Review: Math Mammoth

Math Mammoth is compiled and written by Maria Miller. Maria is a math teacher who turned housewife, mom and homeschooler and developed a curriculum for her own children as well as other homeschooled students and their moms. she has over 20 years of experience with both public and private schools and tutoring services.

It is mostly an elementary school series which is written in 2 different ways. The Light Blue Series is a complete curriculum for each level and so I received the Light Blue Second Grade Level Books. The second is called Math Mammoth Blue Series Books. These books focus on a few topics per book. There is the ability with the purchase of these book series to utilize math worksheets on the site for more practice with each topic. There are worksheet collections on the site (http://www.mathmammoth.com/ ) called the Green Series or Gold Series which are a collection of one page worksheets with varying problems. There is as you can tell a wide variety of both full curriculum ideas and supplementary curriculum to view on her site.

I have been using the Light Blue Series Second Grade Curriculum for about 4 weeks now and I am finding it a lot easier to help my 2nd grader stay focused on his math. Ms Miller has the right amount of explanation for each topic before giving examples, and then the actual worksheets for the student to complete. Daniel is doing well and almost scores 100% every time. He does get most upset when he checks his answers and finds he has incorrect answers. This is challenging to him, although he is improving. I chose to review a full curriculum due to all the gaps in our math learning over the past few years, with our crazy adjusting to our new way of life.

Daniel has achieved better results in math than I thought he would. He does do his worksheets and more if needed with enthusiasm. He likes the word problems, the pictures and the examples which teach him the right way to go about doing his next problem on his own. Our previous math curriculum was very demanding of my time and preparation and he needed to concentrate heavily. He did not like that. He is finding out things on his own and learning to read the question twice so that he does not get it wrong! On topics that he is consistent in getting wrong I can link to the site and produce worksheets for him to practice with until he has the concept in his head. Practice does make perfect you know!

There are reviews to complete by the student which are optional after every two chapters. This helps once again to reinforce what they have learned previously. There are links in the books to websites on the Internet that are helpful with particular topics that have been Internet. These range from games, experiments or interactive exercises to practice the math principles once again.

Each full curriculum is split up into 2 parts for e.g Grade 2 A and Grade 2B. You can choose half of one grade and half of another if you need to. The Light Blue Series curriculum is available for download through linking through their website and for Grade Level 2 A and 2B combined it is $29.50. This includes the work text, answer key cumulative reviews, a worksheet maker and SoftPak software to run the program. For Grades 1-5 a Light Blue Series package for download costs $99.00 at a 33 % savings over individual courses. The CD can be sent to you for $104. If you have a number of children this would definitely be a great savings for you over the years, but also even with just two or 3 children. There is a "Frequently Asked Questions" page on the website for you to read and compare which would be the most beneficial topics or curriculum or series to use from Math Mammoth (http://www.mathmammoth.com/faq-lightblue.php#3a ).

I will continue to enjoy using Ms Miller's curriculum this year and will seriously look at possibly continuing with this if the results are good, which so far they seem to be. It is a really easy way to prepare each week for our math lessons, read, printout and review with child.

Please do link to the TOS Crew pages ( for more opinions of this product and read up on what everyone reviewed and what worked for their families and may work for yours. Thanks for reading this.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HomeschoolCrew/767136/

I am a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew for 2009/10 and received this product free for our family to use in our homeschool and right up this review. The above information is my own opinion.