Some background first…..When Mahayla was in Kindergarten, we started with Horizons Math.  We continued with Horizons through 3rd grade, but used it loosely.  What I mean by that is I usually only bought one of the two workbooks and never bought the Teacher’s Guide.  Two or three days a week, we would do one workbook page from Horizons and one workbook page from Miquon.  The other two days I would pull from logic books, problem solving books, NC Math or we’d do real-life sorts of things.  (I’ll post very soon on my math resources.)

Last year (her 4th grade year), we switched to Saxon 5/4.  I loved that it was “self-teaching” and I could go over the lesson with her and then leave her to work on the problems without much help.  She, on the other hand, hated it.  She didn’t like copying work from the book to her paper.  She didn’t like all the problems – mental math, new lessons problems, practice problems, fact sheets.  So, I backed off.  She only had to do mental math, the new lesson problems and 1/2 of the practice problems.  And this only two or three days a week because we were still doing “other math” the rest of the week.

Even though she liked this plan better, math was still such a struggle.  I can’t count the number of tears.  I can’t tell you how many times Principal Daddy had to be called upon.  I can’t tell you how frustrated I became day after day of fussing with her about doing the Saxon work.

Fast forward to yesterday.  Since we only finished about half of Saxon 5/4 (because of adding other math each week), I wanted to see if she needed to finish the 5/4 book or if she was ready to move on to 6/5.  I printed out the Placement Test and let her go for it.  No help.  Would you know that little stinker easily surpassed the 5/4 book, the 6/5 book and almost made it past the 7/6 book???

So here’s what I told her (as she’s laughing at her accomplishment.)  THIS year, I’m keeping a brick by me during math time.  If she dares to complain once about how hard math is, I’m throwing the brick at her!  (Just kidding!)  Seriously, though, NO COMPLAINING ALLOWED!  I’ve decided to keep with my plans of Saxon 6/5 instead of moving her up.  One reason, I already have it!  ($$$)  Another reason, I see lots in the book that we’ve never covered that I’d hate to skip.  And finally, I plan to stick to my schedule of Saxon two or three times a week, so 6/5 makes more sense.

My point in all this?  Aren’t you glad I’m getting to the point?  Two of the biggest questions I’m asked are, “Aren’t you afraid of not finishing a workbook?” and “How do you know you’re covering everything your child needs if you use so many different materials?”  I’ve always said, the proof’s in the pudding.  Here’s a prime example.  Workbook companies don’t know YOUR kids.  Workbook companies also don’t KNOW everything.  Workbook companies can’t possibly cover EVERYTHING either.  You know what your kids need.  You know how they learn best.  You know what their interests are.  You know how much of one type of learning they can handle before they explode.  You have mommy’s intuition.  You have the Holy Spirit leading you in decisions.  (Hopefully, if not, I hope you’ll email me and ask how!)