6.02.2013

TOS Review - Math Mammoth

What It Is:

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Math Mammoth is a curriculum company specializing in affordable, comprehensive math programs.  Their curriculum is offered as downloads or printed books.  All grade levels, 1-12, are offered on the site.  

Math Mammoth strongly encourages mental math and is written directly to the child, helping them to work independently.  Lessons build upon each other leaving very little prep work, if any, for the teacher.

On the Math Mammoth site, you can purchase work text by topic or entire curriculums, allowing for you to customize what your child focuses on.  For grades 3 and up, you can also purchase worksheet packages alone, meaning there is no teaching explanations on the page.

They also offer a product called Make It Real, where math is presented in real world situations.

For this review we were sent a download of the Blue Light Series Grade 2.  This level has four main sections focusing on: base-ten system within 1000, fluent addition and subtraction within 100, standard units of measure, and analyzing shapes.

How We Used It:

We have actually been using Math Mammoth all year.  After trying a few other popular math programs, I stumbled across their website back in November and knew it was just right for us.  I ordered it and downloaded the first grade level and we started using it right away.  


I printed ours out in 50 page chunks.  I put each sheet in a page protector so that I could reuse them when she needed extra practice and stored them in a 3 ring binder.  This worked out well for us.  Each day, I gave Josie that days worksheets in her math box and she used a dry erase marker to do her work.


We took our time going through the material.  Some days we finished entire sections, other days we went slow or redid previous pages.  At the start of each chapter there is a list of free website and game ideas that reinforce the concepts.  We used these a ton and it really helped Josie learn the material.  Many days, the free online sites were a reward for doing a good job.  Yay for sneaking in more practice!

I did the same thing for the start of the next level during this review.  The start of this level was a lot of review from level 1, so that worked out nicely.  Josie isn't quite ready for the entire grade 2 program, but we will continue to use it once she is.  For now, we are continuing to work through the end of grade 1.

My Opinion:

Math Mammoth is the perfect math program for us.

Josie doesn't need much hands on materials and for the few concepts she did need that for, it was easy to use common manipulatives.  The worksheets are colorful without being too cartoony and I felt that each unit had an appropriate amount of problems.  I love how much repetition there is.  Once a concept is learned, it will show up randomly in later chapters which is great to be sure it's sticking.

And you really can't beat the price!  An entire year of math, including workbooks, answer keys, test, cumulative reviews, a worksheet maker, and a Soft-Pak for $34 is an unbelievable deal.

I plan to keep using Math Mammoth for our math program for elementary school.

Product Details:

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