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Bogged down by Math….

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It has been a long couple of weeks over here.
I have been meaning to post all sorts of wonderful ideas for you,
I have lots of photos and even a fun giveaway coming,
but too be honest our homeschool days have been DRAGGING along.

Drrrrrrrrr……Aaaaaaaaa….Giiiiiiiiiiiiiing

Sissy (9) has reached LONG DIVISION.

IF you missed our Curriculum post,
Sissy is using Math-U-See Delta, and so far (up to this point),
she has FLOWN through the book.
It’s been cake.

When we first hit long division,
She even FLEW through single digit divisors.

But then we hit double digit divisors and we literally came to a rushing halt.
It was like a smack in the face with cold broccoli.

The days of cake were long (division) gone.

It just wasn’t….sinking in.

We spent three weeks trying to get into a rythym with these,
printing off extra practice sheets and doubling our time for Math,
We kept our Base 10 blocks within arms reach of our dining table.

But nothing worked.
She would become frusterated.
She wouldn’t finish her lessons.
She would stay up to the wee hours struggling quietly in her room,
spending her nightly “reading” time with math instead.

“I HATE MATH”
was the new slogan around here.

It was really depressing, and
I finally talked with her ES about our frustrations.
(Education Specialist from a local charter school we joined)

And you know what she said?
“She’s just not ready.
It’s okay to put it up on the shelf and come back later.”


Whaaaaaat?
Oh.
Oh yeah.
I forgot.
We can do that.
We’re homeschoolers.

For some reason I thought that if we put enough hours into Math,
it would “CLICK” and a little lightbulb would go off right above her head.

And more honestly,
maybe I just needed permission to quit.
…mid book…
… before we finished…
…with pages left….

(ack!)

So that’s what we did.

We Quit.

Bunch-o-Quitters around here now.

Just kidding.
We tucked Math-U-See back up on the shelf for a while,
and decided we are going to give it another go in the Spring.

Obviously, we didn’t quit math entirely.
We brought out Envision Math instead, because
for some reason Math-U-See covers double digit divisors and Envision doesn’t.

So now, Sissy is happily using Envision Math.
We started mid book near lesson 8,
which strangely evened the scales in my OCD mind.

Balance has been restored.
The long-division weight has been lifted and
The girl is smiling about numbers again.
Well not so much smiling, but
I haven’t heard “I HATE MATH” all week!

And me?
I’m feeling pretty blessed with this small reminder of why we homeschool.

 

If you’re looking to rediscover your Homeschool Joy, check out Bloom this Summer!

 

Envision Math: TOS Review

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Math.

It must be taught.

It is certainly NOT my favorite subject.

In fact, once I hit High School,
it became an every night struggle for me
just to get my assignments turned in.

You remember public High School Math don’t you?
Late nights, dimly lit desk lamps,
and sometimes a peek at the odd answers in the back of the book.

You are laughing cause you know you did this too.
My teacher never assigned the odd numbers anyway

(there’s some classic rationalization for ya)

Anyway.

Fast Forward 15 some-odd years and here I am:

Homeschooling

And trying to make sure my children receive a good foundation in Math,
without all the dimly lit late night cram sessions.

Math Curriculum has been a hard one for me.
I’ve used a different publisher for each year that I’ve taught.

This will be my second year using Envision Math.

pearson homeschool

Envision Math is published by a company called Pearson.
You may have heard of them. :)
Well, Pearson is now branching out into the Homeschool community with products tailored toward home educators, and a new website to help get the word out.

PearsonHomeschool.com

Tip: Sign up for their newsletter to be entered to win free curriculum!

From what I hear, the homeschool website is pretty new,
and there aren’t really any “sample” pages of the different curriculum
packages. So today I thought I’d share with you lots of photos
from our new Envision Math Grade 4 Math book.

To be frank, even when there are a few sample pages,
choosing a math curriculum can be tough so I added in some thoughts along the way.
So grab a cup of joe and “virtually” flip through the pages with me!

