CTCMath Our Favourite Homeschool Math Curriculum - Review

Do you worry about teaching math to your children?  I understand, really I do.  I've been homeschooling my children for 10 years now and I believe that I'm asked more questions about teaching math than any other subject.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product for review, all opinions are 100% my own.

One of my favorite math curricula is my Homeschool Membership to CTCMath.

You might remember that I have reviewed CTCMath before that time I focused on grade 1 and grade 7 levels.

CTCMath Your Online Math Tutor

CTCMath is an interactive math curriculum for grades Kindergarten through high school.  Their membership plans are very flexible.  You can buy single-student plans and buy a membership for 1 month, 6 months, or 12 months at a time.  If you are homeschooling more than one child they also offer a family plan and again you have the choice of monthly, 6 months, or yearly memberships.

What I love about CTCMath's approach to teaching is that they keep the lessons short and simple.

You can select what grade level you want your children to work on but if they find a topic too difficult they can easily move back a grade to practice the same skill at an easier level.

I love this feature!  I've tried other programs that make the parent jump through hoops to move your child up and down in grades. With CTCMath my child can easily adjust this themselves practice the lesson and then move back to their original grade level when ready.

Each lesson starts with a short math instruction video.  The style of these videos is animated diagrams with a background narrative.

My children love that the teachers speak slowly and clearly and this makes following the lessons so much easier!

In grades, Kindergarten to 6 students practices math with online interactive questions.   These questions, when finished, can be printed off like a normal worksheet that's all ready been graded.  I love this!

Starting in grade 7 students complete their math questions a little differently.  After finishing their video math lesson they print off their math worksheet.  The answers are worked out on paper and then they need to input these answers into CTCMath's lesson and submit it for grading.

Using CTCMath In Your Homeschool

CTCMath is a very easy-to-use math program.  When your child logs in the student dashboard opens up.

On the left-hand side of the screen, all the grades and courses of math are listed from Kindergarten to Trigonometry.  Your child simply selects what grade level they are going to be working in.

After the grade has been selected another menu option opens in the center of the window.  This lists the math units covered in this grade level.

You can see in this 4th-grade math course there are 4 main units of learning available.

• Number, Patterns, and Algebra

• Measurement

• Space and Geometry

• Statistics and Probability

Once your child has selected what unit they are going to work on for the day another menu opens up on the right-hand side of the screen.

This 3rd menu lists all the topics covered in the unit.  You can see that under Number, Patterns, and Algebra the lessons taught are:

• Addition and Subtraction

• Multiplication

• Division 1 and 2

• Number 2

• Fractions

• Decimals

You can also see quickly how many lessons have been completed in each area.

Once you've selected the lesson unit you want to work on the Lesson menu opens.  Right at the top of the page, you have the option to take a diagnostic test. These are available in 3 formats.  The short test, standard or comprehensive.  They differ in the number of questions asked.

These diagnostic tests are optional but can be very helpful.  You can have your child take one of the tests before and after completing a lesson unit to see if their understanding has really improved.

Another way you can use these tests is to have your child take the test before starting the unit.  If they pass the test fine they could skip that unit lesson and move on to the next one.

Using the tests in this way helps children move through lessons quickly and target areas where they might have math gaps.

Below the diagnostic test area is a list of the lessons available.

In the 4th grade Addition and Subtraction unit these lessons are available:

• 3 digit Addition

• 4 Digit Addition

• 3 Digit Subtraction

• 4 Digit Subtraction

• Subtraction from 1000s

• Problems Involving Addition

• Problems Involving Subtraction

• 5 Digit Addition

• 5 Digit Subtraction

As students work through the lessons a bar graph displays beside the lesson to show their progress both by color and by percentage.

We Love CTCMath!

CTCMath has been such a wonderful fit for some of my children that I've continued to use it since we first tried the online math program last year. Unfortunately, it hasn't been a good fit for my oldest daughter but I think that it is because of how the lessons change in the 7th grade to of course more difficult work but also using worksheets that have to be inputted online.

Being dyslexic it was difficult to make sure the right letter or number was entered into the right box and often she ended up with a worksheet marked wrong when I could see on the hand copy she had the correct answer.

The layout of CTCMath’s website has changed a little since we first started using it. It used to use a Flash player to run the dashboard and we found this was sometimes buggy. 

Now they use HTML5 to run their site and it’s so much faster and smoother than it used to be.  If you do need to run the Flash player version for some reason you do have a choice on the student login page as to which one you can use.

For my other children, it's a math program that they love and I never have to ask them to just "get it done". They love CTCMath and often will do multiple questions sets a day in each lesson.