Customer Reviews

Math Made Easy: 1st Grade Workbook, Ages 6-7

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a homeschooling Dad who is the teacher for the first hour the day with my son, a first grader. For a part of that hour I spend with my son, I wanted to use a math workbook that would provide a comprehensive overview of the material a first grade student is expected to master by year-end. Quite randomly, I chose the Math Made Easy series workbook. I'm delighted I made that selection!

The Math Made Easy provides an incremental, comprehensive approach to teaching math. There are 156 pages -- lessons, if you will -- to work on. Early on, your student learns how to tackle simple math problems, and then those concepts are developed into more complex problems in later lessons. This is an excellent way of learning -- incrementally and progressively. So, rather than learning everything there is to know about reading an analog and digital clock for 10 straight lessons, the easiest concepts of all math concepts are presented early in the workbook, and then those same concepts are presented in more challenging formats (to a first grader, anyway) later in the workbook. That requires the student to recall the earlier learning that was done in the workbook, in order to tackle the more challenging problems that are presented later on. So, for instance, time-telling lessons appear on pages 29, 86, 87, 88, and 116.

My son and I generally complete 2 pages in about 20 minutes. Sometimes we do 3 pages, sometimes only 1 page. We started using this workbook in late September, and we'll likely finish our workbook by February -- a complete first grade math education in about 4-5 months!

Although we use the workbook for 20 minutes a day, we often spend more time -- up to 30 minutes more a day -- taking a concept presented in the book and developing it more fully on our own. What's nice, though, is if the lesson for the day is on, say, graphing, I can easily come up with ideas for graphing beyond the few problems presented on one page in the workbook.

Put another way, the goal for using this workbook isn't to see how quickly you can finish it, rather, it's how well can your student master the material in the workbook. The workbook provides the breadth of what a first grader should know, but you'll need to add depth beyond the workbook if you want your student to fully master the material.

The only things I don't like about the workbook is that it is not full-color inside (black and white or grayscale); too often the lessons require the student to draw pictures (it takes a first grader too long to draw them) or hard-to-draw shapes like stars; and sometimes the student is expected to write-out numbers, which is a problem if your student doesn't yet know how to read or write.

In contrast, what I like is the comprehensive nature of the book, the interesting presentation of some of the material (the less-than and greater-than symbols < > are fashioned into crocodile heads that always eat the larger number!), the star-sticker reward system for completing a workbook page, and that early lesson topics are revisited in more challenging formats in later pages of the workbook.

In a word -- I highly recommend this book!

This is the second book in the "Math Made Easy" series. It will help to prepare your child for standardized tests and supports National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards.

Not only will the lessons build confidence, all the parental notes and answers are included. You can easily tear those sections out of the back of the book. In the Answer Section with Parent's Notes, you will find all the answers to all the activities in the book. These pages will enable you to mark your children's work or they can be used by your children if they prefer to do their own marking.

The notes for each page will help to correct common errors and problems and will indicate the type of practice needed to ensure your children have an understanding of where and how they made mistakes.

This workbook will provide practice for all the major topics for Grade 1 with emphasis on addition and subtraction concepts. There is also a review of Kindergarten topics and a preview of Grade 2 topics.

Features a progress chart complete with stars so you can stick in a star when the corresponding lesson has been completed.

Contents:

Numbers
Numbers & Pictures
Counting Review 1-20
Counting by 10s and 2s
Halves and Quarters
Adding Animals - counting animals in pictures and then writing in the numbers
Sets
Money
Fun ordering stories - what happens 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
Time - writing time in each box.
Connect the numbers
Comparisons
Days & Seasons
Addition, subtraction, real-life problems, digital clocks, bar graphs, symmetry, matching fractions, shapes and places, odd and even, estimating length, equations, reading calendars, properties of polygons
Measurement problems
3-dimensional shapes.
Puzzles - reading clues to solve the puzzle. "I am a number between 20 and 30. If you
count by fives, you will say my name. Who am I?"

I don't remember school being this fun. :) The pictures are
quite cute in all the Math Made Easy books.

~The Rebecca Review

There are 'workbooks' and there are Workbooks! and I purchased this after reading the reviews below and I have to tell you that it is not nearly as good as I was led to believe.

First, this book can really ONLY used as a supplement to another text. There is no progression in how material is presented nor much in the way of explanation -- a paragraph here and there in the back. So if you were going to use this alone, you would have to come up with explanations yourself.

For example: on page 11, there is the 'sudden' introduction of calculators. On page 159 the authors say (in total): "If children have difficulty with the exercises on the page, suggest to them that they use their fingers or counters to find the answers". THAT's IT. Good luck.

Another example: on page 14, there is the introduction of tens and ones. They have six problems showing a tens-stack (or multiple thereof) plus some one's. Now this was precisely the sort of thing that I wanted assistance in teaching and showing my daughter.

