Homeschool: Math

A while ago I started a series of posts about what we do for homeschool. The methods and resources Bible memorization and Bible reading posts are here. What we have used for the last two years for math is Math-U-See. The Old Schoolhouse Magazine rated it as the most popular math curriculum for two years in a row, I heard lots of good reviews from friends, it was listed on the approved list for both Charlotte Mason websites, and so I thought we couldn't go wrong. But after much consideration and prayer, I have decided to try a different approach next year. It's not that it's a bad program. But it's very rote, extremely repetitive, and quite boring, to be honest. I don't think everything should be fun and exciting and I definately want my children to learn to do things they don't want to do, but I was finding that math was consistently her most dreaded subject. I just hate to start off her school career with a hatred for math that, once established, will be extremely hard to get rid of. So we're going to try something new. I'm thinking about Horizons Math, but I haven't completely decided yet. Any suggestions?

I wanted to go ahead and post this, even though our math hasn't exactly been successful so far, because I came up with an idea that will work for any subject, and I think can bless you. Can you see in the picture how the page she is working on is covered with a page protector? This works wonderfully well to preserve books to use for the next child without having to copy pages. I just cut off the end of a plastic page protector and slip it over the page we're doing that day. She uses dry erase markers, and then when she's done and I've checked her work, we rub a wet dish towel over it. This would work for any book that handwriting is not necessary (it's hard to make it look neat with a dry erase marker) and will really save a lot of money!