Math Lessons for a Living Education is a Charlotte Mason inspired Math Curriculum
In our homeschool we love using many Charlotte Mason methods. When I first saw that Math Lessons for a Living Education I was interested to try it. We used it for grades 1 & 3 last year and I purchased levels 2 & 4 for the upcoming year.
There are some pros and cons to this curriculum
Disclosure
I purchased all items in today’s review offering an unbiased opinion. We are secular homeschoolers that do use Christian material and tweak it as needed. I’ve used levels 1 & 3 and will be using levels 2 & 4 this upcoming year in addition to other math curriculum.
Math Lessons for a Living Education curriculum review
The pros
- It’s a light math program. This could also be a con, but for kids that struggle with math, the pages are light and the lessons short. We often did more than was suggested in a day because it went by too quickly.
- Story inspired for some of the math concepts. These books offer weekly stories with real life math so that kids make the connections to what they’re learning. For example a skip counting lessons talked about packing up items for a trip and organizing clothes. Subtraction lessons was introduced with eating cinnamon buns. Not every story offers a math lesson however. I found that some of the stories the kids liked, others not as much. I do screen through certain stories because we are not Christian.
- Inexpensive. This is a big deal as most math curriculum cost a lot of money, often in the multiple hundreds for the year. You can buy it on Amazon or directly from Masterbooks.
- Simple. I loved the simplicity of just using beans or manipulative items from around the house. You don’t need to buy a fancy expensive kit to go along with this curriculum. They offer some pages in the back like houses for place value or number charts.
- Check off lists. I love the beginning that offers the teacher check off lists and the dates you completed the lessons.
Cons
- Level 1 had way too much repetitive busy work and felt more like a kindergarten program for the first half. Even towards the end of the book it was still asking us to copy numbers or color in the rectangle. The other levels didn’t seem to have the same busy work.
- Lots of review. This can be a pro or a con depending on the student. The reason why I felt like this was a con was because when you look at the first half of many of these books, it seems to be review from the previous grade level. Then when you look at the second half of the books, they are covering the topics that are generally taught for that grade level.
- Light compared to most math curriculum. When you open level 2 in Singapore math, Beast Academy or Math Mammoth, they’re doing math that the same level 2 doesn’t cover until half way through the year or even level 3. It’s nice that the lessons are short, however, they honestly don’t feel like enough. The goal is for the stories to infuse the kids with that real life application, but not every story is related to the topic at hand. If your kids are a strong math student I don’t feel like this curriculum will offer enough.
- Christian based if you are secular. This is likely a pro if you are a Christian. However this curriculum isn’t super heavy in Christianity and I feel like it’s easy to tweak certain stories or wording for our secular homeschool. I definitely couldn’t do this with Masterbooks Language Lessons for a Living Education ( I tried!).
For this year I am still using Math Lessons for a Living Education in our home, but not as our core.
I like to rotate light math days with heavier ones so that kids get more enjoyable days with math. Too much drill and kill or heavy math topics can be hard for certain students. I will be doing 3 days a week of Math Mammoth this year and 2 days a week of Math Lessons for a Living Education.
Have you tried this curriculum? How did it go for you?
mia says
I love the idea of using both these curriculum! We used Math Mammoth but sometimes it is too much (especially for my daughter who doesn’t love math) Thank you also for letting me know that Living Education isn’t overly tonal in their beliefs.
Kristen says
We are using Math Lessons for a Living Education along with Horizons this year. My Pre-K son is using the K5 book, so he’ll be a level ahead of where the curriculum is at. My daughter is incredibly math advanced. However, I’m thinking this curriculum will be great for her because she can spead through quickly. The problem with just say every other curriculum out there is that the days are too long for a kid who already gets it. With Christian Light Education, which is an amazing math curriculum, we were doing the learning portion of three to four lessons per day, and part of the lesson before the test. She still gets high A’s. She needs to thoroughly learn a few concepts per day, and have only a small amount of review every day. She doesn’t need pages and pages. From that perspective, MLfLE seems to be the best for advanced kids also, but we shall see.
Isis Loran says
Best of luck using this curriculum! If you feel like she’s very advanced in mathematical thinking, perhaps Singapore, Dimensions, Math Mammoth or Beast Academy might be worth looking into as they are geared towards very mathy kids.
Debra says
How did you end up liking mixing Math Mammoth with MLFALE? We have used MLFALE the last two years but I’d like something a little bit more challenging this year as well as something with more practice than what is offered in MLFALE. I was thinking about going with Math Mammoth this year but would love to hear your thoughts!
Isis Loran says
I personally didn’t love math mammoth, the instructions were great, but the pages feel overwhelming and cluttered and I didn’t like the font. Sounds silly, but I want to love what I’m using. It’s a huge jump from MLFLE too, about a level behind I’d say. I just found out about Dimensions from Singapore company and that looks great.This year I’m using MLFLE and jump math with my grade 3, but I’ve dropped it for my grade 5 and doing Beast Academy and Jump Math (which you have to go online for the lessons and answer keys)
Best of luck figuring out the right math for, definitely the hardest part of homeschooling 😂
Joc says
Hi, We are doing math mammoth for the first time this year and are looking at using the MLFLE. We are in Math Mammoth for grade 4 and my child is fairly strong in math but struggles with the amount of work. I like the idea of mixing up Mammoth and MLFLE but I’m trying to decide what book I would go with. Are you saying Math Mammoth was behind the MLFLE curriculum level? Also any other tips or info is welcome. Thank you so much 🙂
Isis Loran says
Hello! Math mammoth bus far more advanced than MLFLE , in fact I’d say Math Mammoth 4 light blue series is the same as MLFLE 4. This year for grade 5 is the first year I’ve stopped using MLFLE for her (I use it for my younger kids). I’m planning on using Singapore Dimensions this year as math mammoth felt too dry.
Choosing a math curriculum is probably the hardest aspects of homeschool planning! Every kid is different and parents have different levels of comforts. I needed more guidance and instructions now that we’re heading into more complex math. Best of luck deciding!
Joc says
Thank you for your thoughts 🙂
Twyla says
Thank you for this review, you saved me time and money by your experience!
I was interested in the story themed and christian aspect, and actually found it funny that as I do with secular books (screen through questionable content) you were doing the same with the christian content lol. Different strokes for different folks eh?
Well again thanks for your take on it, it sounds like it may be a bit too light in the challenge department for us. I do agree wholeheartedly…been at homeschooling for 13 years now and its finding the math that is always hard to both love as a teacher, and love for the students 🙂
All the best in the canadian mountains…just about to do the same out east (smaller mountains 🙂