 Hey you guys my name is Brittany and welcome back to my youtube channel. You guys I'm making another video mid-year talking about a mid-year curriculum switch especially when it comes to math. So you guys we officially made the switch from sax and math to math you see and I'm going to explain all the reasons why we made our mid-year math switch. So you guys if any of you are new here I'm Brittany I'm a homeschooling mom to three girls and you guys like I'm a hot mess like that's what I'm going to call myself today. I feel like I'm a hot mess I'm trying to get it all together in this homeschool I'm still trying to figure out these things for my kiddos and I'm still trying to pivot along my homeschooling journey with them and really make adjustments when needed and you guys I'm saying all that to say is that this adjustment that I made in our homeschool as far as math curriculum for my oldest daughter I definitely feel like it was needed and I do see a difference in our homeschool since we have switched from sax into math you see. So if any of you guys have followed along my homeschooling journey at least for the past year you definitely will know math has always just been that subject in my homeschool that has been like a hard fit for my oldest daughter. I do have a lot of videos you guys on my channel all about like my math my math journey my math switches and I think what I'm going to do is go ahead and put a full playlist together for you guys of like all of our math curriculum switches um all the curriculums we have tried but I'm going to go ahead and give you like a brief overview of our like math journey. So when we started off our homeschooling year in the third grade for my oldest daughter Brielle we started off using abeca arithmetic three uh which went well we actually completed that book from start to finish abeca in her third grade year fourth grade was definitely you guys a doozy I feel like we were all over the place when it came to math curriculum in our fourth grade year our first semester alone we tried three math curriculums you guys we tried Singapore Dimensions Math uh then we went back to abeca arithmetic four then we also tried the simply good and beautiful math four and again I do have videos all about those particular curriculums on my channel as well already um from there we made a mid-year curriculum switch in January of 2022 to saxon math so we went from um abeca for simply good and beautiful math Singapore to saxon six five and we actually completed saxon six five you guys and you know I really thought that saxon was going to be it for our homeschool I didn't have to think about math at least for my oldest daughter I felt like okay I can tie this one up wrap a bow on it and you know we're done we are solid in math but you know um as much as we do want to do that sometimes I feel like we can't sometimes I feel like we kind of just have to take each level uh as we go uh but now that you guys can see like where we are in our math journey we completed saxon six five uh in what September of 2022 and then we went straight into saxon math seven six and if you guys have seen like any of my videos on my channel my update videos about saxon he definitely will know like my main concern with saxon definitely was at this level it was a few things but the main thing was more so the time that it was taken for uh Brielle to complete a full saxon uh math lesson among other things and I will kind of get into them as I go but you guys I'm going to give you a brief overview of saxon if you don't know anything about it uh this is saxon this right here is just the test and the worksheets because you guys I actually sold my saxon book so I don't have like the full physical book to show you but I'll kind of just like I'll talk you through how a full saxon lesson would look in your homeschool so this right here is the saxon test and the worksheets and the um speed drills that they have in here for the kiddos so every morning before the kiddos start off their saxon math they will do like a quick speed drill uh it might be something like this where this is um addition or they might do subtraction or they might do multiplication they might be reducing fractions they might be turning fractions from decimals into percentages vice versa uh simplifying fractions it's a variety of activities that they will be doing when they first start off their um lesson for that day as far as their speed drill they would didn't go from their speed drill to their warm-up or their mental math section and I would definitely say that mental math section really helped Brielle with her mental math just continuously practice in that skill every single day in that warm-up practice uh so she would do her um so then here is her speed drill her warm-up then after the warm-up saxon has the lesson practice which will go over that concept for that day that they're learning and then after they complete the lesson practice it also has a mixed practice component where they are going to be reviewing all of the previous concepts taught in previous lessons so saxon is a tried and true spiral curriculum I feel like saxon's approach as I have completed one level is definitely to teach the kids mathematics through repetition sax saxon math to really be honest it doesn't go any deeper than how to solve the problem and what clues to look to solve problems uh saxon does not teach conceptual math where they're understanding the why behind the math and for some kiddos uh you know just learning how to solve the problem may be perfectly fine for them but some kiddos they kind of need to know why am I doing what I'm doing why am I