And just a little back drop here;
Envison Math comes in a Homeschool bundle for $99.99
The bundle includes the following:
Student Edition, MindPoint® Quiz Show CD-ROM, and Teacher Edition CD-ROM

Table of Contents

Topic 1: Numeration
Topic 2: Adding and Subtracting Whole Numbers
Topic 3: Multiplication Meanings and Facts
Topic 4: Division Meanings and Facts
Topic 5: Multiplying by 1-Digit Numbers
Topic 6: Patterns and Expressions
Topic 7: Multiplying by 2-Digit Numbers
Topic 8: Dividing by 1-Digit Divisors
Topic 9: Lines, Angles, and Shapes
Topic 10: Understanding Fractions
Topic 11: Adding and Subtracting Fractions
Topic 12: Understanding Decimals
Topic 13: Operations with Decimals
Topic 14: Area and Perimeter
Topic 15: Solids
Topic 16: Measurement, Time, and Temperature
Topic 17: Data and Graphs
Topic 18: Equations
Topic 19: Transformations, Congruence, and Symmetry
Topic 20: Probability

You can see that everything is VERY clearly laid out.
You could easily hit just the topics you are wanting to teach for the day.

Problem Solving Handbook
(Love this….I can hear myself now….”Check your Handbook!”)

Lessons:

Start with Review:

New Lesson across the Top:
I believe this is standard with Envision Math.

Practice:

Connections:
Every so often there is an additional page to lay some algebraic ground work.
I hear this is very important!

E-learning:
I appreciate that the INSTRUCTIONS are geared toward the child.
Children can easily count some of this time as technology learning as well.

Testing:
There are tests at the end of each unit.

Reteaching:
Now this is something to be excited about! Detailed reteaching points for trouble spots on the test. What a great way to encourage mastery.

So that was the Student Text.
The Teachers Guide and all other printables and resources
come on a CD Rom.

Here are some screen shots:

There are learning center activities, games, vocabulary cards and much much more.
Everything is organized by the exact lesson the child is on.

This is very handy for finding a specific help.
But not so handy if you just want to PRINT ALL.

This is disappointing because I would really like
to QUICKLY print up the Answer Key for the daily assignments but alas,
There is no PRINT ALL button.
Darn.

Also included in the Homeschool Bundle is the MindPoint GameShow Software.

This is basically a game for children to be tested on each specific lesson.
When children get a wrong answer, there is no explanation as to WHY the answer was wrong, but it does show the correct answer.

So it’s more like a pretest then a learning tool. As a teacher you can pull reports to see what scores they got in each category (not specific questions) to help reteach before moving on to the next topic.

So there you have it!
What are my thoughts?


Pros:

Non-consumable…..meaning you have your child write their answers on a separate sheet of paper Also meaning that you get to use it again and again for all of your children.

Reteaching opportunities are very easy to implement.

Problem Solving Handbook & E-Learning encourage child to initiate finding their own answers.

Lots of additional teaching resources & printables.

Cons:

No Physical Teacher Guide. Yes there is an e-guide, but unfortunately it’s not a simple “print” either. You must put in the CDrom, and access each file individually and choose which you want to print. (i.e. you print one page at a time) That is simply too much work when you’re paying for a product. The Teacher Guide should come as one continuous file for easy access and grading purposes.

Software game was a bit obnoxious when children get a wrong answer. It was like those game shows with a sarcastic host, and might be off-putting and discouraging to children who are struggling with a certain topic. There is no “Explanation” button to reteach, they simply move to the next question.

Cost. Based on what I have budgeted for Math in the past, I would say that Envision Math is on the higher end of a math curriculum.

Hope you enjoyed our virtual journey!
 We’ll be using this text over the years to come….
I’m actually pretty tempted to have my children write in their name and year on the inside cover.

Oh how that brings back memories!

You can read more about other grade levels of Envision Math
and other Pearson published curriculums here.

Photobucket

Disclaimer: As part of the TOS review crew I was sent free product for review purposes. All opinions stated are my own.