My 12 yo daughter is nearly done with Teaching Textbooks Math 7 (she’ll finish by Spring Break in March 2010) and my 10 yo son just started a few months ago.

So, when another homeschool mom asked me about Teaching Textbooks, as a possible homeschool math curriculum for her 9 yo son, I was happy to answer her questions.

One of these days I’ll write a full review, but in the meantime, if you are considering Teaching Textbooks as a possible homeschool math curriculum, I’ve pasted our Q&A here.  If you have additional questions about Teaching Textbooks, feel free to put them in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Does your son like it?

Yes, my 10 yo son  likes it. All the lessons are fully explained in video format, and all the answers are fully explained step by step, so if he misses something he can click the solution button and see where he went wrong.

He does not like that each lesson is so long, i.e., has so many problems (20 problems, plus 5 practice problems per lesson). He’s used to a much shorter program, but he has adapted by doing a 1/2 lesson per day or a minimum of 2-3 lessons per week.

Any ideas about placement?

The Teaching Textbooks  has placement tests for each level, I highly recommend using them. Don’t go by what you think is the grade level; it’ll depend on what math program you’ve used in the past and where your son is currently at.  The placement test does a good job helping you position the student in the correct level. 

Also, you can look at the table of contents of each course to see what’s covered and see if your son is ready for that level of work. In my case, Teaching Textbooks Math 7 covers fractions, decimals, and some basic geometry, which is a good transition from our elementary math program, which is weak in these topics (in my opinion), before they are ready for Beginning Algebra.

Though I have to say because we moved from a mastery-based elementary math program to Teaching Textbooks (a spiral based program), there was lots of overlap in some areas and none in others.

I did placement tests with my son a couple times over two years because he was strong in some areas and not in others, and finally when he was ready, I just moved him into Teaching Textbooks Math 7, and that’s worked well.

From my perspective, it’s a big change for me, they basically don’t need me for math anymore (yes, I’m a little sad about that). My 12 yo daughter periodically will have a question when she gets a problem wrong and can’t figure out why (and doesn’t want to view the solution on the computer.)

But other than that…there’s no prep, no lesson planning, no teacher time at all. Just setting boundaries and saying “go do your math”. Which of course is a huge time saver.

Is it all on computer?

Depends on how you do it. It can be done completely on the computer, though you need a notebook or something to work the problems in.

The text book also contains all of the lesson materials (except the step-by-step walkthroughs & solutions, which are only on the CDs).

Because of some issues we were having with my kids, we now require the kids to do all the problems out of the book on paper.

So what my daughter does is watch the lesson on the computer (rather than read it), then does the problems out of the book (in a notebook, so the book stays nice for later resale and younger siblings), checks her answers after each problem in the answer booklet, and then inputs her answers into the computer for grading purposes.

My son watches the whole lesson and the problems on the computer, but works each problem on paper, checks the answer, reworks as necessary, and then enters the answer into the computer, and moves on to the next problem.

Different kids, different styles. But either way I require that they don’t move on to the next problem until they got the one they are working on right (no use doing the whole set wrong and then going back and fixing it…)

What about the testing/grading…is it on the computer as well?

There’s a quiz after each chapter, which is all dealt with on the computer (or in the textbook, see above). All the grading is done automatically for you on the computer and it keeps a record of it all for you. (nice)

Update: The high school level Teaching Textbook programs do not include the automated grading.

Is there a “lesson plan” or something that tells me how to get through it in a school year?

I’m not really sure. In Teaching Textbooks Math 7, there’s 118 lessons plus a quiz after each of the 18 chapters, so assuming 1 lesson a day for an 180 day school year, that’s pretty much how to get through it in a year.

You could look at the Table of Contents in the Teaching Textbook  you are looking at and see how it would break down. I set goals for the kids this way, based on where they are at, and how many weeks are left in the term, and how many lessons I think they can get through in a week and then term allowing for days off and slippage.

We’ve chosen not to try to complete it in a year. It’s taken my daughter at least a year and a half. There have been some chapters where she did a whole lesson a day, and others where a 1/2 of a lesson a day is fine.

But my style is to just let them go through it at whatever their pace is and not worry about what level they are in each year…just continuing on until they learn it. 

