A New Approach – that will change how you view math instruction.

Math on the Level is a new homeschool approach to teaching math.  Unlike the typical grade-leveled, one-size-fits-all approach designed for group instruction, Math on the Level equips you to give each child the benefit of individualized learning and review using practical teaching methods that are not often found in the classroom.  Instead of teaching all children the same way (with group instruction materials), this new curriculum gives you control of the teaching sequence so you can easily adapt your math program to each child's needs or even teach children of different ages together.  The teaching guides are full of practical teaching ideas that let you teach math through real-life activities that help children truly comprehend math.  And in place of the pages of busywork that do little for long-term memory, Math on the Level uses an innovative review approach that spreads the practice out over time, giving practice when and where needed, but using only five problems a day.

Complete – One purchase gives you the tools to teach all your children, from preschool through pre-algebra.  The curriculum contains seven full-color volumes:

4 Teaching Guides

Operations, Money and Decimals, Geometry & Measurements, and Fractions.  Starting with preschool concepts and progressing all the way through pre-algebra concepts, these four Math on the Level teaching guides give clear, concise instructions on how to teach each math concept using a variety of methods and techniques that emphasize practical activities and manipulatives.  For every concept, there are practice problems (with solutions) to use while teaching or for the 5-A-Day review.

3 Resource Books

Math Adventures helps you bring math instruction into your daily life activities and unit studies. Math Resources includes a number of important topics that fill out and complete the curriculum.  The Overview and Record Keeping binder teaches you the Math on the Level approach and has the complete record-keeping system, with all the forms and charts you need to plan and track each child's math instruction and review.

Together, these seven books (printed in full color) form a complete K-8 math curriculum to use for all your children from the time they start learning to count up until they are ready for Algebra 1.

Family-centered– The whole family can learn together.

Have you ever been frustrated because each of your homeschooled children is learning something different in math?  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have all your children working on the same general concept?  With Math on the Level, you can!

With Math on the Level, you have the freedom to teach the concepts in any order that works for your family.  And many of the math instructions involve activities that can include the whole family.  For example, using the Fractions teaching guide and cooking as your Math Adventure, your youngest ones can be playing with measuring cups and learning about half and whole (one of the beginning lessons) while the older ones are adding fractions with like denominators or (more advanced) dividing mixed numbers.

Maturation based – Teach at the child's best pace.

In the traditional approach to math instruction, as in the typical classroom, all children are taught the same way and at the same pace prescribed by the author.  If a child has difficulty understanding a concept, you can:

1. Teach the child the steps without true comprehension (producing confusion).
2. Move on, hoping the child will catch up later (producing failure).
3. Stay with the concept until the maturation occurs (producing frustration).

Maturation is not the same as intelligence, but too often the one-size-fits-all approach causes those who mature more slowly to feel less intelligent.  We do not need to do this to our children!

...the Math on the Level approach

Math on the Level lets you adapt the pace and teaching order to each child's level and ability.  The child who needs more time can learn without frustration and stigma.  For example, if the child is struggling to understand a concept in Operations (such as subtraction with regrouping), you can teach a concept in a different Teaching guide (like Geometry and Measurements), and at the same time use daily activities to help the child grasp the difficult concept.  The record keeping system makes it easy to track what has been covered, and the 5-A-Day review keeps the child sharp with what has already been learned, so nothing is lost by delaying the difficult concept until the child is more mature (then, it also will be much easier to teach).

A fun way to learn math – Replace frustration and stress with success.

The Math on the Level approach focuses on teaching a balance of math lessons reinforced by normal daily activities, such as cooking, playing games, doing mental math, or even having a garage sale.  Instead of being tied down to a workbook or a specific set of manipulatives, Math on the Level gives you the flexibility to teach math while having fun with your family.  You teach math through life, which makes math less abstract and more meaningful.

...without all the stress

Math on the Level takes the approach that math should be learned in an environment that is relaxed and fun.  It is far less stressful to teach math when the child is maturationally ready to understand the concepts.  By matching instruction to maturation, the child will learn and retain information much more easily.   And children find it more interesting to learn math through life activities than as a strictly paper-and-pencil exercise.

Children can be also overwhelmed or discouraged when they are made to solve pages of math problems every day.  However, most math programs use that short-term, intense review method, even though it is more effective for short-term than long-term memory. With Math on the Level, each child's independent work involves only 5 problems a day.  By focusing on the child's actual need and spreading the practice out over time, math is retained for the long term.

Efficient – Reviewing the 5-A-Day Way!

After a child learns a math concept, it must be practiced – if you don't use it, you'll lose it.  Since math builds on itself, forgetting an early concept will cause problems for the child later on.  The traditional approach to math review involves pages of generalized practice sets of 20 to 30 problems, often concentrating on the most recently learned concept.  Intense short-term review is non-motivating for most children and is far less effective for long-term retention than having the child practice over an extended period of time using fewer daily problems.  The Math on the Level 5-A-Day system gives regular, ongoing practice with every math concept using only 5 problems per day to solve, while concentrating the review where needed.  Most kids find the 5-A-Day review method far more motivating than doing pages of busywork.

A newly learned concept starts out on daily review.  As the child demonstrates competence, it is gradually moved to less frequent review (to every other day, weekly, or to every two or three weeks).  Every concept is practiced at least once every three weeks for the duration of the program (and more often if needed).  If a child forgets something, you know it within a few weeks and can re-teach it or move it to more frequent review.

Children love having only 5 math daily review problems and often look forward to doing their 5-A-Day papers. Since the problems are chosen specifically for each child, each child stays sharp in all of their math for the long term.

Practical – Use everyday activities or unit studies to teach math concepts.

Math is often viewed as a formal paper-and-pencil (and eraser) exercise of abstract concepts.  When taught this way, children often ask, "When am I ever going to use this?"  However, everyday activities, like cooking, shopping, paying bills, keeping track of gas mileage, or even scoring games, all contain math.  The Math on the Level teaching approach helps you take advantage of the rich home learning environment and focus on using real-life experiences to teach math (instead of trying to imitate the classroom). Children enjoy the variety of activities and experience math instruction in ways that are meaningful and practical.

...you can even include math in unit studies

Many families enjoy using unit studies to teach other subjects (history, geography, literature, language arts, etc.).  With the Math on the Level teaching approach, you now can include math instruction in the unit study.  Because you control the teaching sequence and are teaching math through life, this becomes a very straightforward task.  (There is a chapter specifically devoted to Unit Studies in Math Adventures).

Flexible – Adapt math teaching to fit each child's individual needs.

Math on the Level is extremely flexible and adaptable to the need of each parent, child, and family situation, and it can be as formal or as informal as desired.  It provides parents with a complete set of tools for teaching math at home, with enough structure to guide and keep track, but also with enough freedom to adapt to the needs of each parent, each child, and each family situation.

For example, with Math on the Level:

• Children can be taught together in one group (concepts like Roman Numerals, metric measurement, and probability are easy to teach to a variety of ages).
• Each child can be working at his or her own level within the same general concept (the youngest might be counting pennies, the middle child learning to multiply money, and the oldest calculating compound interest -- but they are all working with Money and Decimals.)
• Each child can be working on completely different concepts.

At any time, these groupings can be switched or modified.  If a child isn't ready to learn a particular concept, the parent can move to a different concept.  There is no set order that must be used.

This flexibility will let you adapt to your own teaching methodology and style.