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Everyone in the homeschooling group my family attends generally pays for material, and then supplements with things that are free(ish). For example math for us

Everyone in the homeschooling group my family attends generally pays for material, and then supplements with things that are free(ish). For example math for us is Saxon (paid), and then we will sometimes use Kahn (free) if the kids need extra practice, or if they need the material presented a different way.

jerry1979 5y ago
Interesting. Sounds like you have a good thing going. If you don't mind me asking, what makes the paid material stand out as compared to Kahn?
- dkhenry 5y ago
  The biggest thing is Saxon is a physical book, and it comes along with all the worksheets and tests and problem sets that we can copy and have them work on multiple times if needed. Specifically things like math facts and computations require a lot of practice, and they have these worksheets you do multiple times, timing yourself each time to show progress. Its really good to have that be able to be done physically with a pencil as the physical interaction really helps with retention. Also I greatly prefer the sequencing of Saxon, they do a lot of introduction work with coins and clocks, two things that are easy to get your hands on and that kids relate with well. Explaining fractions with a Quarter being a quarter of a dollar, and being 25 cents gives you a lot of discussion you can have. Then clocks are so useful for fractions ( half past the hour, quarter till ), especially since they are base 60 and not base 10. Also things like place value ( 1 vs 10's vs 100's ) and even angles are all related to real world physical objects the kids can touch. If it came down to it I think Kahn would give them a wonderful education and everything I have seen is well executed and wraps in a lot of the sequencing that I have seen work with my kids, but I do like Saxon enough to pay for it and use it as the primary source. The other piece is this thing called Institute for Excellence in Writing (https://iew.com/ https://iew.com/) it is honestly amazing. My kids know more about writing, and have a better grasp of the english language then I do thanks to that program.

jerry1979 5y ago

Interesting. Sounds like you have a good thing going. If you don't mind me asking, what makes the paid material stand out as compared to Kahn?

dkhenry 5y ago
The biggest thing is Saxon is a physical book, and it comes along with all the worksheets and tests and problem sets that we can copy and have them work on multiple times if needed. Specifically things like math facts and computations require a lot of practice, and they have these worksheets you do multiple times, timing yourself each time to show progress. Its really good to have that be able to be done physically with a pencil as the physical interaction really helps with retention. Also I greatly prefer the sequencing of Saxon, they do a lot of introduction work with coins and clocks, two things that are easy to get your hands on and that kids relate with well. Explaining fractions with a Quarter being a quarter of a dollar, and being 25 cents gives you a lot of discussion you can have. Then clocks are so useful for fractions ( half past the hour, quarter till ), especially since they are base 60 and not base 10. Also things like place value ( 1 vs 10's vs 100's ) and even angles are all related to real world physical objects the kids can touch. If it came down to it I think Kahn would give them a wonderful education and everything I have seen is well executed and wraps in a lot of the sequencing that I have seen work with my kids, but I do like Saxon enough to pay for it and use it as the primary source. The other piece is this thing called Institute for Excellence in Writing (https://iew.com/ https://iew.com/) it is honestly amazing. My kids know more about writing, and have a better grasp of the english language then I do thanks to that program.