*HONEST* Review of Kindergarten Math With Confidence | What You Need to Know

Now that we have fully completed Kindergarten Math with Confidence, I'm sharing my complete and full review of our experience with using this program along with tips on implementing the curriculum effectively.
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I'm Rachel, a mom of two and the oldest in a family of 8 kids. I'm a second-generation homeschooler who is passionate about education. I'm originally from Michigan, but am living overseas. My two young boys and teaching homeschool lessons to my youngest sisters keep me busy, but I make time for writing and for making KZbin videos, too! On this channel, you can expect videos featuring books and homeschool curriculum, homeschool tips for hard days, our journey raising bilingual kids, and vlogs about the intentional adventure that our homeschool lifestyle allows! Subscribe to join our family here:
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[@allyivy1784]

I have math with confidence. Instead of buying or checking the books out from the library, I search them on KZbin and do a read out loud. So far, KZbin has had all of them.

[@SevenInAll]

KZbin read alouds definitely come in handy!

[@TheHomeschoolBreakroom]

I love Kate Snow's approach. Another program I wish had been around when my kiddos were little.

[@SevenInAll]

I'm very glad that my boys are young enough for her release schedule! :)

[@alissadimov3174]

Thank you for introducing us to MWC! We are loving it. Halfway through Grade 1 with a Grade 1 and Grade 3 student, like you said we don't have to worry about the actual grade level, and for my 8yo it was more beneficial to go back and fill in some foundational gaps. He's now understanding and enjoying maths so much more, and I have no concerns about him "catching up." Plus it's more fun to learn together ;) For the index cards, I purchased the ones that come on a split ring. They are pre-hole-punched, so I group sets together and use as many split rings as necessary. It's been a great sanity saver!

[@SevenInAll]

YES for going with a child's actual level of understanding and the skills that they need to build vs. the grade level on the cover of the book. :) Glad that it's been a great fit! Having index cards on rings for the different sets DEFINITELY sounds like a great solution!

[@lauracampbell7644]

My daughter is only about 2 weeks into this and she enjoys doing the lessons. It's always hard to get her to do workbooks, so all the hands on activities keep her engaged. Thanks for sharing.

[@SevenInAll]

Glad it's working well! Time flies...feels like it's not so long ago that we were just starting!

[@SummerMeyers]

Loved hearing your thoughts on MC. I've been meaning to look over her books and I have heard so many great things about it. ❤️

[@SevenInAll]

I'm glad we ended up going with this program, it was a great year of math!

[@nateandrosannaengebretson3996]

I got MWC 2 for my second grader this fall, but we’ve already done 7 weeks of it. At first glance it seems way too easy for him; he is quite math-minded. But I love how it encourages him to use mental math and to think conceptually, plus we like all the random activities (hop on one foot while counting by twos) and memory work. I have normally used Abeka for K-3 math and will probably use it again next year, but this is a fun detour!

[@SevenInAll]

I definitely appreciate the mental math strategies and variety...I'm not the kind of person who tends to naturally do review, so reminders to do little activities that practice old skills are good for me as a teacher! We're on week 5 of the 1st Grade level now. :)

[@miadawn5175]

I'm so glad I watched this! We are beginning Gentlr and Classical Preschool next week with my almost 4 yr old, and I really feel like he is beyond the Preschool Math book. I'm going to keep this one in mind if he doesn't seem to be challenged enough.

[@SevenInAll]

I definitely recommend placing your child based on their skills vs. being too concerned with the grade level in the title. :)

[@thandaxaba]

I love your curriculum review videos

[@SevenInAll]

Glad you like them!

[@ejsrn724]

That’s so funny! I have MUS and I was feeling like my kiddo and I are going to go crazy with the black and white workbook pages, BUT we love their manipulatives. So I was looking at Math with Confidence and thinking maybe I’ll just use the MUS manipulatives for extra. So this confirms it for me haha Thanks!

[@SevenInAll]

Glad this is helpful! I love the MUS block manipulatives, but relying on Math With Confidence as our main curriculum has been fantastic. My oldest, though, is a math and worksheet lover so thus far he races through MUS worksheets for some extra math 'fun' (in Alpha now, so the worksheets are very short at that level).

[@RockSimmer-gal4God]

My kids know where our math stuff are!!! We hate cares mixed up!!! My youngest loves math books but I’ve not thought of using math books after pre school math books!!! We are going to use MWC for my youngest!!!

[@SevenInAll]

That's awesome to hear!

[@crystalh28]

Thank you for the review. We are currently using MWC and are enjoying. I might have missed you mentioning it, but will you be continuing on to MWC Grade 1?

