Customer Reviews

Math 5 / 4: Homeschool Set

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The set includes the three items you should have for a complete package: a Student/Teacher manual, the Solutions manual and the (reproducible) Tests and Worksheets. If you have one student, buy the COMPLETE kit. If you have 2 or more students, you should buy one complete set and as many extra student/teacher books, 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, this is ALL you need. 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 can 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.

This is our first year of homeschooling and we have been extremely pleased with this curriculum. What we like about it is that your student doesn't learn one thing and go on to the next, but there is constant review in the daily work so no concepts are forgotten. It's a great reinforcement. Plan on 45 minutes or so for math, though.

On Saxon's website, your child can take a test to determine which books to buy.

by homeschool4Him.com This review kind of covers lots of grades. My children are average or above average learners with no major difficulties. We began with A Beka, but over time it gets tedious. We switched to Saxon 7/6 and 8/7, and with a year, my older 7th grade son was ready to move right to Algebra 1! This is my first time with daughter in 5/4. She loves it! It moves quickly from drills to lesson, to practice to mixed practice. She feels independent and mature when doing this program, and she loves it!

Another bonus is that you can give them a day off of math once in a while. I built in a day off every other week with this program, plus a week off of math mid-year versus A Beka where you have a sheet every day for 170 days plus tests.

The way Saxon spirals its concepts is wonderful. Can't say enough good things about Saxon math!!! We were not sure with the high school math with Saxon, so we decided to go with Teaching Textbooks in Algebra. It may be a good program for higher math, I don't know. Hope this helps!

Brilliant kids might not like the numerous repetitions.

However, for average children, this book lays out a very strong math foundation. Whether children need to have a strong math foundation or not, may be a matter of debate. But if you desire a strong math foundation, this series and a disciplined approach provide an excellent solution for homeschooling parents.

For brilliant kids, a good strategy may be to skip the daily repetitions every other day, and just cover the new lesson of the day.

This curriculum is wonderful. I am a homeschooling Mom of 4 kids. It has been my favorite so far. I have been told that it has "lower" scoring capabilities, therefore the schools are no longer using Saxon. I highly disagree, and I am really saddened by how the "states" are rating their students by scores. I prefer my children to be able to function as well rounded individuals, and not be represented by a "score", hence the reason I home school. Saxon reviews, so your children won't forget the earlier lessons, and it is easy to explain to the kids. I love the mental math that we do everyday. It is a great warm up for the lesson of the day.

My daughter really loves this book. She enjoys the challenge and the varieties of exercises. I would highly recommend to use it with children who love math.

The Saxon Math system is very easy to understand and administer to your student. This set includes a book of worksheets (math drills and graph paper, fractions and money manipulatives) and tests, a book of solutions, and a text book. All come in a very sturdy cardboard box, which we use to keep all the math stuff together in the kitchen.

Also included are the pages to record the grades for each assignment, drill, or test.

The text itself divides the information up into 120 lessons. Every 5th lesson is a cumulative test, and every 10th lesson is an Investigation -- number lines, fractions, decimals, geometry, plotting/graphing... Each lesson gives your student one small, easy to digest bit of new information, plus 6-10 practice problems on the new lesson. Following each lesson are 25-30 problems based on cumulative knowledge.

The lessons are simple enough that doing more than one per day is by no means overwhelming. If your child simply can't get enough math in the day (describes one of my sons), this is a really nice system to encourage them to keep stretching their brains.

Great for summer reviews or working ahead, as well as great for homeschoolers (of course).

Reproducible answer sheets are provided with the books -- I did photocopy these, which cost an additional $35 or so for all 120 lessons. You could set up your own answer sheets, or your student could use plain paper. The reproducible sheets are nice because they are done on grids, which tends to lead to neater numbering and diagrams.

For me, the most difficult part of the system was trying to determine how many points each problem should be worth, and how many points each test should be worth. I decided each lesson problem should be worth 2 points, and each test problem should be worth 4 points. I take a point off for things like forgetting the dollar sign, forgetting the units (cm, degrees C, etc). You can score them as you wish, or not at all.

Best of all for my little Math Nut, at the back of the textbook are EVEN MORE practice problems. That's awesome.

We homeschooled our kids over a period of years, and Saxon Math, including Math 54, was always our choice for math texts. I also teach in a classical Christian school where we use Saxon Math as well. I find that for most students, if they will take the time to read the lesson well, do all of the problems, and then rework any problems they miss then they will achieve a high degree of mastery of the material at hand.

The greatest advantage of Saxon Math is that each lesson provides practice not only for the new problems but also built-in review for every kind of problem the student has previously encountered. Math 54 is no exception to the rule that Saxon Math texts help students learn math well. After Math 54, all of my kids who have taken it were definitely ready to move on to the next level.

In general, Saxon Math, including Math 54, is highly recommended. It is especially ideal for homeschooling families.

This kit contains all that the homeschooling parent needs to teach Math 54. It's a program that really works and isn't that labor intensive for the parent.

The problem here is that I have the 2005 3rd edition complete 3 piece set and this ISBN code only lets you look at the 2004 edition... For persons wanting to sell or buy the 2005 complete 3rd edition it is impossible to find it...... For example, I had to place my complete 3 piece set under the ISBN code for the student book for 2005 edition, someone looking for the complete set would never know to look for it there....... Just wish there were easier ways of placing & viewing items other than ISBN codes......