If you are working & homeschooling like I am, or are math challenged, or have a child who does best with visual or audio teaching methods, then Teaching Textbooks is a good, solid, and thorough math curriculum worth looking at further.

Last in our series on ensuring your homeschool can survive in a financial crisis, I shared three free literature-based curriculums. But, each of those assume that you have an internet connection available. And sometimes, that just isn’t possible.  So today we’re going to look at two inexpensive homeschool curriculums to have around either as your main curriculum or to use as your backup plan.

Both of these curricula are literature-based curriculum that use mostly public domain works (which are included) for the bulk of the curriculum. Both are on CD. And both use the 3R approach to learning, which means that they focus on Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic (math), with History and Science covered via living books/literature.

The two curricula are Robinson Curriculum and Accelerated Achievement (also known as A²  A-squared).  During my search for a backup curriculum, I looked heavily at both of these. There a lot of similiarities, but there are differences as well. Personally I chose Robinson Curriculum, while a good friend of mine chose A².

 Being that I’ve chosen Robinson, I’m obviously biased about those differences, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide which might work best for your family and budget. 

 But I do recommend checking out both curriculums as low-cost (cheap) homeschool alternative that will still give your children a wonderful education.

Have experience with either Robinson Curriculum or A^2? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Step 3 in my 6 Steps to Ensure Your Homeschool Can Survive A Financial Crisis is to look at Free, Nearly Free, or low-cost curriculum choices to see if you can use an alterative if your homeschool budget is significantly reduced or evaporates althogether.

Here are three free homeschool curriculums worth looking at. If you like lesson plans or schedules to help guide your path, all three of these offer free lesson plans – either daily, weekly. And each have active communities of homeschoolers who are using the curriculums.

1. Ambleside Online

Using a combination of free public domain materials and resources you’ll need to purchase or borrow, Ambleside Online provides a full curriculum for k-12 in Charlotte Mason style.  Striving to create a free curriculum that Charlotte Mason herself would use, the volunteers at Ambleside Online have put together a full, robust homeschool curriculum.
 
The homeschoolers who use Ambleside Online are very generous with their knowledge and in helping bring more and more free resources online to implement a Charlotte Mason style homeschool. You’ll find a wealth of knowledge here, if you are interested in literature-based or Charlotte Mason-style curriculum.

If you are not familiar with Charlotte Mason and her teachings, I recommend reading Ambleside Online’s Introduction to Charlotte Mason and either Charlotte Mason’s original writings (available free on Ambleside Online) or a copy of A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning by Karen Andreola.

Note: Ambleside Online is primarily a Christain homeschool curriculum, but because it is literature- and nature study- based, it is also easy for the secular homeschooler to adapt.

2. An Old Fashioned Education

An Old Fashioned Education is a free homeschool curriculum based on classic public domain literature and text books. The entire curriculum was developed by Miss Maggie, the founder of Hillbilly Housewife (one of my favorite frugal cooking sites), for her boys, after she discovered Ambleside Online wasn’t structured enough for her family.

Even if you don’t use the full curriculum, Miss Maggie has pre-screened, categorized, and links an amazing amount of free literature and public domain textbooks, making the site a wonderful reference on where to find free books for your homeschool.

The 3RHomeschooling yahoo group provides excellent support for those using An Old Fashioned Education, as well as other literature-based curriculum. Again, the members are as generous in their knowledge as Miss Maggie was in putting together this curriculum and ensuring it remains free.

Note: An Old Fashioned Education is a Christain homeschool curriculum, that uses books with a strong moral focus. However the secular homeschooler will also find the site useful in finding free homeschool curriculum and classic literature in public domain.

3. Simply Charlotte Mason

SimplyCharlotteMason.com is another free homeschool curriculum for those looking for a Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool. Like Ambleside Online, this curriculum uses both free public domain litature and more contemporary resources that you will need to purchase or borrow. There is a free Curriculum Guide for Grades 1-12, and suggested resources for each subject by grade.

There’s a Community Forum for this site, where you can get support and questions answered. Also the two families who designed this curriculum give workshops.

