Math: What I wish I knew in the beginning

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel.

[00:00:01]Today I'm going to discuss what I wish I would have known when I first started with regards to math. Spoiler, all math will get your child to the same destination when we're looking at elementary K through 8th grade. Every single one will get your child from kindergarten up through pre-alggebra.

[00:00:22]It's just a matter of style, pacing, rhythm, the aesthetics, etc. So, if you don't want to watch this video any further, you've heard my message. Thanks for your view and we'll see you next time. However, if you're going to stick around, I will hopefully give a quick explanation of what I mean by this. When my youngest was about threeish when I decided I was going to homeschool, um, yes, me, I decided I told my husband, I don't care what you say, I'm homeschooling. I worked in the government school system. there was no way I was going to put my kid in that environment. And so he reluctantly agreed and a few few years later he said, "Okay, I'm on board with this fully." But I digress.

[00:01:09]When I saw what was available in the market, none of it was really fitting her particular needs.

[00:01:17]And there were so many at the time, there were so many new companies or newish companies that were out. They were starting their math lines. They hadn't finished them. So, some companies had K through three. Others were releasing them yearbyear. And with a couple of them, she was a year ahead of what they were releasing. And others, it was it was a roll of the dice. Are you going to push your kid in this? Because you don't know where it's going. You don't know how it's going to end. You can't see the progression year over year. You're just kind of going in blind and h praying that everything works out.

[00:01:50]And that was a big reason why we bounced around so much was because new products were coming out, new years were being released. And I saw pros and benefits of most every product that was being released. There are cons with most every product that is released. And so [clears throat] I didn't have the luxury of hindsight, nor did I have the luxury that many homeschool moms have today where you can go onto a website and you can see what the course has year-over-year, where they end. Do they end in sixth grade? Do they end in eighth grade? What are they going to have completed by the time they're in those upper grades? What will they My clock totally threw me off, but what is their scope and sequence and how is that going to relate to my child and where would they go from there? I wish I had that. I could have not bounced around so much. I could have just stopped and printed off all the scope and sequences [music] and I could have aligned them with every other book that I had or every other scope and sequence that you printed off and you could see for yourself. This gets you here. This gets you here. This gets you here. And at the long and the short, they will all take your child to the requirements of what they need for pre-alggebra. And some of these companies are now going beyond pre-alggebra. Simply Charlotte Mason is one of them. They just released their pre-alggebra and they plan on going through at least algebra. I think they're going to do geometry maybe maybe higher than that. So, what you need to know when you're when you're shopping around for math, it's not is this going to fail my child? Is my child going to be successful? Your child will be successful pretty much with every math on the market. You may have to get a higher level. You may have to get a lower level. You may have to add manipulatives. You may have to take some out, but you can get pretty much every math program to work for pretty much every child. You may have to supplement with review if you go mastery based. You may need to stop and do some mastery skills if you're choosing spiral. But that's the long and the short. Every single thing will work. It just depends on you finding a book that works for your personal style. And if you can maybe finding one that works for both you and your child. But as I've said in another video, the priority is it working for you, mom, because you're the one that has to facilitate. So, let me go through this and give you some examples. I have a stack of I don't know at least 10 10 books. I don't have Singapore in here and I don't have Math Mammoth. I've already donated those. So, those are gone. But when I say I've literally had every single major math program in my home with the exception of Roden Staff and Christian Light, I've had them all. So, Simply Charlotte Mason, this will get your child from first grade on up through now pre-alggebra.

[00:04:52]If you need something that is black and white, no color, no distraction, you can use manipulatives that you already have at home. From popsicle sticks to beans to seeds to whatever it is you have. You have your math. It's non-consumable.

[00:05:12]You can use it as review. I've used it as a supplement for um children that need more mental math work. Children that need more my second especially, she needs the mental math and story problems. This is a really good one.

[00:05:30]Math with confidence.

[00:05:32]It is considered to be a little bit slower than other math programs on the market. Is that true? Yes. But by the time you get to their level six book, you'll be pretty much at that same place where your child by and large can go right into pre-alggebra. There will always be children that will need more time. They will need another year.

[00:05:53]That's okay. That doesn't mean that any of these products have failed your child. That just means your child has additional needs.

[00:06:00]Who is this good for? This is for the parent that likes game math. their child wants some color, but you don't want to be overwhelmed by color. This is also for the mom that likes a manipulative heavy program. And I mean heavy. There is a lot here. And if you like working with cards and card games, this one is for you. Who is this not going to be beneficial for? If you are like me and you have more of an ADHD type of a a function, this can be very difficult for you. This particular page is not very helpful, but let's see. It's first grade. By the time you get into the second and third level, I mean, it can be those pages can be quite dense and there's really nothing to break that up for you visually. So, you have to go through here and add highlighters and colors and highlighter tape and it's a lot more work than I personally want to do. There's a lot of moms that do do that because they feel so strongly for this. That's okay. If you're fine doing that, go ahead. Have have fun. But they do use a lot of card games.

