In our house, we tried just about every math curriculum out there. I’m slightly embarrassed by it, to be honest. And none of them worked out but they all didn’t work for the same reason: ME. Here’s the thing. My life is very full! I home school the kids and I run an Etsy shop and I write this blog and I volunteer and I direct a Challenge class for CC. One thing I seemed to constantly fail at? Correcting math lessons. Sigh. They’d go on to the next lesson without ever knowing if they’d done the previous one correctly. And the results of that were less than stellar. I felt guilty for not being more on top of things. I love math, so I hated that my kids weren’t getting that from me. Math had become a chore that kept getting pushed to tomorrow.
But then I discovered Teaching Textbooks. What a difference! We use the online version, which means everything they need to do math is on the Teaching Textbooks website (other than a white board or scrap paper for working out calculations). My children can now sit down and watch a lesson (and his way of explaining it really clicks with my kids) and then do the assigned problems. As they work through the problems and enter the answers into the website, they are immediately told if they got it right or wrong. This means they KNOW if they are ready to move on to a new lesson or not even if I am buried in blog or Etsy work and can’t grade the lesson when they finish it.
In my house, I don’t let them move on to a new lesson until they can get 100% on the current lesson. And it is so easy to have them redo problems! All I have to do is go into the parent website, click on the lesson the child completed, and delete all the problems with wrong answers. Then the child can go back and try again. I can do it with a few quick clicks on the computer, which means if I’m already working on a project at my keyboard, I don’t have to get up and find an answer key or anything like that. Just a couple clicks and I can return to what I was doing before. I also have the peace of mind of KNOWING that my kids are learning because I can see their progress easily on the website. Teaching Textbooks has taken so much stress off my daily life!
So why do I think that Teaching Textbooks is a fantastic fit for Classical Conversations families specifically? So many reasons!
First, I know that us CC Mommas are extremely concerned about the education our children receive. And sometimes that means we stress ourselves out. Teaching Textbooks takes a huge weight off our chests because it self-grades and tells the kids exactly how they are doing. We get to take a little pressure off of ourselves and know that they are still learning.
Second, mastery is a big deal to Classical Moms! We have the power to delete lessons that aren’t completed to whatever our standard is. My standard is that they have to repeat the lesson until they get 100%. Yours may be that they can get two wrong. Whatever it is, we have the power to easily have them redo lessons or problems that give them a hard time. We can be sure they do not move on until a lesson is mastered. And since it is not a workbook, we can just wipe off their white board and have them work the problem again to enter the answer into the website. So much less frustrating than red ink everywhere and trying to erase workbook pages!
Third, most of us classically educating mommas are educating more than one child. It’s really nice to know we’ve got a great math teacher “in the house” whenever we log onto the Teaching Textbooks website. If I am helping my five year old with phonics and my eleven year old needs to do math, he can. He doesn’t have to wait for me to be done (unless he is having a problem and needs extra help) so he can work hard on his own and get through everything he needs to do. I’m not spread as thin and our school day moves faster because multiple kids can be completing lessons at the same time. Our school day is shorter!
Fourth, the lessons themselves are generally short and the format makes it less overwhelming. When older kids reach the Challenge level, there is so much homework! Sometimes Challenge students feel like they are drowning in homework. I really like that Teaching Textbooks, particularly the online version, doesn’t feel like more overwhelm. Because it’s all on the screen and they only see one problem at a time, they don’t have to feel a sense of panic staring at page after page of problems like in a traditional math workbook. They can complete the problem in front of them without worrying about what comes next. And if they can’t finish a lesson in one day, no big deal. They can pick up where they left off tomorrow–and re-watch the lesson as a refresher if they need to.
Fifth, classical parents want their children to learn how to learn independently. Our goal is to be able to set them free to learn anything they want to learn on their own. Teaching Textbooks is a great step towards that independence because they are able to do it mostly on their own and are learning to seek out tools and support outside of Mom (and Dad) when it comes to learning. And it gives them a huge boost of confidence when they figure out a new skill without our hep!
My family is thrilled with our decision to use Teaching Textbooks. And most of our Classical Conversations Challenge community uses it as well. It’s been a great fit for many of us. If you are struggling with that feeling that you just can’t do it all, perhaps you should give Teaching Textbooks a try. It will give you the freedom to say, “You know what? I CAN’T do it all, but here’s a tool that can take one task off my plate!”