Tony Silva

Show Your Work
Math Mammoth 5th Grade
http://www.mathmammoth.com
$12.50 Electronic; $16.75 Hardcopy


Whether you are looking for an instructional curriculum or worksheets only, Math Mammoth likely has a program to meet your needs. It is well worth a visit to their site to review the different programs and to sample the worksheets from each.

We chose Math Mammoth 5th Grade from their “Golden Series”. The program is broken into workbooks 5A and 5B which can be purchased separately, but you may want to consider getting them as a package. These Math Mammoth books are available in electronic form or in hardcopy format from Lulu.com.

More Than a Collection of Problems – Much More!

Since we already have a good math curriculum, we chose the Golden Series to supplement our program with worksheets. We’ll get those in a moment, but we should emphasize up front that you get more of Maria Miller’s research and knowledge than a collection of worksheets. There are pages of links at the beginning of the text that take you to a world of math related Web sites covering challenging word problems and Problem of the Week type challenges. Some come with a fee but most are free. The Math Mammoth Website has a collection of samples to give you an idea of what their workbooks look like. Our package came with a link to even more worksheets generated by topic. Hit “Refresh” on your browser and you get a new worksheet along with a link to its answer key. If you need something more specific, you can customize the worksheet output.

Mammoth Inventory

There are math textbooks and workbooks at every level available on the Website. Read the explanation of the four math series available and an offer for even more free materials. In spite of the extensive offering of free resources, it’s well worth considering an investment in the paid materials; they are systematic and well organized. If you do not already have a math curriculum, Math Mammoth offers one in the form of its “Light Blue” series. “Light Blue” is currently available for grades one through four.

Each section begins with a brief explanation of the math concept with examples and then the worksheet problems associated with that concept. These are not complete instructional units or textbooks – they serve as a review of the concept to prepare your student for the worksheets that follow.

Some sections have additional Internet resources as explained above. What Math mammoth brings to your schoolbox is an almost infinite collection of ways to give your student practice in each of the concepts presented. If you’ve been homeschooling for decades, you may have stumbled across many of these. With Math Mammoth, you don’t have to go out digging – the resources best suited for the material are listed along with the lesson explanations and sample problems.

Quibbles & Bits

Since we only reviewed the worktexts, we have limited our comments to how this material can be used as supplemental work for your existing math curriculum. You may find after looking at sample pages on the Math Mammoth site that you only need the worktexts or perhaps the curricular series available for your grade level. On the other hand, if you’re using the worktexts as a supplement to a different math program such as Math-U-See, be aware that explanations may differ. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as you will discover in our upcoming review of Math Tutor videos.

A common complaint about eBooks is the cost of ink to print out student work pages. For a few dollars more than the cost of the eBooks, you can get a printed copy of the texts from Lulu.

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below: