Homeschooling our children is the greatest blessing and privilege. We are now in our nineth year of homeschooling with children ages 8-13 years old in third, fifth, sixth, and eighth grade. Our homeschool method has stayed consistent over the years as we take on a one-room schoolhouse, classical approach. However, as all homeschools do, we've had plenty of wrinkles to iron out along the way.
An area I've been challenged as homeschooling mom is in teaching math at multiple levels. I want to ensure none of my kids fall through the cracks due to my lack of discipline in staying on top of their work. We have used the same math curriculum for all of our students since the beginning of our homeschooling journey. This curriculum fit perfectly into our classical approach to learning as it repeats math concepts each year while building upon that knowledge introducing new concepts at a steady pace. It came highly recommended from parents I knew and respected when we began homeschooling. Over the years, I've found that when our math curriculum comes up in wider circles around people of authority in traditional education systems, it was equally exalted. This has always given me confidence to stick with it knowing that this math curriculum will give my children everything they need (and probably much more) if they choose to further their education later in life.
The one problem I ran into, although something that attracted me early on, is that everything is done with a textbook on pencil and paper. I like this "old fashioned" way of math as it keeps me involved in helping my kids work out their problems and keeps them accountable to show their process on paper. I wasn't ready to hand my kids math over fully to a computer based curriculum. On the flip side, this means me grading every math paper by hand and not always being available able to help right when they need it because there are four of them at different levels and only one of me.
A few years ago, we came across Nicole the Math Lady and immediately loved that the kids are able to watch their Saxon Math lessons being taught on a white board on video, rather than me teaching four different math lessons individually every day. This was helpful, but still didn't solve all of our issues until I discovered there is much more to Nicole the Math Lady that I wasn't utilizing. Now that we are using this tool to its fullness with online grading, it is a COMPLETE GAME CHANGER in the way we do math efficiently with multiple ages in our homeschool.
We are still able to use the Saxon Math that we know and love, but with so much more ease! The online grading tool allows my kids to open their math books, write out their work just as they always have, then enter their answers online after watching the lesson videos. This gives my kids immediate feedback if their answer is correct or not so they can continue working at it right away or ask me questions when the answer is incorrect. Not only does this take a greater work load off of me, but it builds confidence in my kids and more efficiency for them in completing their work and learning as they go. You can manually adjust the amount of attempts your student has for each problem and also control how answers are scored. The BEST part is that every time my kids complete a math lesson, I am emailed a report that not only includes their score, but also shows me which problems were incorrect and which lesson to go back and review with them.
When I say that Nicole the Math Lady is a game changer for tackling homeschool math, I mean it wholeheartedly. There is less burden on me each day and it provides more ownership for my kids over their education, which is one of the biggest goals in our homeschool.
Nicole the Math Lady offers free trials so you can feel out her program before committing to it financially. I know I already said "the best part", but another high point that could be tied up as "the best part" is the cost. The cost is minimal for the amount of peace and benefit it brings to our home.
If you give Nicole the Math Lady a try, let me know your thoughts. I always love to hear from you and see what's working for others in their homeschool! I hope this information can bless you as much as it has blessed me. Also, if you have other questions regarding Saxon Math or homeschool in general, feel free to reach out.
Love, Sara
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