Math for Kindergarten through Calculus (CTCMath review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

I am so grateful to be able to tell you all about the 12 month family membership from CTCMath again this year!

For the past three years, Grasshopper has been using this program as his primary math curriculum, and it’s an absolute blessing to our family. CTCMath is a program designed and taught by Australian homeschool dad Pat Murray. It is a complete math curriculum for every single one of your students, regardless of how old they are. The program covers the simplest kindergarten math all the way up Calculus for your high school senior. Designed with homeschoolers in mind, CTCMath lessons are very concise – at the elementary school level, each one lasts only about 5 minutes (plus however long it takes your student to complete the online, digital worksheet). The family plan allows you an unlimited number of students, which is fantastic since a lot of homeschoolers have big families (Mr. Murray has 10 children of his own).

Let’s dive into the program itself.

When you first go to the website, you choose the log in you need – student, teacher, or parent. I don’t actually spend any time in the parent portal these days (I know my kids are doing their math because I see them on the computer and I get the weekly email telling me how many times they logged in and how many lessons each child completed). I looked at the parent account in more detail in a previous review, though.

From the 4th grade lessons. Grasshopper was able to successfully challenge “Number I” by passing the diagnostic test; that’s why it doesn’t show as completed.

The student account is super straightforward. Each student needs their own account, but it just requires a username (my kids use their first name as a user name so it’s easy for them to remember), not a separate email for each one. Once they sign in, they need to choose their grade level (elementary, middle, or high school), and the course they’re taking. For K through 6th, this is just labeled with the grade number. Once you get to 7th grade and up, math classes are based more on topic and less on general knowledge, and CTCMath is no different. Middle school cover Pre-Algebra, Elementary Measurement, and Elementary Geometry. High school covers Algebra I and II, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus. Each class is broken down further into topics, and if you are using CTCMath as a supplement to another curriculum, you can choose just the topics your student needs to practice more of. As a full curriculum, we tend to start at the beginning and work our way through every lesson in every topic.

A screenshot from one of the video lessons

As I mentioned before, Grasshopper is the main child in our family who has been using CTCMath regularly, and he’s been at it for three years now. He’s completed 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade, and will be diving into 5th grade next month. He absolutely loves this math program. Every single year when the review option comes up, I ask him if he wants to apply to review it again and continue to use it and the answer is always an emphatic “Yes!” He likes that the lessons are short – he can easily do two or three a day without feeling overwhelmed. I like that the videos are so well explained that students can understand the concepts in just a few minutes. Additionally, there are the questions that they answer afterward to make absolutely sure they know what they need to know for the lesson.

An early question from the first Algebra I lesson

When I asked Scorpion (15, going into 10th grade) which math program he wanted to use for Algebra I this year (we have several at our disposal thanks to the Review Crew), he requested CTCMath. He’s not much of a math kid (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – his strength is more in the reading and literature realms than the math and science one), so the short lessons appeal to him. Just like in the elementary levels, I like the idea that he will have to answer questions every day in order to “pass” the lesson and move on. The other thing that will benefit him greatly is that with CTCMath, the lessons and tests are all-inclusive. One problem he had with his homeschool curriculum last school year was that he was supposed to do the lessons to learn the material and then take the tests to earn the credit. Well, he forgot to take the tests. All year long. So he’s been spending his summer break taking all those tests so he can get his freshman credits before he starts his sophomore year. With CTCMath, that won’t be an issue, at least with math (which is taking him the longest to make up).

Little Dragonfly is 6, which means he will be working through the 1st grade curriculum on CTCMath this year. It’s been a couple of years since I used it with him, and the Kindergarten lessons back then were too much. He’s worked through lots of math on another program these past two years, though, and I’m confident he’ll breeze through 1st grade with no issues at all.

One thing that’s changed since the last time I reviewed CTCMath is the Mastery feature. As your student is answering the questions, there’s a mastery bar that fills up with each correct response. When they’ve gotten enough questions correct to prove mastery over the topic at hand, the screen fills with digital confetti and they’re told that they’ve successfully mastered the lesson, but that they should still complete the remaining questions in order to receive their grade. What this mastery bar is doing is actually tracking how well your student is doing and adjusting the questions as they answer to make the easier or more difficult, depending on their skill. How cool is that?!

A quick look at the student’s overall progress is easy to find and read

My oldest son, Ballet Boy, recently graduated out of our homeschool, but he also used CTCMath a few times over the years. He wanted me to give you his direct quote on the program: “CTCMath is the bomb. I hate math and I still think it’s the bomb.”

So, yeah… we love CTCMath around here! I highly recommend it, especially if you have a large family. That “one price for unlimited students” is something you just can’t beat. (If you don’t have a large family, you can also pay for just a single student. There are plans available to pay monthly or yearly.)

If you’re still on the fence, however, make sure to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew site and get more information and links to more reviews as well. And one last thing to keep in mind: CTCMath gives homeschoolers a 50% discount every day of the year!

Blessings,

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