Who loves options for math? Me! I love to have many choices and ways for my kids to learn math. We always have their main curriculum and then many other supplement choices to practice with, so I am always up to try another math curriculum out. This time we tried out ThemeVille Math. A full curriculum.
It's always fun to receive a real physical math book, so I was pretty happy to receive both a worktext and a solutions book for Grade 3 to try out.
The worktext is 568 pages of workbook pages including lesson instructions, examples, and the math work itself. The lessons and examples are very short and often the child fills in things and works through the problems as they are learning how to do it. In the picture below my son (4th grade) completely understood how to do division after that very short, half-page instruction, and he was very excited that he "got it." It was so simple yet so helpful. I think that's what I really liked about this math book. Simplicity. The instruction seems to be just the right amount, not long and drawn out. Yet there are videos available if needed. There are also simple instructions for activities for the teacher to do with the children outside of the bookwork as well.
What is a lesson like in ThemeVille Math? There are 2 pages of a pre-lesson, and then 2 pages of the lesson, so a total of 4 pages to complete a full lesson. The Pre-Lesson is a review/warm-up of previous concepts taught, and the lesson covers the new concepts and teacher-led activities. There are some lessons that call for manipulatives (which are available for purchase through ThemeVille's website), but those are optional. There are many pictures and examples throughout the book that make it engaging and easily adaptable with or without manipulatives. I think if I were purchasing this for the school year though I'd definitely get the manipulatives. I think manipulatives up any math program in my book, and my boy always loves using them.
The Grade 3 book covers such a wide scope. It has a little bit of everything a 3rd grader should be learning in math. I feel like it is a rigorous math curriculum with a lot of actual working through math problems and thinking through the lessons. The lessons don't feel like they are long and drawn out, and each lesson feels like it has just about the right amount of work (although my son would say it's too much, always). Some of the concepts covered in level 3 are multiplication/division, clock reading, money, word problems, calendar, area and perimeter, symmetry, and much more totaling 120 lessons in all. A very complete curriculum that I can say I would happily continue using for the coming school year.
If you'd like to see what others said about this math curriculum, and/or to find out about the other levels you can click on the banner below. There are 5 levels available (Grades 1-5).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment, I love to hear what you think.