[00:07:06]A lot of card games. So, you have to be prepared that you're going to be shuffling cards pretty much every single day.

[00:07:14]But that's really good if you want something that's a little bit of mastery, but also has the spiral, not a lot of problems. It's not overwhelming for a child that can't sit still. Maybe good for boys so they can keep things moving. That that might be a good option. You just have to be prepared.

[00:07:31]that one of the cons is it's a very densely packed teacher book. Very I don't like that. It's also good if you like scripted. I don't like scripted. So that didn't work for me. Saxon. Now I have their kindergarten, first and second grade books, but I've got 54 out here. I have up through um 76.

[00:07:53]And again, if you're a mom that wants no colors, no frills, each lesson is taught individually to the child. So, you're really not asked to be around. You have your lesson, you have your practice. These books, you can use these on their own.

[00:08:11]You can get the test books, you can get the workbook supplements, you can do all of that. This is spiral. They have a pretty unique spiral. I don't know how to explain it. I never used it long enough to really delve into that portion of it, but your kids's going to be doing a lot of problems, and I mean a lot of problems. So, be prepared that your math is going to take one to two hours with this. If you're okay with that, and your kids's okay with that, you don't want the colors, you just want straightforward, no manipulatives, just get in, get it done, drill and kill, that's a bad thing for me. for other parents that's not this one's for you.

[00:08:53]If you want something that's quirky and zany, literary based, something that will take your child from the very beginning on up through into college level. If your child doesn't need [sighs] a lot of hands-on, your child doesn't need to do a lot of pencil to paper. They're very good with mental math. They tend to be more gifted in the math field. Life of Fred. This is your go-to book. No color, no frills.

[00:09:22]You might be making some flashcards.

[00:09:24]This one is goldfish. You might be making some flashcards, but they have various levels, including intermediate levels where you go over decimals and fractions, and then you get into your pre-alggebra books. There are three.

[00:09:36]Then you jump into your high school levels. You can use this as just fun with your kids and just read through them. You can use this as your main program. It's how you want to use it. I never used it as our main program. Well, kind of did. After about second grade, I didn't use it as our main program because I saw that my kids still needed pencil to paperwork and this didn't offer enough. It was like four or five problems and it wasn't enough. And I have a child that just wants to be told A plus B equals C. She just wants to get in, get out, and get it done. She doesn't want to have to go through all the mental gymnastics to figure all of the different ways you can solve one problem. And he goes into that. He says that you can solve it this way. You can do it this way. You can come up with this. It was a little bit too much for her.

[00:10:26]You want an actual hardcore mastery. You have M or not master books.

[00:10:31]You have Matthew C. You are taking one or two skills a year and that's all you're doing.

[00:10:38]Black and white.

[00:10:41]very few manipulatives, very hands-on.

[00:10:43]It's a very three-dimensional math. So, if your child needs to see the three dimension, that's a good one for you. I know that if I would have had his book for geometry because of how he breaks down the formulas into a three-dimensional shape. I would have done great with geometry, but I didn't have him then.

[00:11:03]It will be teacher intensive. You will need to sit there with your child. You can't just hand him a book and walk away. You have to work with your child.

[00:11:12]And if you are someone or your child is someone that gets bored with math, you have to think about, do you really want to be doing addition all year long? Do you only want to be working on multiplication all year long?

[00:11:25]By the time you are done doing all of their levels, you will be ready for pre-alggebra.

[00:11:30]You're good with that.

[00:11:34]Get sticky off of here.

[00:11:37]Master books.

[00:11:39]This gets a bad rap because we are constantly told that is behind that it is very basic. It is very minimal. It is a regressed math. It is not. They go by levels not grade laid. Level four is not grade four. It's just level four. So your student might be ready for level four in second grade. they might be ready for level four in fifth grade. You have to decide for yourself based on the placement tests where your child fits.

[00:12:12]Many people use level one in kindergarten and then they finish it sometime in their first grade year.

[00:12:18]Other people start with kindergarten and kindergarten year and they go through this slowly. This is one where, if I had to describe, you're taking a cross-country trip from Boston to San Francisco and you are stopping at every single quirky museum. You're looking at all of the outlooks. You're stopping for all of the natural scenery. You're taking pictures along the way. You're having picnics on the side of the road.

[00:12:41]You are taking your time getting from point A to point B. You're not in a hurry. You're not in a rush, especially for the first K through level two into level three. You are taking a very gentle, methodical, slow pace, allowing your child to not have any math anxiety.

