Perfect Placement... Anna's Math

One of the benefits of homeschooling is having "perfect" materials for my children. I want them to be challenged and not overwhelmed. I want them to enjoy their studies but still be getting solid information..... LOL... to have everything perfect is NON- EXISTENT... yes, even when we can pick out our own books and curriculum.

My "struggle" has been with Anna's math. Last year we followed no set curriculum. We worked through a list of skills she should have for kindergarten and then we used a transition k/1 math workbook I found to fill in the gaps and get her ready for 1st grade math.


This year we started with Saxon's 1st grade math..... it was soo easy and boring. I felt bad giving her the worksheets with tasks that she could have completed ages ago (in fact sometimes she lets Christopher "help" her and he can do it too). When she complained about coloring towers all the time, I broke out the stamps and let her stamp her towers... just to keep the peace!(notice he got a little stamp crazy and over-stamped)


Anna has been adding single digit numbers on her fingers and now from memory for a while now and so I was discouraged that Saxon didn't start with those types of tasks. But I LOVED that Saxon included making graphs and drawing out word problems... very early in the curriculum... and so I hated to "ditch" those GREAT tasks.


After asking around and being almost convinced I needed to find some other curriculum that fit Anna better, I saw a GREAT thing.... Anna and I were working on sorting and finding sorting rules with her stuff animals (see great, fun activities in the lessons). I took a step back and saw a little girl that was ENJOYING her Math work.

She loves doing her math (most days) and she is still learning. Sure, I could skip 20+ lessons to where she starts to add. Or we can enjoy the fun activities that are giving us the foundation for addition! And better establish the fun in learning and doing it together..... I think those things are WAY more important than pushing her to be 3 weeks ahead!

LOL... but what do I know? I've only been homeschooling an elementary-schooler for a month!