Homeschool Resources: Saxon Math

Recently, I have written about how much my kids like the teddy bear counters and pattern blocks that came with the Saxon K-3 manipulatives kit, so you may have already guessed that we are big fans of Saxon Math.  Mary is starting Saxon 2 this year, but I am waiting until next year to start Saxon K with Maggie, although I always reserve the right to change my mind.

I chose to use Saxon Math for a few reasons.  In The Well Trained Mind, Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise provide reviews of several different math programs designed for home use.  They recommend Saxon Math as "the most thorough and understandable math curriculum for home instruction."  Secondly, my husband, a homeschool graduate and now chemistry professor who is really good at math but can't handle numbers, was taught Saxon Math. Those two factors alone pretty much sold me on the program.

I like Saxon Math because it uses an incremental approach to teaching math.  This is very different than the way I learned math in school, but, in my opinion, far better!  Every day, the student learns a new concept but also continues to review and practice what was learned previously, reinforcing the concepts.  This program also has lots of really fun activities for children included in the lessons and is not just a boring math workbook.  Mary has really enjoyed the activities, especially setting up and playing store.  I guess that shows what we spend a lot of time doing, huh?  Finally, although I almost never follow them exactly as written, I do really like having scripted lesson plans.  What a huge timesaver!

Every lesson begins with a meeting between the teacher and the student.  In Saxon 2, our meeting consists of calendar work, counting, graphing work, pattern recognition, showing time to the hour, and writing number sentences.  It looks like we will also practice counting money later in the year.  After the meeting, there is a scripted lesson in which a new concept is taught.  Following the lesson the student reviews math facts previously taught.  Math facts are initially demonstrated with tangible objects, like linking cubes or color tiles, and reviewed with flash cards.  After reviewing the math facts, the student completes a sheet of 25 facts.  First, the student tries to finish as many as possible in one minute.  Then, the student completes the remaining facts.  In my opinion, math facts just need to be memorized and the best way to do that is continuous repetition.  After the math facts practice, the student completes a two-sided worksheet, which reviews the new concept taught as well as concepts taught in previous lessons.  Every fifth lesson includes a written assessment and every tenth lesson includes an oral assessment, so that you can gauge whether concepts have been mastered or require further review.

In closing, I want to emphasize that this program definitely requires a significant amount of parental involvement. If you are looking for a curriculum that your child can complete independently, then this is probably not the program for you.  That said, my one data point just LOVES this program.  She truly looks forward to her daily math lesson!