About this the authors say: Make sure that children understand that the `1' in `14' stands for 1 ten, but the 1 in 41 represents 1 one. (Arggh.)

Now I have been using the "Giant Basic Workbooks" up to this point and perhaps I'm spoiled, because I came to expect that material would be introduced and built upon, not just slapped down in front of us. These are first graders, after all.

Three Stars. A Terrible workbook if you are looking for explanations or the slow introduction and building upon of math concepts. (Definitely not good for homeschooling.)

Probably a good book if you desire additional problem sets to work on with your school child. Colorful though crowded pages.

This workbook is not designed well. The book jumps from one concept to another and touches on subjects for only two pages before moving into an entirely different math concept.
The material is also too advanced for average first graders.
We used the kindergarten "Math Made Easy" and found it very easy to use. I assumed that this first grade workbook would follow it, but it doesn't. For example, addition and subtraction were introduced very minimally in the kindergarten workbook. Addition and subtraction in this first grade book starts with double digits! Children need to learn/memorize sums to 10 before they can advance to this. I have given up on this workbook mid year. Perhaps at the end of the homeschool year we will return to it.
I suggest the "Spectrum Math" series. It is very well organized, simple, and repetitive so children can learn math concepts.
Perhaps this book would be good as an end-of-the-year review, but if your kids need to learn "math facts" forget it.

We got this to supplement our daughter's Math studies, and it is very colorful and fun! It contains gold stars for every lesson completed, and when you're done, you have a chart full of stars to keep! A great help for parents working with their kids during a big year for six and seven year olds! The price is great and the quality is typical of DK...top-notch. You would pay closer to twenty dollars for something like this in a "teacher" store.

This book mainly provides intensive practice problems to first graders. If your child has learned the topics and needs practice to strengthen the skills, this book is for you. It does a fair job of a WORKBOOK. Otherwise you will be disappointed with the lack of teaching and explanations.

However, even used as a practice book, I do think the problem items are a bit monotonous and flat. Per a previous review, I tried the free Beestar math (www.beestar.org). It provides mixed bag weekly exercises, indeed more interesting to my son. We like it very much. I suggest you check it out and see if the free one suits your child better.

I can't recommend this book, unless you are looking for a supplementary workbook for concepts that will be explaine using other materials. I purchased this book to use with my daughter, and was immediately frustrated with it. It doesn't go through the concepts in a progressive way, but tends to jump around. There are absolutely no explanations in the book on how to explain the concepts, for the child or parents. Also, they throw the pages into the book in such a random way that one day you may be learning probability (in first grade?),then doing kindergarten or preschool work the next. There is also no review of new concepts, so that you feel like even if the child begins to grasp the concepts they won't be reviewed until much later in the book, if at all. I did go ahead and use the book since I spent money on it, but I did alot of skipping around and ended up explaining everything myself. Please save yourself a headache and buy something else.

I just recieved this book but am excited to start using it. The problems seem both fun and logical, well seated in 1st grade skill levels yet challenging too as it offeres new information, and new ways to use old skills. My son is excited about the stickers, too.

Another person mentioned there is a little too much drawing or writing involved for a 1st grader, and I do agree with that, only because most 1st graders are a little slow in these departments, but this is nothing you cannot work around and continue the book around - just improvise a little bit. Instead of drawing six dogs I let him draw six circles, for example. On pages with a lot of writing, I will incoporate that lesson in to his phonics work for the day, killing two birds with one stone.

The book is well built, also, I think it will hold up well under daily 6 year old boy wear.

Great book for home schoolers, or parents whose children need a little boost in their math skills from home.

I bought this book for my rising 2nd grader as we finish her 1st grade math curriculum (we homeschool and normally use Singapore Math). She was starting to hit a roadblock with new material and skills in her math program, so I wanted something that would go back and review skills we had already covered, partly to fill in any gaps, and partly to give her some momentum going into new stuff.

This book has fit the bill! She loves the book, and often does several pages in one sitting. The concepts are presented in a sound manner, and work well with how she learned these skills in our regular math program. She also loves putting stickers on each page as she completes them...just a little extra motivation. :)

My biggest complaint is the paper used for printing the book. It is IMPOSSIBLE to cleanly erase a wrong answer in order to correct it. I want my children to be willing to take risks with their answers to problems, and sometimes that means they get it wrong, of course. Then we go over it together so they can correct their answers and understand where they messed up.

Overall, we love the book, and will likely continue with the series to provide my 7-year-old with easy review.

my son is 6 years old. He starts his 1st grade in September and we are preparing for the gifted and talented test that is going to be in October. We are doing two pages every day and he ADORES this book. i like the author's idea about sticking a star to each properly done page. He is doing all his work in order to get a new star and move further for getting more stars!the book consists of all topics he used to have at his kindergarten class, and another half is for 1st graders.there is addition, subtraction, time, geometric figures and other stuff. i highly recommend this book.