getting the answers that I'm getting and um I was finding that for Brielle she definitely was asking especially towards the latter end of saxon six five when we were completing in it she was definitely beginning to ask those more why questions and I was finding myself having to like stop and explain the why outside of the saxon so she can really understand and hone in on that concept another thing too is that you guys spiral programs in general I feel like spiral programs are pretty tricky uh just because um you can form gaps with spiral programs if you're if you don't really pay attention to your kiddos especially the problems that they're getting wrong like if they're always getting a specific word problem wrong or they're always getting their subtraction with borrowing wrong you know okay I need to go back and review this concept you kind of can't let it go under the wayside and what I was finding was how saxon breaks down their lesson practice where they will only go over one half of like let's just say they only go over one part of how to multiply decimals and then they wouldn't go over part two until 15 lessons later well sometimes I was finding that Brielle will actually forget how to do part one even though she had it in her mixed practice she would forget how to solve it and when it came to the part two we were reviewing the part one before we could get to the part two and it was kind of stalling our lessons especially towards the latter end of saxon six five I was finding that was happening a lot and I was kind of looking really close to the patterns of Brielle especially when it came to math and I was really noticing when we stopped to master that one concept like she got it she would feel confident and she would feel ready to go on to the next thing and it really started to make me question like should I try a mastery program with Brielle especially as she is moving in higher levels of mathematics and would a mastery based program suit her a lot better than this spiral program those are the questions I was beginning to ask at the end of saxon six five but you guys nevertheless I was very very scared to make yet again another curriculum change at that point I was like you know what we are going to complete out this year with saxon like I don't care it's taking her too long at least that's what I was thinking in my head like you know I will find a way to make this work like we just have to complete this level because I cannot make another switch yet again and you guys that's kind of like what we did so we from what is it so from October to December we worked some more in saxon it was becoming a lot better as she was kind of getting used to it it still was taking her a long time you guys saxon was taking her about like an hour and 45 minutes some days you guys it was taking her two hours to complete math and I felt that that was entirely too long now I do understand because you know this level saxon seven six as they are getting up there in the mathematical concepts I know they're doing like long division a long multiplication everything has like two and three steps when they are solving their mathematics problems so I know it's going to take longer but I did not feel like an hour plus was appropriate for math for her in our home school and I was really really starting to be concerned about that and a lot of my update videos I definitely was talking to you guys about my complaint about saxon when it came to the length of time that it was taking her to do it you guys but we also are doing the cold and math lady and I added in like the online grading so before I was just like checking her work and I know grades are like arbitrary when it comes to home school however in having the online grade and I feel like I was able to have a better tack up the problem she did get wrong and kind of like to better suit her so it was such a great addition when I added it into our regular video lessons with the cold and black ladies grading but I was able to get an average for Brielle's math and her average as far as like her warm-ups or her mental math was a 90% and her average for her test was 100% and then her average for her mixed practice was 100% now that's on her second attempt they also give like the first attempt try but the first attempt tries are kind of like one off because sometimes she may forget to put like the dash or something inside the grading and mark it wrong but in total she actually had an A in this math so I knew it was working but I was just like I'm just not liking it so fast forward now we are in January we're in present I went ahead for my middle daughter Leia who is a math lover we are actually doing kindergarten math with confidence with her I knew I wanted to add in a second math for her and I already went ahead and I had math you see ready for her for her kindergarten year math you see primer and I was like you know what while she's doing math with confidence let me go ahead and add in the primer I seen one of my friends on YouTube Rachel from 7 and all she is actually doing primer and kindergarten math with confidence with one of her sons and it's working out really really well and you guys those curriculums they do match very very well together so I was excited to start off a primer with her and Leia loves it so you guys when Brielle seen the primer I was doing with Leia she seen the box with all the blocks and everything like that you guys these are so cool and it's so cool how a math you see incorporates this like hands-on learning with the blocks um Brielle came to me and you know for she came to me and what she said was mommy do they have that in my level and