[00:13:00]It's giving you time. It's giving your child time and it's mostly black and white, very few problems. But one of the things they do well is they work on mastery of a concept while also offering a lot of review. And if you have a child that struggles with multiplication and memor or memorizing multiplication, this actually is one of their pros. They go over it so many times and they take it chunk by chunk so that your child's not overwhelmed. I actually love it for that reason. I used it to get one of my children um up to speed when she was struggling with um what was it? Good and the beautiful and something else. Oh, math with confidence. She just wasn't doing well with those. So, we moved her to this and she did really really well. And then she wanted something just a little bit more.

[00:13:50]So, we took her out of this. But that's the benefit. You want something slow and gentle where you can use household manipulatives, but you also want something that you know that by the time your child's done with level six, not grade six, level six, they will be ready for pre-alggebra. This is it. This is what you've got.

[00:14:09]So, don't believe the hype. Don't believe the videos that it's behind and your child's going to be years behind their peers. No, it starts slow and then it picks up into that third book. You want something that's more mastery with a tiny bit of spiral review at the end.

[00:14:23]You want hands-on. You want some color.

[00:14:25]You want a little bit of faith in there.

[00:14:27]Masterbooks has faith, too. You want a little bit of faith. You want to use game cards, M&M's, etc. Sometimes, and you also like the occasional project.

[00:14:38]Apology is for you. It's also one that gets a wrap of being behind or slow. By the time you get to level five and six, you're right there where you need to be.

[00:14:48]When you're done with level six, you will go into pre-alggebra unless your personal child needs a tiny bit more time.

[00:14:55]So, you have your lesson, you'll have your game or whatever the activity is. You'll have a practice page. This is level three, so there's one extra page, three pages total. You're in, you're out. It's a little bit like math with confidence, but it's set up in a way visually for the ADHD child and mom, which I like.

[00:15:23]Lots of colored pencils, lots of hands-on activities.

[00:15:27][sighs] You know, you've got like battleship multiplication. You've got several fun things like that. You're making a lemonade stand. You're doing a pizza party. And it's not just a pizza party for the sake of having one. It has to do with fractions and building upon building those fractions. So, it's it's really nice taking life concepts and she's really good at taking what you live what you're experiencing in your life and applying it to math.

[00:15:53]They do that as well. All of the math you're going to have, especially in your level six, your um basic business math, uh starting a bank, uh savings account, those sorts of things. That's all what your math is based on. so that your child has actual application to the real world so they retain it more.

[00:16:13]You want something rigorous that's going to take your child from Boston to San Francisco in a nancond. That's for you.

[00:16:20]It's colorful, but they don't have they they they don't mess around. You're going and you're going hard. You're going fast. This is second grade. This this is second grade.

[00:16:33]That's crazy.

[00:16:34]That's absolutely crazy. Their third grade book is even crazier. Like the type of multiplication and division that they're doing in the third grade book.

[00:16:43]Holy cow. But you want something that you know your kids going to get everything that they need. It's colorful. There's some white space. You don't use too many manipulatives. I never use the teacher book, so I don't know how in-depth the teacher book is, but you can see even here you're getting division.

[00:17:01]That's second grade division.

[00:17:05]That's why it wasn't for me.

[00:17:08]Then you have this. Basically, you want pretty. The good and the beautiful is if you want pretty. It's spiral and it spirals the same things throughout the book and throughout the years. So, your kid will be seeing these concepts over and over and over and over and over again. I do not like level three. I do not like level five. Kids always struggle. And it wasn't just mine. I see that across the board on all social media platforms. Level three and level five are where a lot of people throw in the towel, but it's pretty.

[00:17:46]There's a little bit of hands-on. They don't use traditional manipulative, so you're not getting a traditional manipulative program. There is some reading, some side by side with mom.

[00:17:56]There's a little bit of games. There's a little bit of coloring.

[00:18:00]So, it's got a little bit of all the tiny bit of the fun, a lot of the color.

[00:18:05]If you are visually stimulated, that's what you're going to choose. But again, kindergarten through sixth grade, you finish the sixth grade level, you can go into pre-alggebra. You can do that. If you need an extra year to solidify those skills, they have level seven before you go to pre-alggebra.

[00:18:26]One more thing with the Simply Charlotte Mason. If you're looking for something that's more vintageesque, like a raise, but brought into modern times, that's what this is.

[00:18:37]And so that's my PSA for math. What I wish I would have known, which is basically they all get you from point A to point B. It's just do you want the scenic drive? Do you want the bullet train? How many stops do you want to make along the way? How much do you want to enjoy it? How much does your child want to enjoy it? Or do you just want to get in and get done and hit your checkbox? That's up to you to decide. I don't think that there is any one program that's better than the other.

[00:19:05]They all have pros. They all have cons.

[00:19:07]I have my personal favorites, but my personal favorites may not be for you.

[00:19:11]So, let me know what you think down below. If you have questions, concerns, comments, I'm here for it. See you later.