Product Description
Customized for the homeschooling environment. Text includes investigations, an illustrated glossary, and 120 lessons. Each daily lesson includes warm up activities, teaching of the new concept, and p… More >>
Saxon Math 8/7: Home School Student Text
Tags: Home, Math, Saxon, school, student, Text
#1 by Daniele M. Flores on April 13, 2010 - 6:27 pm
This book is in great condition and was recieved in a timely manner.
Thanks
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Bryan K. Mcdonald on April 13, 2010 - 8:26 pm
There is definitely alot of repitition of problems, so the student gets a lot of practice. However, some lessons are six pages long, and that’s before you get around to the 8 practice problems and the 30 mixed practice (review) problems that the student actually works each day. It also doesn’t include the page of facts practice, mental Math and problem solving each day. So far, we’ve never managed to complete this in one hour. In fact, it usually takes at least 2 hours to complete everything, check and correct, even if we only do 2/3 of the mixed practice. Also, the scorebook often only shows answers, not always showing how the correct answer is determined step-by-step.
We plan to finish out the year with it, and we’ll have learned alot, but I feel other curriculums are less grueling, clearer, less time-consuming, more colorful, and still get the learning across. My oldest used Abeka and is now a thriving Double Physics/Math major. We will likely return to A Beka next year.
Rating: 3 / 5
#3 by L. Vaughn on April 13, 2010 - 10:09 pm
Same great text and style of explanation and teaching, but the paper is terrible. It is printed on NEWSPRINT (I kid you not). As my daughter said to me, “It’s like tissue paper.” As a homeschooler, I buy books that can last to pass down to other children (we are expecting our 8th) or on to other families. This is a single use, perhaps double use if you’re careful, even if you never write in it. It just can’t take the wear and tear of daily use. Definitely planned obsolescence. We paid big money for this new ($60+ for the whole kit) only to then buy an old used hardback kit for $40. When the old one arrived, my daughter hugged it and said, “YES!!!” Used, but infinitely more useable. And it can be handed down again and again.
Rating: 3 / 5
#4 by A. Dent on April 13, 2010 - 10:45 pm
You should purchase this book if you already have one complete kit and you are teaching more than one student, like I do.
The 3 stars are not targeted at the content, which is FIVE STARS in my view, but at the VERY CONFUSING marketing of these items. The cover of this book says Saxon Math Homeschool (sic!) but this is ONLY the Student/Teacher Text. You will not be able to teach your child math if all you buy is this book.
There should be THREE items in a complete package: a Student/Teacher manual (this one), the Solutions manual and the (reproducible) Tests and Worksheets. If you have one kid, buy the COMPLETE kit. If you have 2 or more kids, you should buy one complete kit and as many extra student/teacher books, such as this one, as you may need. If you do not have the ability to copy the worksheets, which is LEGAL, then you should also order additional Tests and Worksheets books. However, for one child, you will end up paying A LOT more if you bought these items individually.
Having 2 kids, and this is my experience for the past 5 years, from 3d to 7th grade, I order the complete kit from an education bookseller or from Amazon if I could find it here and an extra textbook from Amazon or one of the alternative sellers supported by Amazon.
By the way, Saxon’s Math works. I am not a home schooler because I have a full-time job but I’ve been using it with my kids since 3d grade as a Math booster and I am happy with their A’s. Besides math, children acquire some discipline, study skills, test-taking skills and, me having 2 ’students’, they learn to compete as well.
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On the Saxon method:
A one-year Math cycle is comprised of 120 lessons, 12 investigations and 23 review tests.
Each lesson begins with a quick daily test where certain skills such as addition or multiplication are drilled. Following that, there are warm-up activities that ask the students to perform mental math and solve a problem. The body of the lesson follows, where one or sometimes 2 topics are discussed. The lesson practice that follows asks students to answer/solve a number of questions related to the subject matters covered by the lesson. Finally, the ‘mixed practice’ asks students to answer/solve 25-30 questions that could be on EVERYTHING covered by Saxon Math up to that point. Each individual question has references to the lesson(s) which the students may want to review if they are having trouble with the answer/solution.
After every 5 lessons, beginning with the 10th, there is a 20-question test that covers material covered up to 5 lessons prior to that test. For example, the test given after lesson 25 will cover everything up to lesson 20.
Every 10 lessons there is an Investigation. Investigations are in-depth and largely ‘hands on’ studies of specific and important topics such as ‘calculating odds’ or ‘measuring liquids’.
The expectation is for each lesson to last for about one hour. In practice, with 2 kids, I found that we spend anything from 60 to 90 minutes per lesson. At this point – doing 7th grade math – the children are capable to work on their own and my role is limited to reviewing the tests, ‘teaching’ the new topics and helping them with whatever questions or clarifications they may need.
Rating: 3 / 5