Saxon Math

I've had several people ask what the girls have been learning in math and what their first assessments covered.  I looked over the lessons we'd covered and here's the list of what we covered during the first 10 lessons:

Nin - Saxon Math One

• How to read a calendar (not assessed on this, it's part of our daily Meeting, though)
• Adding the date to the calendar  (again, part of the Meeting)
• Writing the date - month, date, year  (part of the Meeting)
• Days of the week (part of the Meeting)
  
• Recognizing a pattern and learning to fill in the repeat (part of the Meeting)
  
• Completing and reading graphs (part of our Meeting - we chart the weather sunny/cloudy/rainy/snowy)
• Counting to 100
• right and left
• recognizing and writing numbers 0 to 9
• more/most/greatest   less/least/smallest

Elizabeth - Saxon Math Two

• Months of the year and their abbreviations (Elizabeth calls this "Shorted out"  When she writes the date on her meeting strip she'll ask, "Mommy, can I short it out?"
• How to graph, how to read the graph, how to compare information on the graph (Saxon Two has you graph birthdays - E has loved that) 
• Counting forward and backward by 1s and by 10s
• Telling time to the hour, both analog and digital; writing time on the hour, both analog and digital
• Reading a calendar and writing the date
• One more than a number, one less than a number
• Doubles addition facts from 0+0 to 9+9
• Plus One addition facts from 0+1 to 9+1 - and how to read them when written 1+0 to 1+9 as well
• Recognize missing numbers in a series
• Recognize repeating patterns and be able to finish them
• Write numbers to 100 when they are spoken
• Timed addition fact sheets (25 problems and she's given one minute to complete as many as she can)
  

I think that's what we covered in the first 10 lessons.  The great thing about Saxon Math is that we cover some of this stuff every. single.day. as part of the math Meeting.  For some kids, that's drudgery - but I'm here to tell you, it *works* wonderfully with my kids.

Every 10th lesson we have the math meeting, then we have a written and an oral assessment. Elizabeth also has a lesson and class practice.   Every 5th lesson, starting at lesson 15, we have the math meeting, a written assessment, a lesson, class practice, and a work sheet. 

I was talking to a friend at dinner on Thursday. She is a public school teacher (5th grade) and she told me she loves Saxon math.  I can certainly see why!  My kids love their math lessons.  It helps that many of them include using household objects or manipulatives to teach concepts.  By the way, have I mentioned how much I love having the Saxon manipulatives kit this year?!  Love. It.