This site is more commerical than Ambleside Online and An Old Fashioned Education. The site owners sell items on the site and their Charlotte Mason (”living book”) book finder does link to Amazon. But the curriculum and many of the resources are free or are available free from public domain sites. One special freebie unique to this site is the Book of Centuries - a free, downloadable pdf file that allows you to put together a history timeline notebook.

Note: Simply Charlotte Mason is also a free Christain homeschool curriculum, but like the other two, it can be adapted by the secular homeschooler by eliminating certain resources.

Next week, I’ll share more free homeschool resources, as this series on ensuring your homeschool can endure a financial crisis continues.  In the meantime, if you have experience using one of these curriculums or know of another free, full homeschool curriculum besides these three, please share in the comments below.

Thanks!

…Shannon

P.S. In case you are curious, I’ve tested out An Old Fashioned Education, and use it as an additional resource when looking for free living books for our homeschool.

Q: You mentioned that you are using the McGuffey Readers. Can you tell me more about how you are using them?

A: Before I can really answer this well, let me start with how I came to using them and why. 

We started with the McGuffey Readers – the second reader actually – at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year and are now about 3/4 the way through the second reader.  I had heard of them before but at that time wasn’t interested in using any type of reader, much less one that was over a 100 years old.

But each child is different and my investigation into using public domain materials, stemming from my research into the Robinson Curriculum and then subsequently into the Accelerated Achievement (aka A-squared) and Old Fashioned Education curriculums, was enough for me to give it a try with my 9 year old.

Right now I’m only using the McGuffey Readers with my 9 year old, though my 11 year old has asked to do readings from the 2nd reader and I’m considering having her do some reading from the 3rd  reader next year or over the summer.  

I started teaching my son to read later than most, having learned a hard lesson with my oldest.  We waited until he was asking to learn to read, until he showed that he was ready.  When he was 7 ½, we started with the “at” family and the first couple Bob Books. When he proved that he was indeed ready developmentally to learn to read, we progressed with Reading Reflex.

He went from nothing to a strong 2nd grade reading level in less than a year. And now at 9 ½, two years after he started learning to read, he is reading 4th and 5th grade reading level books with no problem at all.

BUT…since most of his personal reading and assigned reading is to his self, I wanted to know for certain that he was understanding what he was reading and not just skipping over words he didn’t know or filling in his own versions.  So, this past year, part of his reading has been to read aloud to me from the McGuffey Reader.

So, to answer the real question, how am I using the McGuffey Readers…
 
As with anything I use, I decided to just start with it and see how it works out, knowing that I could always scrap it if it wasn’t going to work. But it really surprised me.  My son likes the stories – they appeal to him and his sense of justice and right and wrong. 

Each story is only a page or two long, with new vocabulary listed at the beginning of the story. We don’t use the vocabulary section. Instead, as we run across words that he doesn’t know (like “foe”) or have changed over time (like “gay”), I ask him what he thinks they mean or clarify the meaning for him.  This actually has been a bonus, as we’ve been able to talk about different words and how they might fall in or out of fashion over the years and how language may change.

We keep the reading light. Sometimes he’ll want to re-read a story he has read before, and that’s okay as long as he reads a new story as well. Sometimes, he’ll struggle with the pacing of a story or poem, so we’ll read it once and then maybe I’ll read it to give him an idea of how the pacing should sound, but then we’ll put it away and read it again on another day.

Primarily, when he’s reading, I’m listening for:

Is he really reading the words on the page?
I try to catch when he guesses at a word, or fills a word  in based on what he thinks it is going to say. I’m also listening for when he changes words with another word with a like meaning (he has the tendency to do this when he is reading ahead silently.) (

Is he reading quickly just to get through it, or reading for the benefit of others?
I’m not tolerating reading just to read it fast and get it done.  He needs to read for the benefit of sharing the story with others, so they can enjoy while they are listening to him read it.  So we work on pacing and inflection.

We talk about using punctuation as clues for “taking a breath”, reading with inflection, enunciating, and projecting his voice. 

Are there articulation issues we need to deal with?
My son (actually both of them) needed speech therapy. And so I’m also listening for articulation errors, where he might be getting lazy and that affects the ability for the listener (me) to understand the words he is saying.  Recently, it became evident that he needed to work on the “th” sound again; and we identified it through these reading aloud sessions.

