Curriculum Review: Mega Math

I found this little treasure at the SAC Lending Library, which is a homeschool curriculum library that allows you to check-out curriculum for a year for $1...yeah...$1! Nice if you want what they have there. I found a couple of things that I thought we could use. One is the Mega Math system. I just have to say....HOLY COW! This is well worth having.

Now, I am math challenged. When I told Mike I wanted to homeschool one of the first things he asked me was how in the world was I going to teach math because I have no skills in that area. My answer was, choose good curriculum! We have been using Math-U-See, with success I might add, but I felt that we could use something more.

In 4th grade Marly's teacher taught her the box multiplication method. I could never figure it out even when Marly showed me how it works. When I ran across Mega Math, I realized the box multiplication is taught in this video and workbook set. I realized that I can only do math from memory. I have no ability to actually calculate and since my memory is getting worse with age...I'm in trouble! So, I decided that I really need to practice the mental math exercises he teaches so I can do mental math.

Videos on YouTube
Well, I decided that since almost everything is on YouTube that maybe Mega Math was too. I found Scott Flansburg, the Human Calculator, explaining some of the things he does in Mega Math to a school. Fascinating!

Human Calculator Part 1
Human Calculator Part 2
Human Calculator Part 3

What is interesting about it is that I figured out one of his tricks myself and didn't know anybody else thought of the shapes of numbers that way too.