Tuesday, April 22, 2014

CTC Math Review

CTC Math Review
We had the amazing opportunity to review CTC Math for the Schoolhouse Review Crew. We were given a 12 Month Family Plan which is absolutely perfect for our first year of homeschooling! Homeschoolers can receive a 60% discount off the regular price ($297), which would be $118.80 for the whole family! You'd be saving $178.20! (This is a temporary sale price and I do not know how long it will last!) The CTC Math online tutor covers so much! They offer Kindergarten through 6th grade math, pre-algebra through algebra II, elementary measurement, elementary geometry, pre-calculus, calculus, geometry and trigonometry. You have access to all of these lessons so that your child can move fluidly through each level onto the next!

This is the perfect math program for a homeschooling family for many reasons. It offers math lessons for K-12. It can be used by multiple children and each child has their own login and their progress is tracked separately. It's online so you don't have to keep track of piles of papers. Each set of questions show the corrected solutions afterward. You can track your children's progress and see which areas they need help in. They email you weekly reports. Students can use the program independently. Students work at their own pace and can review the material as often as needed and move on when they are ready. It's affordable and convenient. All you need is an internet connection!

I'll be the first to admit that I am terrible at math. I never did well in school and to this day I am terrified of the subject. I attended public school and really struggled with math. In school it seemed like my teachers just assumed I would understand math as soon as it was taught. Well, I didn't. Had I been given more time to understand the material and perhaps been able to go through it with the teacher rather than quietly trying to understand it from my desk, I might have actually done well. This is why I will always use an online program like this with my children. Having an online maths tutor is both perfect for my children and myself. The program is self-paced, so my children do not feel rushed. They can take their time learning each step and move on when they are ready. They do not have to worry about learning the material in a limited time-span or about having to keep up with an entire class. I feel like learning math is easier in a stress-free environment!

Each lesson is introduced by Pat Murray, an Australian math teacher who is the same narrator throughout all the lessons. Pat's voice is friendly and relaxed. He explains the math in a logical and easy to understand manner. The consistency of the same voice teaching each lesson will be perfect for students who use the program for multiple years. In school you change teachers each year and they all have their own teaching styles, but their styles may not always be best for the student(s).  The great thing about the videos is that my children can re-watch them as often as they need to to understand the lesson. It's a resource I wish I had as a child, since I struggled with math. When you are in class your teacher can only repeat the lesson so many times before they have to move on. As a homeschooling family, we can take our time to learn math so that it is fully understood.

We started with the Kindergarten course which is divided into four streams: Number, Patterns and Algebra, Measurement, Space and Geometry and Statistics and Probability. Each of these groups are further divided into different levels. Each group has a video explaining the lesson and followed by questions. You can complete the questions as many times as needed simply by selecting the "more questions" option. The more questions option will rotate out the questions, so your child is rarely doing the same problem over and over again.



You can even print out a summary of the lesson plans to have on hand to use as a guide for offline activities! We use the online lessons as a starting point for our math activities. For instance, if we are practicing counting to 10 with my son, we will have magnetic numbers in a bowl and he has to arrange them in order. They love multi-sensory learning, so we often practice math while they are playing. We use fake money in their kitchen and they love counting the coins and paper money. They have a measuring tape in their toolbox and will measure the coffee table or the height of their dolls. They have a clock puzzle that we use to practice telling time and also to learn about different shapes. They love using their geoboard to learn about different geometric shapes and create patterns and pictures with their pattern blocks. So there are many ways to learn about math while playing!

My daughter loves this program and uses it almost daily! She is always excited about her math lesson and will often be the one to request doing math. This program is comprehensive and easy to follow. She needs very little directions and sometimes uses the program on her own. She enjoys watching the math lesson videos and then completing the questions. I wish our tablet hadn't broken, because she would have loved using this program from the comfort of the couch. However, she loves using the computer like a "big kid" and this program has helped her learn more about using the keyboard and mouse. I expect she will continue loving this program!

 


My son mainly watches the lesson videos, since he is still in the identifying and counting numbers stage. He enjoys sitting beside his sister and watching her complete the questions. He practices counting alongside her and will occasionally type in the answer by himself. He says the answers out loud, but she is usually the one to type them in. She loves showing him how to count and works with me to help him understand the math lesson.

CTC Math Review

CTC Math could also be used for students who attend school, as it is an online math tutor that has been proven to raise grades. This would be helpful for students who are behind in math or have low grades. The online math tutor is there 24/7! This would also be great for parents who do not understand math as easily or who just hasn't done math problems in a while, so we can brush up on our math knowledge by watching the lesson video before the child does so that if they have any questions, we would be able to answer them.

Did I like the CTC Math online tutor program? Yes, I definitely did! The website is easy to navigate. The program works. The video lessons are short (4-9 minutes) and provide a very clear understanding of the material. You can rewatch the lessons and complete the questions as often as needed to fully understand the materials. It's stress-free and convenient.

Was there anything I did not like? I personally find the price range to be steep, but that is honestly just me. For an online tutor that offers K-12 math lessons 24/7, it is not that expensive! I would just be sure to purchase it at the yearly price when it is on sale for homeschoolers! I really like the CTC Math program and look forward to using it in our homeschool in the coming years!

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