Math Made Easy: First Grade Workbook (Math Made Easy)

Rating:
Summary: fundamental math practice book
Review: A top quality workbook from DK. It organizes 1st grade math in progressive topics and gives drills on each of them. Very comprehensive. Star stickers reward good work. Most sheets practice adding and subtracting facts. They are solid but a bit repeating and monotonous.

After my son grasped the basics with this book, I additionally seek some tricky and thought-provoking math to elevate his skills. We use Beestar.org as a supplement. It provides free daily math exercises with real life problems. My son often shows up in the honor roll - thanks to the solid fundamentals built with this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great book for knowing the breadth of 1st grade math
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Great book for knowing the breadth of 1st grade math
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Introducing Math to 6-7 year olds
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Math Made Easy
Review: This workbook offers 155 math worksheets and gold stars that students can use to mark their accomplishments as they progress through the book. By the time your child completes this workbook he will have worked a little in most of the areas typically covered in a first grade math curriculum. This book supports National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards.

The pages are inviting, the activities are varied, and the topics are developed incrementally. Since the topics are developed in small steps spread over time, your child will have the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the material. The answers to all the questions are provided in the back of the book. Also parental notes are included with the answers. My 5 year old son was able to work independently through most of this book. It provided a very good review of the concepts he had already learned and provided the opportunity to introduce some new material. When he completed the book he asked to keep it!


Rating:
Summary: Good review for standardized tests, and skill evaluation
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Good review for standardized tests, and skill evaluation
Review: 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.