[@SevenInAll]

Yes, we're 3+ weeks into 1st Grade MWC now. :)

[@Ahomeontheprairies]

Do math u see and MWC complement each other in pacing and concepts taught?

[@SevenInAll]

They complement each other in that they both take a hands-on, conceptually strong approach, and in general cover a lot of the same beginner math concepts, they are both 'gentle' programs that have short lessons and not long worksheets...but they do NOT follow the same order/progression/pacing. For me, I never worried about whether one math program was practicing addition and the other was practicing telling time...to me, having the math programs sometimes working on different topics was one of the perks of using two programs.

[@koralswinney4823]

I’m working through mwc with my son. I feel he needs some more practice on chapter 3 with the ten frames than what is provided in the curriculum. I am noticing that the ten frames in this book look different than ones online and in math u see. Any idea why Kate Snow makes them horizontal?

[@SevenInAll]

Especially in the Kindergarten level, feel totally free to "camp out" on a certain lesson or week for a while if you want to take some time for extra practice, and just cycle through the activities that seem to 'click' the best with your student. With certain concepts (i.e. pairs that make 10), I also feel comfortable just moving ahead in lessons because I know that that's a concept that we'll come back to again and again and eventually it will be mastered over time. Regarding the 10-frames, I found this answer on Kate Snow's blog: "I’ve found that kids learn the combinations of “5 and some more” more easily with the horizontal ten-frame. My personal theory is that it aligns better with their experience of reading across a line of text, but I can’t say that I have any solid research to prove that. 🙂 The 1×10 ten-frames also make for a smoother transition to using arrays to represent multiplication. That said, either kind of ten-frame is certainly better than none, and children generally don’t have any trouble switching back and forth between the two kinds."

[@koralswinney4823]

Thank you for finding this answer for me on her blog and for your perspective on going ahead and using the other ten frame for worksheet practice! We've been hanging out on this "5 and some more" concept for many more days than what was scheduled in the book. We've been repeating some activities, and I did start using some free ten frame worksheets I could find online. I'm noticing the concept is starting to click! @@SevenInAll

[@user-hm4gl6cd1q]

did you go through preschool math by kate snow before doing one?

[@SevenInAll]

Yes, we did use Preschool Math at Home, it was using that book that got me sold on continuing with her resources.

[@user-hm4gl6cd1q]

@@SevenInAll ok thanks.

[@lindsaypotter9776]

Is this program spiral or mastery? Would you say it’s advanced? We are using CLE math and think it’s too advanced for my 5.5yo. It’s also so boring lol

[@SevenInAll]

I would not say it is advanced, if anything, it feels a little bit more on the "gentle" side, although it definitely teaches deep mathematical reasoning skills. You can look at the scope and sequence and samples of the TG and student book to assess the level--it's supposed to be pretty on par with teaching "standards" for kindergarten, while programs like Abeka and CLE are probably more on the advanced side. The review activities keep spiraling back to concepts previously taught to give more practice until mastery is reached. It's definitely not boring!

[@pagemayrand4956]

how many(and which ones) different math curriculums have you/your family used, and how would you rank/ rate them? or perhaps which type of learner each was best for or specifically didnt work for? (ie. math u see specifically didnt work for ____ because she is a ____ type of learner, but worked really well for _____type of learner) this might be a whole video worth of content rather than a comment 🤣

[@SevenInAll]

hahaha...yeah, that sounds a little bit more like a video-level answer for thorough answers with all the juicy details. ;) For a short answer, I've only used Math U See and Math With Confidence with my boys thus far. Over nearly 30 years...my mom has used a good few math programs...probably the ones we've used most consistently have been Math U See and Abeka (only up to about 4th grade in more recent times--I used their high school math but utterly detested it, largely because all we had was the textbooks and answer key and it just wasn't designed for the homeschool teach-yourself setting...it was designed to be a tool used by a math teacher, or to go with the videos, which we didn't have). A more recent find (maybe within the last 6-7 years) that my mom greatly enjoys is Life of Fred, she's used it more as a read-aloud, math enrichment in the early years but used it as the primary math curriculum for middle and high school for the current 11th grader.

[@katieimler6229]

Im guessing you would not recommend Math U See on its own?

[@SevenInAll]

Oh, Math U See is an excellent math program, and I would certainly recommend it on its own. We are a math loving family...so we don't tend to limit ourselves to just one math resource, we appreciate the variety of using several--please don't take that as a criticism of any one curriculum of "not being enough." :)