I recently self-published a book on Amazon: The Layered-Lesson Math Book. This book is not very long and seems quite simple, but this homeschool math curriculum was years in the making. I’ll tell you the story…
The Story of my Math Book
Once upon a time in 2007, I had a very energetic 3 year old who had 2 little sisters. I had studied to be a teacher and I thought preschool at home would be a good solution. It was! Just keeping him busy for an hour each weekday afternoon was enough to give him some focus on life and give me a creative outlet. Honestly, I’d been feeling pretty stuck in the nursing, potty training, chasing our little boy routine. Homeschool was what we all needed.
Fast forward to when we had 5 different levels to teach, plus a preschooler and a baby, and I was going crazy again! This time it was because… How on earth was I supposed to teach from 5 different math books each day? 🤪🤯 That kind of curriculum wasn’t working, and one of our kids was quietly falling behind. We needed something different.
I looked for ideas, and found none. I looked for any kind of homeschool resource that might help me teach all those levels with at least a common concept each day. What came close was Rebecca Rupp’s “Home Learning Year by Year,” that I mentioned in an earlier post, Layering Lessons Part 2. The first few years I would write notes about what each of my kids needed to learn about one math topic, then teach those together. Then I’d find or make worksheets to go with each lesson.
After doing that for several years, I put all the key concepts on a big spread sheet. From that spread sheet I put all the levels for one topic from Preschool to 6th grade on a note card to do my homeschool math lessons from. As I’d lesson plan from those note cards, I’d write down my plan on a Word document. That’s how I started writing my math book.
And so, I didn’t just write this math book, this is what I’m teaching my kids from every week. This year I have our 5 younger kids in homeschool plus some microschool students. And guess what? It is soooo much simpler than trying to teach from 5 math books! I am able to keep up with what each of our kids knows and what level they need to learn next. I’m able to take the time to teach each kid that doesn’t get it the first time because we only have one math subject to work on at a time. I feel like they’re thriving with this system, and my mind is calm teaching it.
How it works
I’ll show you how this math resource works…
Once a week there’s a math lesson that starts with a group activity.
Then there’s a list of specific concepts each level needs to learn:
After you read through these pages, and before you start teaching, find a worksheet that goes with each of your students’ levels. I included a list of math worksheet resources at the front my book to help with that. What I do with those worksheets is stick them in a dry erase pocket to be done each day for the rest of the school week. It’s that easy.
If you teach multiple levels at home or micro school and would like a simpler curriculum to effectively teach math, give this Layered-Lesson Math Book a try.
Thanks for reading my post. I hope you’re enjoying your adventure.
