The Johnson Crew!

Hi there today I'm going to give you my review of the math uc curriculum we're going to take a look inside the workbooks we're going to take a look at the instructional videos and do a few problems with my first and third grader so sit back and relax and let's dive in hi welcome back if you're new here I'm Sarah I have four kids from the ages of eight to one and we've been homeschooling from the beginning tried several different curriculums but for math we've always stuck with matthew c

And today I'm going to tell you why my channel is all about homeschooling tips mom life traveling as a family so if that interests you please join along with us and hit that subscribe button below and I'm happy to have you as part of our homeschooling community we love math you see it might be the best math curriculum out there it's also the only math curriculum we've used so my sister actually got us started on this curriculum she started using it years and years and years ago with her kids at the beginning of their homeschooling journey who are

Now 14 and 16. brilliant kids and they have loved the math curriculum so that's saying a lot if the kids like it too so we are currently planning on sticking with this curriculum all the way through high school and I'm going to give you my four main reasons why we love it so much my top reason for loving this curriculum is that I don't have to teach it now this may sound a little silly but even at the first grade level I was nervous to teach them math I was nervous that I would teach the concepts incorrectly

And that they would stink at math for the rest of their life now that may be a bit dramatic but it gives me so much peace and calm to know that they'll be just fine and that it's not just up to me to teach it to them it's super easy to just cut on the video for them and I can watch it with them too so that if they do need help with their work afterwards I know exactly the right way to re-explain it to them

And the instructional videos are about five to seven minutes long typically so that's super easy there's no fluff I love that it's very concise and to the point and I feel like we can fly through our math each homeschool day it makes it very easy now if you like more of the colorful workbooks or online games or your child thrives with those things by all means there's other curriculums out there that have those things but I really like the simplicity of this curriculum the flexibility

So each lesson has seven worksheets inside the student workbook and you can choose however many you want to do the main goal being to get them to master each concept before you move to the next lesson so the first three worksheets are solely focused on that lessons concepts and then the next three worksheets are systematic reviews and then the final worksheet is really just for fun it's an application an enrichment worksheet it's usually some type of game you could throw that in every now and then to kind of shake things up or if your child thrives on those kinds of things then by all means put that in your normal school week the fourth reason we love it is their use of manipulatives

So it's not up to me to find things for them to use or figure out when we should be using those things in our math work they include in different worksheets when to use the manipulatives and it's not all the time and I've definitely seen less use of the manipulatives as my children have gotten to the older grades so my oldest is now in third grade and he doesn't use them that often but boy at that beginning level it's super useful for them to be able to see visually the quantity that they're working with I feel like it really helps them comprehend addition

And subtraction and place value and if you have a hands-on kinesthetic learner then this is going to be great for them okay what does a math you see lesson look like let's take a look so first we watch the video say one plus two is three or we could put two plus one equals three okay now you can order the pack that comes with the dvd or you can do the set that includes online video streaming after the video is over they do a worksheet which is just two pages

And then when they're done I just check their work and that's another opportunity if they did do something incorrectly for us to go over it and me to re-teach those concepts to them and then when it seems like they've mastered that concept we move on to the next lesson for our homeschooling what we've chosen to do is math three times a week so far my two oldest kids that are in the math uc program have caught on to the concepts fairly easily so we haven't felt the need to do a whole lot more practice we typically do three worksheets in a week

And then we move on to the next lesson now there are some concepts where we choose to spend more time on it do more worksheets for it if they need more practice they seem like they're struggling with it then we'll definitely spend more time on it but that's typically what our school week looks like now if you've been to matthew c's website you may have been a little bit confused trying to figure out which book to get your child because you're not going to see grade levels listed on those books which I found really confusing when I first went

And looked but it's actually kind of genius it's great if you do have a kid that's struggling in math and they need to continue with the same book in the next grade they don't have to feel like they're behind because it doesn't say a grade number on it so they don't know it's also great if you're pulling a kid out of public school and you feel like they need to go back a few steps they need to relearn some of these concepts or master them before moving on

And instead of handing your fourth grader a second grade math book and making them feel like they've had to get held back or they're not as smart as a fourth grader they're really none the wiser what level it is and like I said with the flexibility of it if you are having to take your kid back a level or two you may find that they zoom through some of it and you can actually master those concepts quicker now that you're working with them one-on-one as opposed to the big classroom setting

And you can get them caught up to speed and a pretty reasonable amount of time so that's really a big perk so the books go in this order starting at kindergarten level is the primer book and then it goes alpha beta gamma delta epsilon and zeta and zeta would be your sixth grade level they each have 30 lessons and a typical school year is about 36 weeks so you can definitely get a whole book done in one school year with some wiggle room in there

So if you come upon some concepts where they do need to spend more than one week on it then you've got that wiggle room in your school year so if you do have a child that struggles with math you and your child will really appreciate this extra wiggle room now if you have a child that excels in math they also can go at their own pace and go faster through the books if they're capable now two considerations for parents thinking about putting your child back into public school eventually is that this curriculum does not teach by the same methods as common core

So common core gets kind of a bad rap for being mainly focused on rote learning like just memorizing facts and not enough on comprehension but matthew c actually focuses on both so they do have the kids memorizing their math facts but they also want them to comprehend and fully understand how to get to those answers the other issue is that they don't teach the concepts in the same order as common core so if you were only going to pull your kid out for a year or two they may be ahead in some areas

But they may also have some holes in some areas because they're not getting the concepts in the same order as public school now they do have a page on their website that lists all the common core standards and shows you exactly which books and which lessons those concepts are covered in so that's pretty cool if you want to be able to take a look at that especially if you're pulling your kid out of public school and going to homeschool them for the long haul then you can see where maybe they've got some holes

And they need to go work on those lessons before jumping into their grade level book but for those of you who are homeschooling for the long haul I highly recommend the matthew c program we love it we give it two thumbs up if you had any other questions about it that I can answer for you please drop them in the comments below and definitely introduce yourself in the comments below let me know how many kids you have what ages they are I love getting to know you guys in this community

So let's connect if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and definitely make sure to subscribe so you don't miss another video like this one thank you so much for joining me today happy schooling