getting his teaching degree in math and I used to babysit his daughters. I spent every evening at the kitchen table with him, bored out of my gourd, trying to understand, when his wife would tell him it was late and I had to go home. He would be stuck on one problem and his daughters would tell me later that he stayed up all night conquering that one math problem. Why?

    I heard a lot of great things about Teaching Textbooks at my Tapestry of Grace yahoo group (Although we all use the same history curriculum, we get very off topic at the main TLT group.  It is amazing the things I have learned there.) Anyway, there is usually one consistently positive comment about this curriculum, which is that it helps the kids who don't understand math to finally comprehend and even to embrace it. Hmmmm,  the embracing part sounds impossible. The consistent negative comment I've heard is that it is not enough meat for the math major.   (By the way, that comment is up to debate as I have met National Merit Scholars who used TT. Therefore I doubt that it's not meaty enough for preparation for college math majors.) No problem! My kids have no interest in majoring in the math or sciences, so they fit in the first group perfectly. We test drove the product at the homeschool fair last May and it was looking good. I ordered it and it arrived in a couple of weeks.  

    My son got the seventh grade math. It downloads onto the computer, which was easy to do. He was always my most resistant child to math, often gazing at the paper for hours instead of conquering. I tried the old fashioned method of only assigning odds or evens, I even gave him a choice, but he still took hours.  I knew he was quite capable because whenever we play board games he is the official score keeper and he can compute the scores well. 

     Even though I am not a fan of computer games, since they do not encourage brain development, I thought the cost/benefit analysis allowed for this math program. It was a huge success!  Two brothers have developed this program and use humor to make something tedious more interesting. My son worked out the math on paper, but plugged in the answer into the program and got instant feedback if he made a mistake or if it was correct.  He carried an A+ average throughout the year and some days he even did an extra lesson. Math was always completed within the alloted hour.

      Then we moved from Texas to Virginia. The program was installed on the hard drive of my son's desk top computer. We were taking my husband's laptop, but he was hesistant to install the math program on the laptop and let my son loose on it. Sometimes my kids change  settings and we needed this laptop to remain in contact with real estate agents, lenders and title companies in Texas and Virginia. What to do?  I did not want to put math aside until we moved into a house and got my son's desktop up and running. He'd lose the momentum of what he had learned. Also, how long would it take to move into a house and get our goods delivered?

     My son solved this problem by saying that he would do all of his work in the workbook and check his work with the answer key. I was dubious, knowing his history of losing focus and staring at a workbook page.  History repeats itself, as Patrick Henry always says, and what would make this time any different? Well, it was different! He completed the program, as scheduled, the beginning of April!  Teaching Textbooks had made math such a positive experience for him, that he was no longer dependent on a cute computer program with bells and whistles to conquer!  Yea!!!!!  

     How about my daughter? She did Algebra I this year. With Algebra I, you insert disks as needed into the computer, without downloading onto the hard drive.  There is a disk for the lesson and sample problems. Then she does the work in the book. Next she checks her work and any she missed she can insert a disk to explain those problems. I had tried to keep up with her Algebra I. For me it was a refresher course, but once we put our Texas house on the market, I was not able to continue. Thankfully, Teaching Textbooks is not dependent on me for success. She plugged away, missing a few days here and there due to busy days on the road traveling and house hunting,  and finished by the end of May.  She struggled a bit in the beginning. A few algebraic concepts threw her and she failed a few tests.  I'd have her study those parts and retest. Through most of the year she carried a B average but by the time we moved, she was making A's on her tests.  Part of her problem is that she was not asking for help when she hit weak spots. She just kept plugging along. Then she'd take the test and the very problems she missed in daily work were the same ones she missed on the test.

     It could be argued that I should manage her daily work more closely. However she is of the age that she needs to be less dependent on me and learn how to narrow down her own weak spots.  This is what she'll need to do in college when I'm not around, so she might as well learn it now. Furthermore, since she wants to be a teacher, learning this skill now will help her pinpoint weak spots with her students.  Over the year she basically learned how to study and her scores improved.

     Yes, I'd say that TeachingTextbooks is a success!

The big brown truck pulled up in front of our house the other day with our first shipment of 2008-2009 school materials. Teaching Textbooks for 7th grade

and Algebra I arrived! 