Does he understand/comprehend what he is reading?
There’s no use in reading if he doesn’t understand what he is reading. And so, periodically, especially on the poetry or sentences he struggles with, I’ll ask him what it means. And then I’ll share what I think it means. Again, this is really low key, not coming across as a test, but as a discussion of the literature and the use of words.

Could I use other readers? Probably. But the McGuffey Readers are free for download from Project Gutenberg. Or in my case, the version I’m using (1879 edition) came with my copy of the Robinson Curriculum.  We just print it out and 3 hole punch it and keep it in a binder. No big deal.  

I really like the values projected in the edition of the McGuffey readers we’re using. The stories in the 2nd reader relate to interactions between children and their parents, their friends, birds, and the natural world.  And do so in a way that promotes courage, bravery, honesty, and caring for others. There’s two stories that are my 9 year old’s favorites that I think talk to this point well:

Henry, the Bootblack
This is a  brief story about an impoverished boy, who wanted to help his mother and little sister. One day he was rewarded with his honesty with $1, which he used to buy the equipment he needed to shine boots. The story tells how he captured customer with his politeness, and how he helped his family by working during the day shining boots and went to school at night.

In course of the story we have been able to talk about how much $1 would have been at the time, what a bootblack boy was, and how even though he was helping his family, he still went to school.  The story talks about the choice the boy made, to be honest and how he was rewarded for that honesty. Values I want enforced.

The Kingbird
This is a quick little story about the Kingbird and why it is named the Kingbird. It tells of how it uses cunning and quickness to protect the nest from much larger birds.  Not only is this a science lesson, and talks about birds, which my son loves, but it also appeals to his desire to protect those he cares about and talks to the warrior within him.

At this point I’m planning to continue with the McGuffey Readers, for my 9 year old and for the others when they are ready – at least as long as I find value in using them.

If you are considering them, know that, like with all books, there are differences between editions. And I suggest reading a little about those differences to see if matters to you.  Again I’m using the 1879 version that comes with the Robinson Curriculum, but others are available.  Free versions are available online through Project Gutenberg and other public domain repositories.

If you don’t want to print out your own versions, you can also buy them used or new, they often come as a boxed set but can be purchased individually as well. Again, watch for what version it might be (if that matters to you).  Amazon.com carries a couple different sets.  HSTreasures carries the 1879 version as does Mcguffeyreaders.com and a few other sources online.

Also use the McGuffey Readers? Please share your experiences!

I have been really happy with our core elementary math curriculum. It’s off the beaten path, as far as homeschool math curriculum goes, but I’ve liked it.  But sometimes, the kids need a little extra practice, before moving on to the next thing, and so I turn to one of my favorite free online resources: www.themathworksheetsite.com

This site is wonderful. It was created by a homeschool dad for his own family’s use, and  has very generously shared the tools with the rest of us. I have used this site for years, with all of my children.  Right at this very moment, I’m printing off a Multiplication worksheet for my 9 year old son and two Hundreds charts for my 5 and 6 year olds.

The hundreds chart has been an excellent tool for learning to count and for skip counting. I print out as many as I need and have them color whatever we are learning. (For example, to learn to count by 10s, I have them color the 10’s row. To learn to count by 2s, they color every other number (evens). etc.)

The worksheet generator for each of the operations allows me to print out custom worksheets that cover the exact areas that the kids are having trouble with. For example, Josh (my 9 year old) had some difficulty learning the 7x and 8x tables.  Extra worksheets that just covered those helped him practice more. 

To teach telling time, I’ve exclusively used the worksheets provided on this site, coupled with a manipulative clock. So far, all four of the children have either learned to tell time this way or in case of my 5 year old, is learning to tell time.

I also like the 5 minute drill worksheets. Not as five minute drills, but as a tool to figure out what the kids really know and and how well. I’ve been surprised – both positively and negatively using these tools.

Anyway, if you are looking for some math worksheet supplements, this is a great free website.  There is a subscription area, and frankly I’ve not had a need for it yet. But the free side… well that I use on a regular basis.

And, as a side note, their blog has this great article on how it is to run an at-home business, homeschooling, and try to appear professional on the phone. I could totally relate to this one, and you might too…

Enjoy.

…Shannon