Fall 2020

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Across the Street
& Around the State
with the Homeschool Iowa Facebook Discussion Group
Curriculum Talk: Math
Why was the math book depressed?
Because it had a lot of problems...
Go ahead and groan. It’s a classic corny math joke! Math is
one of those subjects that we know is important but some-
times struggle to teach. It’s pretty common for conversa-
tions about Math curriculum to come up in our private discussion
group on Facebook. A foundation in the core concepts is essential
to success as students progress and move on to more complex
mathematical concepts. We’re going to highlight the programs and
curriculum that are most often recommended by the veteran mem-
bers of our discussion group. Do you have a math program you love?
We’d love to have you email us at and
add to the conversation!
Christian Light Education:
After Christian Light Education had been recommended by sev-
eral people in response to someone’s question about what Math
programs they should look at for their children, Hannah K. asked,
”What about Christian Light do you-all enjoy?” and received several
great responses!
The most detailed answer came from Brooke L., who said, “We
started with Math U See, and then switched to Christian Light Educa-
tion Math. It is spiral, so it practices new things and old things. And my
kids need that! Also, each lesson is bite size. Once students get into the
300 or 400 levels, they are pretty self-sufficient because the teaching is
right in their book.” Brooke goes on to add, “The actual lesson each
day is short and easy to understand by the student, so you do not have
to teach it. Up through 4th or 5th, there are flashcards. But other than
that, you mostly just need to be available to help, if needed. There is
plenty of white space to work the problems right in the worktext. This
does make the lessons seem long, but it is plenty doable in 30-45 min-
utes. The new information is taught, the skill is practiced for a fewprob-
lems, and then it goes into ‘We Remember,’ which will reviewwhat was
taught yesterday, last week, and last month. It’s set up with a nice spi-
ral... practices new stuff frequently, bring up older things less frequently
just to refresh your memory. And then the lesson concludes with a few
problems of the new information. There are also themes for the year
units. One year was around the world, and included information about
animals in little info boxes. And the story problems were about that.
Seventh is employment themed. In our current unit, it is a construc-
tion business, so there are some story problems about labor costs, and
some using geometry to figure out howmuchmaterial to buy for a job.
The text is pretty plain, black and green with some line drawings. The
simplicity keeps my son focused.”
Life of Fred:
Melanie D. asked if anyone had personal experience with the Life
of Fred math curriculum because she liked what she had seen of the
curriculum online, but really wanted to hear other people’s personal
experience before making a final decision.
Dana W., our Region 11 Representative, endorsed Life of Fred, say-
ing, “Life of Fred is the only curriculumour son has used. It’s just wonder-
ful. We started in 3rd grade. Until then, he worked on memorizing skip
counting to songs - multiplication tables, although he didn’t know it!
He’s now finishing 6th grade and we have no plans to ever leave Fred”
Life of Fred was also highly recommended by homeschool dad,
Eric V., who stated, “I’ve become a very big fan of Life of Fred, and our
kids have engaged with it really well.” Kelli K. adds that her family en-
joys Life of Fred because it has “lots of outside-the-box thinking!”
Mastering Mathematics:
This suggestion came through our email from Jana M. who says,
“I love Mastering Mathematics by Mastery Publications. For kids strug-
gling with remembering math facts and the basic concepts, this pro-
gram is a lifesaver. We started withMammothMath and it moved way
to quickly for him and he just was not understanding it. I found Mas-
tering Mathematics and it is perfect. We are taking one whole year for
each thing and have covered addition, subtraction and multiplication.
Next year in 6th grade we will do division. These kids need lots and lots
and lots of repetitiveness to solidify the math facts and this has been
working famously for us. By the time he is in 8th grade he will be ready
for pre algebra. I don’t ever anticipate doing high level math with this
child, but perhaps we can cover algebra basics and then move on to
more general math problems, household economics and etc.”
Math Mammoth:
Janice H. recommends Math Mammoth as an affordable option
with an extremely supportive customer service team. She says, the
curriculum, “meets and exceeds common core, but also teaches old
math, which is Maria’s preferredmethod. She made it core compliant to
help those that needed it to be, but you can skip portions of that if you
choose. When it came tomulti-digit multiplication, I showedmy daugh-
ter the oldway, and she caught it so fast we could skipmost of Chapter 3
that year to not over-teach since so much is core math for that concept.
I simply emailedMathMammoth to ask what was safe to skip andwhat
we should make sure we did, like the puzzle corners for higher concepts.
And they emailed back right away which pages in the chapter to do for
building concepts coming in future chapters and which we could skip
safely since she knew how to do it. Saved us weeks!”
Math U See:
A new homeschool mom asked for advice on Math U See, won-
dering how comprehensive it was, what she needed to buy to get
her seven-year-old started, and if she needed to also order all the