This is a major change for us.  We had been using A Beka since the beginning of time.  I loved their beginning math.  However we were getting worn down.  I finally freed myself this past year to only do a portion of all the daily lessons.  Honestly, this must be designed for math whizzes who live in math.  Also I had to tell the dc not to worry about the tougher concepts, many of which I never ran across even though I took precalculus in college.  There seems to be different levels of A Beka math.  Grades K-3 are cute and colorful.  Loved them.  Grades 4-6 lose the color on the tests and quizzes.  That was heartbreaking to dd and I.  Then Grade 7 was a shocker.  I was so confused. The entire layout changed.  It was difficult to determine where one lesson began and another ended.  Also I had to buy yet a separate book for the in depth answers to word problems.  They used to be at the back of the 1-3 level books.  Then I noticed I had no in depth answers to the tests.  We were fine with the mere answers in the separately purchased teacher's key, but if we were stuck, there was no explanation to how to get the answer.  Grade 8 was no better.  I could see the writing on the wall.  I started listening in to all the high school math banter at one of my yahoo groups.  I had learned about the wonder of Math U See.  I had used many of the same manipulatives with my children when they were younger.  I worried we might be too old to pick up an entirely new way of doing math.  Besides, my dc were never fans of using manipulatives.  I did order a free sample of Math U See about 2 years ago and have yet to recieve it and in my search forgot all about it.  

Next year dd starts Algebra I and I was deeply concerned.  I felt this was a matter of prayer to consider all the options.  DH is good at math, but not structured and he'll never make the time to teach the dc.  I am no math whiz.  I  confess I detest math.  I could probably learn to enjoy it, if only I had made time to add the daily A Beka math lessons to my overly full schedule.  Then I could probably really pick it up.  But I was feeling swamped.  We were considering that I would study math daily with dd and if I got stuck I would go to dh.  Yet, I didn't feel a peace about this.

I've heard of Video Text, the mother of all high school math programs.  Well, the dc do not enjoy math nor do they plan to major in it in college.  VT seems to be the program of choice for math bound majors because it is so intense.  I didn't seem to be a good fit for us.  I went through each curriculum and only one seemed to offer hope:  Teaching Textbooks.

Teaching Textbooks has a reputation for the reluctant math learner, engaging them in a simplified way so that they grasp the math concept.  The huge selling point for me was that through all the CDs, I'd have a math tutor whenever he was needed.  The student pops in a CD to learn the lesson.  One of the Sabouri brothers explains the lesson while a pencil is seen moving across the page.  I chose a lesson I had vague memories from in Alegebra I.  (There are samples on their site.)  Wow!  By the time it was done, I felt as if I understood it better now than I did before.  Then the student does the work in the book, then she checks her work against the answer key.  Any she gets wrong she needs to correct.  If she can't figure it out, she can pop a solutions CD in the computer and select the problem she missed.  Then one of the Sabouri brothers explains how that is done.  

One of the arguments against Teaching Textbooks is that it's not in depth enough, doesn't prepare a student for the SAT or college.  I've heard some moms say they are just glad their child can at least solidify the basic concepts instead of being overwhelmed and moving too fast.  This is how I was leaning.  I did a little research and found reviews of kids who used TT and maxed the math portion of the SAT and did just fine in college math.  I've heard moms say the opposite.  I think this tells me it is not the fault of the program but that some students did not retain information.  That can happen with any program.  

When we went to our homeschool bookfair, we went to the Teaching Textbooks booth and got to interact with everything as well as talk to some of the moms.  One mom said they used to use Math U See and loved it!  Then they got to Algebra I and she was going nuts trying to figure out the concepts.  That's when they discovered Teaching Textbooks.  Her oldest has whizzed through math and has not needed to use all the CDs.  He did well on the SAT and his friend, who used TT, maxed the SAT.  The younger dds of this lady have not enjoyed math until they got TT.  It's been a wonderful fit for the family. 

Although my primary concern was dd entering Algebra I, in the back of my mind I was concerned about ds entering Math 7.  He does an excellent job with math but detests it so much that he will spend hours day dreaming and has a really negative attitude about it.  But if we are playing board games and he's keeping score he can beat any of us.  I have minimized his math work in A Beka but it doesn't matter how little I give him, he just labors over it.  So I had thoughts of getting TT for him too. 

