Anyone use Saxon Math?

[MissRubyandKen]

Anyone use Saxon Math? Would you recommend it? Do you think the student edition textbook and solutions manual are necessary? What exactly is the solutions manual? I'm looking at grade 5/4. Both of children are at about the same level in Math, so would one textbook, one solutions manual, and two workbooks be the way to go? Thanks!

[Hopesmommy]

I use it for my 5th and 1st graders.

Saxon math teaches a new skill in each lesson, but then reviews everything previously learned. I love it because with other curricula, my 10 yo forgets math that he's not using.

The drawback of that it that if you have a child who doesn't have that problem, it can be repetitive and boring.

Give them the placement test before you buy it. My 5th grader is doing 7/6.

For two students, I recommend one solutions manual, two text books and one workbook (and make copies) or two workbooks.

[Marsupialmom]

I would go to Rainbow and get the pack 1 teacher, 1 student, and 1 workbook.

You can get report covers and dry ereaser for speed test and the such. They won't be able to do math at the same time though.

[AAK]

We didn't like it. It seemed scatterbrained to me. Turns out, my dd and I don't like spiral curriculum. We do lots of review, but we prefer to hammer out a topic before moving on.

Amy

[zjande]

We've been slowly making our way through math 76 for the past 2 yrs. My son is in 6th gr now, is pretty gifted in math, & we use Saxon 76 as his "review" work while he's learning new stuff from other curricula. Anyway, I don't love the book, I use it because it was given to me for free.

The way every lesson is laid out is- there's a new topic presented, very briefly explained (usually on less than one page), followed up by a handful of questions related to the new topic. That is followed by 25 other questions, almost entirely made up of topics the student has already learned which is why folks are always calling Saxon "repetitive".

My problem with the book is that each new topic is sooo briefly explained. Although it is review for my smarty pants son, I just don't get a handle on the new topics due to the explanations being so short. And then the book only presents around 5 problems related to the new topic. That's it! Followed by those 25 review questions. I wish it was the other way around- 25 questions (or so) related to the new topic, & a hand full of review questions. Plus I wish the explanations were longer for those of us that don't instantly grasp math.

I just have the text & the answer key. The price was good, LOL, but it's not something I want to base my math teaching around for my subsequent kids. But, it works well for some!