Whew! Not much posting on the blog the last couple of weeks! Whenever the kids can feel the end of the school year approaching, they go into overdrive trying to finish early. And that’s how I ended up with a teenage girl doing Pre-Algebra at 8 a.m. on a Sunday. 🙂
Anyway, now that everyone is finished with school (the boys last Thursday, and The Girlio on Sunday), I should be able to get back to regularly scheduled posting.
Up today-a recipe for Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Waffles!
I will admit, I haven’t actually tried these myself (they disappear rather quickly), but the boys and my husband really like them.
My husband loves breakfast foods, and makes waffles often on the weekends using an Aunt Jemima mix. He is ready to switch over to this recipe permanently, so they have to be good.
The texture is nice and crispy, they freeze really well (we heat them up in the toaster or microwave), and it doesn’t take much to whip up a batch or two. In fact, this last time, I made a quadruple batch. Maybe there will be enough leftover I will get one this time? One can only hope. 🙂
My Notes: *One batch makes only 4 Belgian waffles *I used canola oil instead of vegetable oil (I have also used olive oil when out of canola) *I used this flour recipe by Sylvana Nardone *I skipped the xanthan gum as my flour already contained it *I used Silk unsweetened almond milk for my dairy
We recently received subscriptions for Teaching Textbooks Math 4.0 for each of our three kids. This online math program from Teaching Textbooks provides a year’s access to curriculum, as well as lifetime access to each student’s grade book.
There are placement tests available here if needed.
When we first received access to the 3.0 coursework at the beginning of the school year, we were kind of in a weird spot math-wise. My oldest made it halfway through Pre-Algebra last year, and my middle kiddo was halfway through 4th grade. My youngest was in second grade.
I chose to restart my older two in their current grades, and they took quizzes and tests until they reached material they did not know and started from there. My youngest is a math whiz, and was able to do the same with third grade math.
In January of this year, we upgraded to the new 4.0 edition. My middle kiddo had finished 4th grade so he switched up to 5th grade.
Now a little math history for you-we came from a pretty rigorous curriculum where we typically spent at least an hour doing math a day-sometimes more in the evening with Dad. And that was just with the goal of finishing two pages of curriculum!
It was the part of the homeschool day I dreaded, if I am honest. I would go until I couldn’t help any more, and then turn them over to their dad. To make matters worse, the curriculum we were using was mastery-based. This meant no real review. This did not work for my special kiddo AT. ALL. He would learn something new-and promptly forget something he had learned previously. Then I would have to find extra practice problems so we could go back and review the forgotten topic. Ugh.
AND, I was about to add a third child to the madness as I was planning on starting my second grader with the curriculum too.
I will be the first to admit, I had a pretty shoddy math upbringing. My family moved constantly, which left me with lots of gaps. It is pretty telling that the very last class I had to take to graduate from college was High School Algebra!
Anyway, my oldest was getting to the point where I couldn’t help her at all any more, my middle was forgetting things left and right, and I was about to add a third student.
You MIGHT see why I wasn’t all that happy about another school year filled with tears (and not just theirs!)
When I received the opportunity to review Teaching Textbooks, I was very interested. I had, of course, heard of the program, but was reluctant to spend the money to try it. What if we didn’t like it? What if I wasted our money? It was definitely more expensive than what I was using, but I knew I was going to have to find a new program soon anyway as our current one only went to 8th grade.
Within the first week of use, I was hooked. The interactive lessons, fun characters, and colorful pages were completely different than our previously-used workbooks. The kids were actually interested in doing math, and I was barely involved at all except to help with an occasional problem or check their grade book.
My oldest declared that the things she never could understand in our old program-she finally got.
There is quite a bit of spiral learning (lots of review) in Teaching Textbooks, which helped ease a lot of frustration for my middle kiddo. There is even a note at the top of the screen telling you which lesson a topic was first covered in, so that if you need to watch a lecture again, you can go straight back to that lesson. If you get an answer incorrect, you can also choose to watch a detailed explanation of how to do the problem.
And, the third grade curriculum worked great for my youngest as well.
Each lesson has a lecture containing the new information to be studied. I particularly like that it feels like the instructor is having a conversation with the student. The student solves practice questions throughout the lecture, and immediate feedback is provided by the instructor on whether or not the answer is correct. The lectures are succinct, and the information is very simply laid out. It is very easy for students to re-watch the lecture if they wish as well.
My oldest asked maybe two questions of me the entire year because she was able to understand the lectures for herself. What a relief-not just for her, but me as well!
I rarely had to help the other kids too, which I am so perfectly fine with. I do not mind being taken out of the math loop at all. And, I can hear their lectures, and even go in and look at the topics so that I know what they are studying if I want.
Really though, all I have been doing from the most part is checking their grades, and they know that if they don’t get above a 85, they have to redo the lesson. This hasn’t been an issue though. Everyone ended up with overall averages in the high 90th percentiles, which is fantastic.
One of the other great things about Teaching Textbooks is that students have the ability to personalize it a little. They can choose backgrounds, reward stickers, and sounds. This gives students a little extra motivation, and I think, more ownership in their own math as well.
My boys especially love to see which stickers they will get when they complete a question correctly.
Now as I mentioned previously, we originally started out with version 3.0, and switched over to 4.0. With the switch, there were definitely a few changes. On the plus side-new stickers and backgrounds, and you can download up to six lessons at a time to work on offline.
The downside for us though, was that the upgrade made it so that we could no longer use Teaching Textbooks on our Mac computer. Now I will say, our Mac is super old. Fortunately we have a Chromebook and a KindleFire, and the program does work on both of those.
The other downside to the program is that if your student tests into the middle of a grade and then finishes that grade, you have to buy the next level up. That can get expensive.
Otherwise though, I can honestly say we have now found our math. I cannot imagine using anything else at this point. When I see where we have come from-the tears, the frustration, the time spent, well, I just would never go back.
Our homeschool is more peaceful, my kiddos are thriving with Teaching Textbooks, and my boys are able to finish two lessons in about a half an hour. My daughter takes about 45 minutes to do a lesson of Pre-Algebra, but I know it’s because she likes to take notes.
I am not going to lie-this was the smoothest homeschool year we have ever had and I know I have Teaching Textbooks to thank for a large part of that.
So, if you are looking for a new math program, I cannot say it enough-try Teaching Textbooks Math 4.0. They offer a free trial of the first fifteen lessons for all levels (which is pretty cool!) They also have large family discount plans, and a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you aren’t out anything to give it a try.
It has been a wonderful addition to our homeschool, and I am one grateful mama. Thank you Teaching Textbooks!
Slow Down, Enjoy, and Create 