TT has a different approach to Math 7 and below.  All the work is done on the computer. The student pops in the CD, listens to the lesson and is then given sample problems to practice.  The student then does these on a sheet of paper and enters the answer.  After 3 errors it will explain the concept.  There are also selectable characters to interact with the student.  One was a robot and another was an animal.  DS played with this while I talked to the ladies.  I watched him at one point.  He was given two numbers to subtract, both 6 digits long.  There were several numbers to carry.  I watched ds compute everything in his head and get the correct answer!  Why can't he do this on a sheet of A Beka paper????  Boys and their toys!  There was also a record keeper built in for the teacher to keep check with the student's progress. This might be what we need to get over the hump.

After this we went to the next table, the A Beka table and looked at their algebra I book.  Oh my goodness, I saw things in that book which looked like another language.  However when I looked through the TT algebra, it had every useful topic that a student needs to learn higher math, prepare for SAT and daily applications.  A good math teacher can weed through A Beka math and pull out what is really essential.  I know because I have a very sweet friend whom I met in some of my yahoo groups who gave me lots of encouraging advice last year on how to endure A Beka math.  Now endure is what I have to do.  Not her.  She excels with it because she is a math major and has that wonderful background of knowledge to make A Beka math fit her dc who also excel at math.  I wish we lived next door to each other and perhaps we could have traded off dc for different subjects!  So I don't want to put A Beka in a bad light, because I have friends who use it successfully. But for our needs and limitations, it was looking like TT was the answer to our prayer.   

That night I told dh all about it.  He liked what he heard.  He asked how much it would cost.  gulp  I told him and he said, is that all?  Whew!  Because he excels in math, he understands the expense of hiring a math tutor.  They are pricey.  In college, I was a reading tutor and was upset to learn that my friend made more money that I did because she was a math tutor.  That's discrimination!  But that's the way it is.  Math tutors are expensive. Teaching Textbooks is cheaper.      

We are done with our math curriculums for the year!  Woo hoo! I feel like a weight has been lifted!  Now I feel like summer is around the corner.  Now we can really have fun wrapping up school.

Neither the children or I enjoy math. Math is merely an endurance test, although we realize there are educational benefits as well. 15yod has learned her basic math facts well and is solid in basic math usage.  If anything throws her, it's the word problems.  I was thrown by them all the time in school too.  My son could be brilliant in math, if he gave it a chance.  He has never enjoyed memorizing things.  When he was younger I tried everything under the sun to encourage him to memorize the math facts:  audio math song tapes, math games, pc games, etc.  To this day, if he misses a complex math problem, it's probably because he made a careless mistake in a basic math fact.  He knows them, but he doesn't really own them.  Therefore, I feel a need to drill the basic math facts this summer, sigh.  

The dc and I have discussed the need for this and we were in agreement.  We could do some math games while doing long math computations. We never formally discussed how to do the games, we only discussed that we would do it.  Behind my back, they hatched the plan for how we would play. They made the announcement the other morning.  They told me what I was going to do to lead them!  They set up the white board with their chosen pen color and wrote their name at the top.  I am to go through the long math equation and it's a race to the finish.  When they figure out the final answer they write it on the board.  Whoever is first and correct gets the point.  We do this for 30 minutes or less, stopping at 9am.  We begin after our morning devotions.  So far after two mornings of this, it has been a hit.  

One thing I do like about the A Beka math program is that they have math drills like this worked into the teachers' lesson plan book.  I gave up doing them with ds through the year because for him to do it solo was sheer drudgery and set a poor tone for his math paper of the day.  When we started these the other day, I began at the front of the book and we will work our way through. They start out simple, like 6+8-2+9=?.  Now they are getting longer and throwing in multiplication and division.  Later they will throw in fractions, etc.

I like these because it takes the brain to a new level of development.  Like dictation which is highly valued for training the brain to hold chunks of information for a period of time, this goes a step further.  Doing math computations in the brain helps new synapsis to grow while processing chunks of information temporarily stored in the brain.  We do so little of this type of work in our highly visual society today.  Even 150 years ago, the one room schoolhouses did a great deal of auditory work.  When I read the Little House books aloud to my children, I was amazed at what a one room classroom produced.  There is something to be said about the old fashioned way of education...which many of us homeschoolers have grabbed hold of.  Doing auditory memory work develops the brain.  Since my dc invented this game, they are having fun with it and I accomplish my goal of increasing their math skills.  Yea!