Math Curriculum

Well, I am not sure where I really want to start with my blog, but I know I want to have a record of what is going on at this point in our journey.

A couple of months ago I started my oldest on Horizons Kindergarten Math and she absolutely loves it!  Almost every afternoon she asks if she can work on her math lessons.  After the initial introduction, I have never asked her, she is always the one wanting to do them.  We typically sit down and she does 2 or 3 lessons at a time.  She is flying through the first workbook and is almost ready for the second.  As I looked through the second workbook and noticed she could probably do every lesson today without a problem, I started to think about my next move.  Do I really want my 4 year old doing 1st grade math in the fall and at the rate she is going 2nd grade math before she is 5??

I started thinking about Horizons Curriculum and so far, I have found the lessons to be very repetitive, but I continued to just go with it until one day Addison said "this again?"  that is when I knew I needed to look into some other options.  As I started researching I found there are 2 different approaches, spiral and mastery.  Horizons is, of course, spiral meaning it gradually teaches you something by doing it again and again.  You learn new things along the way, but the old stuff is always brought back into the lessons.  The other option is mastery.  Basically they teach you a skill and you don't move on until you have mastered it. 

I am thinking she needs to be doing a mastery curriculum since she is catching on so quickly.  Granted you can ask her what 13+6 is and she won't know the answer without thinking about it, but she knows how to get to the answer and that is the most important part.  My personal favorite is when you give her a problem and she taps her pencil against her head like she is thinking, but she is actually counting the numbers.

Our homeschooling conference is coming up next week so I am super excited to be able to talk to a couple of different companies about their math curriculum and which direction I should take my daughter.  I will keep you posted.