Saxon Math: My Family’s Journey
My family’s journey to discovering and then choosing Saxon Math is unique. We were so blessed to find our math curriculum early on in our homeschooling. Because of this we were able to dive right in and have never looked back. I hope our story and why we chose Saxon encourages you and brings you some answers if you are on a journey to finding your math curriculum.
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Discovering Saxon Math
It all started when my oldest brother was around 4. My mom started teaching him with simple phonics and hands on activities. She would spend time copying by hand some of the school papers that my sister was bringing home. (My sister was enrolled at the time in a private Christian school.) Copying these pages was taking a lot of time and effort and Mama knew that there had to be something even better for my brother to do. He needed some math and logic skills as well as letters and phonics. With the help of a close mom friend and a lot of research in the catalogs and homeschool book stores available at the time, my mom discovered Saxon Math.
After purchasing the first grade set, my mom got started teaching my brother. It wasn’t that long before he caught on and truly loved it! It starts so simple – teaching colors, tracing, numbers, and counting. It has no distractions, and truly was the best investment for a busy little boy who just wanted to learn.
About a year later my mom made the decision to bring my sister home from school during her 4th grade year. She was just not thriving in the private school system and although she would seemingly know the work after the hours my mom would spend studying with her, she would come home with grades that said otherwise. Bringing my sister home was the best thing for her and so began her homeschool journey.
Collecting Saxon Math
My mom was then deep in her research trying to find what books to give to my sister for each subject. In her effort to find what level in math my sister actually was, my mom decided to purchase Saxon Math 3rd. Though she was in a 4th grade level in school, she hadn’t been thriving and she needed the extra review. She also was needing a strong math foundation to build on.
It didn’t take her that long before she soon grasped the material and was flying through the book. This greatly helped my sister gain her math skills and it wasn’t long before she got the confidence she needed to go on to Saxon 54. My sister would now need to use a graph notebook and write out her problems to work them by hand.
(At that time Saxon Math books were called 54, 65, 76, and 87 – for the grade levels. So for example, 54 was for 5th graders or upper level 4th graders. Now they are called 5/4, 6/5, 7/6, etc.)
Eventually, my brother got to the 4th grade level, but my mom knew he wasn’t quite ready to use a graph notebook and set up his problems. So she did more research and found that Math 4 came in individual reproducible lessons like the previous Saxon books. It was difficult to find this set as it never was really meant for personal sales, but instead was just made for use in public schools. My mom pursued it, calling the company and was finally able to purchase it.
Saxon Math 4 is said to cover the same material as 5/4, but in easier to understand worksheets much like the previous books. It was a great additional book that helped us gain just a bit more confidence before we got into using an actual text book. My brother thrived throughout it and was ready to use graph books when he finished.
My mom did purchase Saxon K for me as I was ready to learn by the time my second oldest brother was going through Saxon 1st. Saxon K is a wonderful beginner book for moms to do with their preschoolers. It guides them on ways to teach little ones how to count, recognize numbers and letters, identify shapes, learn patterns, sort by color, identify money…all with every day activities. Little ones can use many hands-on manipulatives to learn these things without having to write on a worksheet.
That is how our Saxon Math journey began. The four of us were all grasping the material well and it just stuck. We had found our math curriculum!
Over the years, I watched as my older siblings went into the next book and then the next. I was also excited to move on up and greatly anticipated looking at what I would learn by the time I got to that last lesson! I loved sitting with my mom and doing side A with her teaching me and then seeing what I could do on my own on side B. If I did have questions my older brothers or sister would help as well.
One thing that benefited us all was that my mom gave each of us the opportunity to test through a book or two if the material was too easy for us. So when we got to 54 after doing Math 4, we took all the tests until we didn’t understand what was covered and then we started lessons from that point in the text. We did that for a few other books as well. It was great as it helped boost our confidence and see how much faster we were going through our books without wasting any time.
My Thoughts on Saxon Math
Throughout our homeschool years, we have collected the entire set of Saxon Math Homeschool books– Saxon K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, (4th), 54, 65, 76, 87, Algebra ½, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Advanced Math, Physics, and Calculus. We purchased many from Christianbook and local homeschool stores. We did not need to purchase the Intermediate books as the material was already covered in the original texts.
We did however purchase the Saxon Geometry book and though a few of us did that book, I don’t personally recommend it because of all the errors in the text and answer keys. The Algebra books and Advanced Math has plenty of Geometry taught in them, so it isn’t that necessary.
One thing I do have to say that the older books are the best editions with fewer errors and no common core filtered in. So if you can get your hands on a second or third edition of the hardcover books at a homeschool book swap or online, you are in luck!
The best thing about Saxon is that it is timeless. The older books are just as good if not better than the newer editions because the story problems are so generic and simple. They can never expire. We are not counting tablets and computers – but animals, toys, and money.
Now, I have seen many other kinds of math. We have used ABeka for a year with one sibling at an elementary level and just didn’t love all the bright pictures that were so distracting. With much research though, we discovered one book we do enjoy of ABeka’s. That one is the Consumer Math set. It is awesome for teaching all the things like budgeting, banking, taxes, insurance, and more all in a fun and very easy way.
We were given a few different Algebra books by my mom’s mom who was a teacher. Her school had extras and we explored them for fun. Honestly, I was so confused at how the problems were taught. As a high schooler, even I knew that Saxon was way simpler! I have since personally taken my younger siblings under my wing and tutored them throughout the upper level math books, showing them the easier way to do things.
My View on Math as a Homeschool Teacher
As a homeschool teacher and as a student who genuinely loved math, I have been curious and flipped through many math curriculum at homeschool book stores. I have always come back to Saxon for many reasons.
One of which is the steady pace that it grows the students’ learning skills, without them feeling they are having to learn so much at one time. It gradually and consistently builds on each new thing taught, yet in a simple way. Many call it the spiral method. Students learn a topic and then in the next lesson they learn more about that topic, but it slowly gets more challenging but not stressful.
Plus, it teaches different things over time with so much practice! Students aren’t forgetting what they learned last week, because it is always having them practice it with new problems each day! So when they get to a test, they are ready to challenge themselves with what they have learned because they have mastered it!
I will always recommend Saxon to homeschoolers as I have been a student and a teacher of it. I have seen this curriculum from all sides and I have to say it has always been my favorite math!
I hope this post has been helpful to you and you won’t feel overwhelmed on your homeschool math journey. There are so many other wonderful resources for making Saxon easy to teach and to learn. Stay tuned for my next post where I will share my personal review for each book in the Saxon Math series!
Are you doing Saxon Math with your students? What is your favorite subject to teach?
I have taken you by the hand in wisdom’s ways, pointing you to the path of integrity.
Your progress will have no limits when you come along with me, and you will never stumble as you walk along the way.
Proverbs 4:11 TPT