would it be okay if I was to try math you see and you guys like I already knew at the end of Saxon 7 6 that we were just going to be completed with Saxon and we was going to go ahead and make that pivot into math you see for her upcoming homeschooling year so I already knew I was going to make the switch and because she asked you guys I just said yes Brielle you guys I'm really really blessed and I know like I brag on my daughter all the time but I really feel blessed because you guys like Brielle kind of just goes with the punches she doesn't ask for much in our homeschool she does her homeschooling work and she's done with her day like I really don't have many like issues when it comes to her in our homeschool like getting her work done I should say she gets it done and she wants to go about her business and she doesn't complain and she always has a positive attitude and for her to come to me and ask me for something and especially if you have a kiddo like that like you're gonna say yes so you guys we actually was on a test on Saxon so we were actually like at a halfway or at a stopping point with it so I was like you know what we're at a stopping point with Saxon she completed test number eight of the Saxon lesson and I was like you know what let's just go ahead and try out math you see so I did the placement test online for her and she kind of like fell in between both the Saxon Zeta which is the decimals and I mean the math you see Zeta which is the decimals and percentages and the Epsilon which is the fractions level she kind of fell in between both of these levels because she is coming from again a spiral program so what I did was I placed her in Epsilon and you guys like she loves this curriculum um math is taking Brielle right now between 45 minutes and one hour a day um one thing that Brielle told me she really loves about this program is she loves how like clean the math you see pages are and um I love how she's only doing 20 problems a day like it definitely has cut out the load um one thing about Brielle she told me she really likes is that she's honing in on one skill and she's truly understanding the why um the video lessons they're kind of dated I'm not gonna lie uh but uh Mr. Demi who does the lessons they are really really short and sweet they're short they're really similar to Nicole the math ladies like length they're like short sweet to the point and I love seeing the kiddos with the fractions how they're used like these overlays to solve the problems like um it's so cool watching Brielle add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators how if she has one thirds plus one six how she has to put the six over top of the thirds to figure out her answer and it's so cool watching her use these overlays and learning this math like with her hands I mean I know that's why it's called math you see but um it's so cool to see her really gain a good understanding of math she's understanding the concepts and you guys she's happy and you know like I'm happy because she's happy and um if someone was to ask me this question like how would I choose between math you see and Saxon and which one would I prefer honestly I pretty I can't give you guys an answer to that because you guys both math you see and Saxon they are very solid programs I will say this though uh coming from Saxon to math you see I will say Saxon is more rigorous and to really be honest I kind of already see the path that Brielle is going in her career and in life and I know she's probably not going to need mathematics past college algebra and if I can find a math that she can learn she can understand she can be happy to do I'm going to choose that math and um that's why I ultimately made this decision to go ahead and switch her to math you see it was really based off of preference um both of these programs you guys at the end of the day like I said before they are very strong they're tried and true and I honestly after doing both of them I can stand behind both of these programs and say that they are great great great excellent math programs now as far as to speak that Brielle is going through in these programs right now in Epsilon we are only two weeks in and she's already on lesson seven out of thirty so my goal for us is to just finish off Epsilon by the end of this semester or the end of this homeschooling year if she finishes it earlier as you guys already seen I do have um Zeta for us ready to go uh that she can go into if we finish it before our school year is over and then if that's the case we'll kind of just pick it up where we are going into our next homeschooling year so um as you guys can see it's official we are like a math you see family over here and it's so crazy seeing like the beginning of the program and like how they built the kids math skills it's so amazing and like I'm so in love and I think it's not the honeymoon phase love I think it's a love because I see how the concepts are building upon each other especially seeing the first level and then now seeing I think the Epsilon is like the fifth level yes and then seeing the fifth level you can see how they built upon uh in their concepts so you guys um this is my mid-year math curriculum switch if you guys want me to make like a updated video talking more about math you see as we become more comfortable with the program if you want to see inside of the work text of the Epsilon and the Zeta I will make a separate video for you guys and as always I will update you month by month uh how math is going for us in our household so you guys thank you so much for watching today's video and I look forward to seeing everyone in my next one bye