Homeschool World Forum

The solution guides help alot. If you are still not certain you can get the D.I.V.E. cd's. Sd has really liked the Saxon high school math. She loves the constant reinforcement and the slow building. We will be doing Saxon Calculus next year. Anothe option for you might be Teaching Textbooks. I have heard that they are really great and work nice if you are uncomfortable with upper level math.

Do you think Saxon math would be useful for uk based curriculums for gcse?

Sorry I didn't reply to this sooner... I forgot about this forum, and haven't checked my messages! So now I'm trying to catch up. Anyway, if you're still interested...

Yes, with Saxon Math, success DEPENDS on doing all the math problems.

The system was designed that way.
Most math books have forty or fifty problems, all on the "new" thing that is taught. Then it makes sense to skip half of them.

But Saxon Math was designed to be only 5 problems on the "new" thing, and 5 problems on yesterday's "new" thing... then the other 15 - 20 problems are all review. Review is important, critical even, to math success. And if you cut out every other problem, you may be cutting out the review that is most needed. Also, if your child does all the problems, he should be just about guaranteed an "A".

That's my opinion, based on my experience, and on having met John Saxon years ago, and hearing him discuss this program.

Lorelei

Statistically speaking, you're still going to get about half the review problems for each type of problem if you only do every other problem. And if you have an aptitude for math, doing every problem is just a waste of time.

Given, this is for Algebra and up, where the problems can take some time to solve. Elementary math is pretty much just drill and you can crank through that in far less time per set, so you may as well just do every problem. It's as much about memorizing your basic math facts as learning concepts.

We love Apologia Science so I don't think you can go wrong there. You might also think about using Supercharged Science which is an online science program that has all kinds of experiments on video in each of their units. My son and I love watching the experiments. Then if we decide to do them ourselves, we know how it's supposed to be done. If we don't have the supplies, then it's nice to be able to watch a science video without having to gather all the supplies. I have a review of this program on my site.

Why don't you try out the free lessons on Mathops.com. There is a full years worth of algebra curriculum. Just click on the Free Lessons button in the upper right hand corner. If you get stuck on something send me an email at mathops2@gmail.com.