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Basic principles in using Math Mammoth Complete CurriculumMath Mammoth Complete Curriculum is not a scripted curriculum. In other words, it is not spelling out in exact detail what the teacher is to do or say in a specific lesson. Instead, Math Mammoth gives you, the teacher, various tools for teaching:
Have ready the first lesson from the student worktext. Go over the first teaching part (within the blue boxes) together with your child. Go through a few of the first exercises together, and then assign some problems for your child to do on their own.
Repeat this if the lesson has other blue teaching boxes. Naturally, you can also use the videos at https://www.mathmammoth.com/videos/
Many children can eventually study the lessons completely on their own — the curriculum becomes self-teaching. However, children definitely vary in how much they need someone to be there to actually teach them.
The lessons in Math Mammoth complete curriculum are NOT intended to be done in a single teaching session or class. Sometimes you might be able to go through a whole lesson in one day, but more often, the lesson itself might span 3-5 pages and take 2-3 days or classes to complete.
Therefore, it is not possible to say exactly how many pages a student needs to do in one day. This will vary. However, it is helpful to calculate a general guideline as to how many pages per week you should cover in the student worktext in order to go through the curriculum in one school year (or whatever span of time you want to allot to it).
The table below lists how many pages there are for the student to finish in this particular grade level, and gives you a guideline for how many pages per day to finish, assuming a 200-day school year.
Example:
| Grade level | Lesson pages |
Number of school days |
Number of days for tests and revision |
Number of days for studying the student book |
Pages to study per day |
Pages to study per week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3-A | 160 | 94 | 10 | 84 | 1.9 | 9.5 |
| 3-B | 147 | 86 | 10 | 76 | 1.9 | 9.7 |
| Grade 3 total | 307 | 180 | 20 | 160 | 1.9 | 9.6 |
The table below is for you to fill in. First fill in how many days of school you intend to have. Also allow several days for tests and additional revision before the test — at least twice the number of chapters in the curriculum. For example, if the particular grade has 8 chapters, allow at least 16 days for tests & additional revision. Then, to get a count of “pages/day”, divide the number of pages by the number of available days. Then, multiply this number by 5 to get the approximate page count to cover in a week.
| Grade level | Lesson pages |
Number of school days |
Number of days for tests and revision |
Number of days for studying the student book |
Pages to study per day |
Pages to study per week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3-A | 160 | |||||
| 3-B | 147 | |||||
| Grade 3 total | 307 |
Now, let's assume you determine that you need to study about 2 pages a day, or about 10 pages a week in order to get through the curriculum, based on the number of school days in your school year. As you study each lesson, keep in mind that sometimes most of the page might be filled with those blue teaching boxes, and very few exercises. You might be able to "cover" two full pages on such a day. Then some other day you might only assign one page of word problems. Also, you might be able to go through the pages quicker in some chapters, for example when studying the clock, because the large clock pictures fill the page so that one page does not have many problems.
When you have a page or two filled with lots of similar practice problems ("drill") or large sets of problems, feel free to only assign 1/2 or 2/3 of those problems. If your child "gets it" with less amount of exercises, then that is perfect! If not, you can always assign him/her the rest of the problems some other day. In fact, you could even use these unassigned problems the next week or next month for some additional revision.
In general, 1st-2nd graders might spend 25-40 minutes a day on maths, 3rd-4th graders might spend 30-60 minutes, and 5th-7th graders 45-75 minutes a day. If your child finds maths enjoyable, he/she can of course spend more time with it! However, it is not good to drag out the lessons on a regular basis, because that can then negatively affect the child's attitude towards maths.
The curriculum generally includes working space directly on the page for students to work out the problems. However, feel free to let your students to use extra paper when necessary. They can use it, not only for the "long" algorithms (where you line up numbers to add, subtract, multiply and divide), but also to draw diagrams and pictures to help organise their thoughts. Some students won't need the additional space (and may resist the thought of extra paper), while some will benefit from it. Use your discretion.
Some exercises don't have any working space, but just an empty line for the answer (e.g. 200 + _____ = 1 000). Typically, I have intended that such exercises to be done using MENTAL MATHS.
However, there are some students who struggle with mental maths (often this is because of not having studied and used it in the past). As always, the teacher has the final say (not me!) as to how to approach the exercises and how to use the curriculum. We do want to prevent extreme frustration (to the point of tears). The goal is always to provide SOME challenge, but not too much, and to let students experience success enough so that they can continue enjoying learning maths.
Students struggling with mental maths will probably benefit from studying the basic principles of mental calculations from the earlier grades. This article gives you a few such principles, but to study all of them, one would need to go through all the earlier grade levels of Math Mammoth curriculum, and find the lessons that list mental maths strategies. They are taught in the chapters about addition, subtraction, place value, multiplication and division.
For each chapter, there is a chapter test, which can be administered right after studying the chapter. The tests are optional. Some families might prefer not to give tests at all. The main reason I have provided tests is for diagnostic purposes, and so that homeschooling families can use them for their record keeping. These tests are not aligned or matched to any standards.
In the digital version of the curriculum, the tests are provided both as PDF files and as html files. Normally, you would use the PDF files. The html files are provided so that you can edit them (in a word processor such as Microsoft Word or LibreOffice), and change the numbers or he problems in it, in case you want your student to take the test second time.
Remember to save the edited file under a different file name, or you will lose the original file.
The end-of-year test is best administered as a diagnostic or assessment test, which will tell you how well the student remembers and has mastered the mathematics content of the entire grade level.
The student books contain mixed revision lessons which revise concepts from earlier chapters. The curriculum also comes with additional cumulative revision lessons, which are just like the mixed revision lessons in the student books, with a mix of problems covering various topics.
These cumulative revisions are optional; use them as needed. They are named indicating which chapters of the main curriculum the problems in the revision come from. For example, the revision titled “Cumulative Revision, Chapters 1 - 4” includes problems that cover topics from chapters 1-4.
In the digital version of the curriculum, the cumulative revisions are provided both as PDF files and as html files. Again, the html versions are editable.
Both the mixed and cumulative revisions allow you to spot areas that the student has not grasped well or has forgotten. Another sign that the student has not understood a concept or skill is if he/she cannot do word problems in the curriculum that require that concept or skill.
When you find such a topic or concept, you have several options:
Please read the FAQ at the Math Mammoth website.
In case of any further questions (but please first check the FAQ!) about the curriculum, you can contact me at www.mathmammoth.com/contact.php.
I wish you success in teaching maths!
Maria Miller