mary's journey with math...

I love planning. I love calendars. I love researching curriculum and imagining the possibilities of what our year might hold. This calendar alone sort of changed my life.....

The result- by January I typically know what our next school year will entail.

Then life happens and mid school year I realize that some switches need to happen.

This year that happened in late November.

Here continues my journey with math.....

As a student, I loved math. It came easy to me. I worked through calculus and things just clicked. Teaching math however, not so much. My oldest Mary is not mathematically inclined. She's just not- things that I think would be obvious to her just aren't.


We started in Kindergarten with Horizons K.


This went well until teaching addition looked like jumping on the number line primarily. I wanted her to see and touch things- to understand in a way that made more sense to her. This was a spiral approach to learning which I enjoyed but seemed to puzzle her. She would learn something new every few days and it would review throughout the lessons- always spiraling around to review old work and introduce new material. This kept things interesting to some degree for her but proved to be frustrating and very stop start for her.

So our kindergarten big switch was to Singapore Earlybird Math- this was not spiral program, but a mastery approach.

We cruised along with Singapore and it was smooth sailing- so we started it in first grade as well. Things were going well until the big push for mental math and my very hands on girl was again flustered and discouraged. My little mary was hating math. Again.

I decided maybe an affordable switch then would be to revisit our old friend Horizons our mid-year first grade switch up. Which we did and she did well. But never thrived.

And here we are now. Our 2nd grade year began with Horizons, yet again, now 2 marys in tow. The older making it but dreading it all the while. My middle Mary is actually mathematically inclined- she gets things- but I saw those addition frustrations ahead and wanted her to touch and build addition sentences...not jump on a number line.

Enter Math-U-See.

Beta for my oldest Mary, Alpha for my middle Mary.

It arrived Tuesday just as we'd left for our great turkey trot to Mississippi. Arriving home just yesterday I opened the box and tore through the shrink-wrap like it was Christmas morning. Certainly it will not be a perfect program- but I'm really praying that this will better fit our math needs. It is a mastery program that is heavily manipulative-based...I have several friends who have really enjoyed this curriculum and one has been talking me through the change for almost a year. Its been an expensive switch so I'm really hoping it sticks.


Why did it ever take me so long to switch? I had to get over the scope and sequence shift. My oldest Mary is great at graphs and telling time. She counts change and is working on adding and subtracting by regrouping- it seems she's cruising along at a pace that was similar to other 2nd graders out there in the world- but she wasn't really mastering it. I feared that those skills she'd learned would be wasted if she focused on just one concept at a time and build on it incrementally. She wouldn't test well at the end of the year- seriously. That was my fear. The big looming question of "Is my Mary getting all she needs at home or am I failing her?"

That question worms its way into my heart time and time again. The answer, thankfully, comes back to two fold. Yes, I'm failing her. I'm failing her if I measure her worth on how well she compares to little Janey down the street. I'm failing her if I force her to work through tears and get frustrated with her for not getting it. But thankfully, no I'm not failing her ultimately. I've been called to teach these little marys and give them my time. I'm failing her if I don't give her grace on a daily basis, expecting perfection instead.

While I know a math switch up isn't the end of the world, I do desire consistency- I'm hoping that this indeed is a good fit our family. It looks like it will be, but we'll know more in the upcoming weeks.