Little Homeschool on the Prairie: CTCMath Review

It’s been several years since I was introduced to CTCMath and my kids and I still love this amazing Full Math Curriculum. I received a 12-month Family Membership.

CTCMath is an online math program. I love that you get unlimited access to all the online lessons which includes all the K-12. There is even more advance topics like calculus to trigonometry with your membership. You can use this as a full curriculum or supplemental math for K-8. For High school it is a supplemental program. I love that we can easily go to different grades and topics and I don’t have to go in the parent area to adjust a grade level each time nor am I limited with how many times I can adjust a grade level. CTCMath doesn’t have any hoops to jump through to meet your students math needs. CTCMath is not aligned with Common Core.

You will need high speed internet for CTCMath. You can use this with a PC and it’s available for tablets.

Not sure where to start-not a problem? You can start by giving a diagnostic test available in every subject to help you determine what level of mastery your student is at. You have three options: short-20 questions, standard- 30 questions, and comprehensive-40 questions. This has been a huge part of my homeschool of seeing the gaps that need more attention in math or to give you an overview of their strengths.

You can also not do the diagnostic test and work just by grade level for the K-8 which it broken down my topics and then sub-topics. The high school it is set up by topic concepts.

The math lessons are taught by Pat Murray, an Australian math teacher. He presents each lesson in a simple and straight forward approach.

Once you have registered an account, you create an account for each of your students. Each child will have their own password. I love that I don’t have the hassle of needing a separate email for each student. This allows the student to have their own separate dashboard and to view their task and assignments easily. Not only can the student view their results on their dashboard but I can see in the parent dashboard results of each student separately.

The lesson set up and navigating around the website is easy. Basically your student will watch an online math tutor video. The videos are approximately 4-10 minutes long. After the video they work on the math questions, the questions vary from 6 to 12 depending on the topic concept being taught. The questions are filling in the blank questions that they type into. You may need paper for some questions and then you can transfer it over to the provided spaces. If they get the question wrong they will be provided with instant feedback. As a parent you can set the customized perimeters for the percentage grade to move on to the next topic. If they miss too many questions they can’t move ahead. The kids get reward certificates for every area that they complete and you can print off those certificates too.

An example of a worksheet I can print off on a lesson

You can also print out the worksheets however you will have to input the answers to the questions to track the grades.

When they complete a lesson they can print off or download the lessons

Once they complete the questions you can print it off or save it as a PDF for your records but, it is not required to print off or save each lesson. If you don’t save or print it off you can view the grades for each topic but, you can’t retrieve the printables once you get out of that lesson. Don’t worry as you can print out your grades for each student.

You can access the PDFs on the right side underneath the video

The lessons also have PDFs that you can download or open if needed on each concept.

You can choose your level and topic in the Speed Skills. My son really likes doing this.

Times Table you shoot the correct answers quickly before they get to the bottom of the screen

CTCMath even has speed drills to work on math facts that are set up as games. Speed Skills and Times Table.

Swap the Pieces isn't easy but lots of fun

Another game is Swap Pieces which is more of a logical critical thinking game that is challenging.

My daughter loves seeing what awards she has. I love that it keeps track of it throughout the years we have done CTCMath

As you can see it has several options for me to look at my kids scores

The parent dashboard is lets me see my kids grades broken down by topic and grades. It also shows me when they logged in and how long they were on. I can see how many attempts it took them for each topic correct. I can see the lessons the way my student does without going into my kids account.

This is just a few things I can download for record keeping. From my dashboard I can do several task

A new thing is the ability to assign task on topics called the “Wizard Question Bank” I choose what questions from a mixture of topics, how many questions. I can also set a date when it needs to be completed.

Another feature in the “Wizard Question Bank” is the Advance Customization in which I can print out or just assign by date as an online task when they log in. I can also set up the difficulty level on each topic.

I can see my child's progress online. CTCMath sends out weekly reports and when the student receives a certificate of accomplishment you get an email. Like I mentioned earlier you can set the percentage to determine the grade of each child’s needs. Having a special needs learner I set her goal lower than her younger brothers so she wouldn’t get frustrated. It averages out the three highest percentages for the final score.

Another new feature is the User guide which has videos to help you navigate the site and to get the most out of CTCMath.

The students can even change the color theme on the page.

How did I use CTCMath in my homeschool?

Since we have used CTCMath several times and fairly familiar with it. I decided first to look at the “Wizard Question Bank” and set up a few task of both of my kids. My son had no problem with me setting up task for him overall. However with use still on a summer break math schedule I found it a bit harder to stay on track with this with our 3 days a week schedule and working on math at various times due to the dates but, you can still work on the task if it’s expired. So I planned for Monday – Wednesday for CTCMath and well we ended up sometimes doing other days. For my family this would be more beneficial during the school year and our schedule being more consistent. I love the “Wizard Question Bank” it just will have to wait till we are in our full schedule which is just right around the corner. My daughter with her special needs this just isn’t going to work with her as her skills and what she can handle each day I have to be more flexible. I didn’t print out a worksheet as both kids prefer the online version.

My son is reviewing the Pr-Algebra concepts

I am using this with both my 8^th grader and my 11^th grader. My 8^th grader is working on Pre-Algebra and also jumping around in topics throughout. He tends to like to go back and see if he can improve his scores on topics that he scored lower on regardless of the grade. I let him and don’t mind if he jumps down to lower grades as long as it’s not his primary focus and works more to level the majority of the time. Typically my son would do 2 lessons each time he logs in.

My daughter is working hard on her lesson

My 11^th grade daughter has special needs and is not at grade level and we ended up redoing some concepts that she has done previously in 3^rd and 4^th grade. She is trying to do a few things that she is more confident in at the 5^th grade level. She needs to repeat concepts often and this allows her the freedom to do so.

My kids and I really like CTCMath and I don’t have any complaints about the program. It works well without all the gamey feel of most online math programs. It’s straight to the point and each concept is explained easily. It amazes me that you can spend less than 15 minutes on a lesson and walk away with understanding of the math concepts. I highly recommend CTCMath!