Math Mammoth Changed my Life!
Four years ago my three older children were in a small private school. It was a nice school with good family values, but lacked the academics that I yearned for. I started thinking about homeschool, and looked at supplementary material for after school to ‘try’ homeschool, as it were. I stumbled upon Math Mammoth. Math Mammoth is a complete math curriculum for grade 1 to 6. Written by a homeschooling math teacher, Maria Miller, who, dismayed at the lack of quality math curriculum for homeschool families decided to write her own.
I began with IrishWrath, 4th grade at the time. We first did a few weekends, then I began keeping him home from school on Fridays. (I know truancy!! But I wanted a trial run.) Math Mammoth is written directly to the student, so I didn’t have to get involved much. That suits my homeschool style to a T. I don’t really teach, I facilitate. Over a few months I saw how much math he was learning in a few hours a week at home. It helped affirm my belief that he didn’t need to ‘go to school’, and sit for hours listening to the teacher repeating the same things over an over. So half way through 4th grade we took him, and a couple of months later his brothers, home. We have never looked back! I love ‘teaching’ them, they love learning and the bonus is more time together!
Math Mammoth gave me the courage to begin this wonderful homeschool journey with my children. It is easy to follow, yet rigorous. I realised I don’t need a teaching qualification to ‘teach’ math. Fast forward 4 years, IrishWrath has completed MM(3-6) and is now using Art of Problem Solving. IrishCyborg finished Math Mammoth (2-5) and went to Life of Fred Pre-Algebra.
IrishDoom(10) and IrishKing(8) are still using Math Mammoth. They are not as math strong as the older two, but are learning well with Math Mammoth. I have yet to get involved, bar explaining a word or question, but never the math concept.
Math Mammoth was never our only math curriculum. We use it as our spine, but like to add other things for variety, fun, and I’m a curricula junkie! It’s rigorous, very affordable, and would be the perfect program for many, many people. If I could only pick one curriculum for elementary school math, I would pick Math Mammoth without hesitation.
If you are interested in Math Mammoth, Maria has some free worksheets for you to try.