We're going to use Horizon next year for first grade. How important is the teachers manual? Can we live without it? Are there ideas for extra activities in there?
I typically use the TM for the answers and for any extra drills. The TM has reproducibles for speed drills, etc. My kids either "get" math or "hate it but get it" so we haven't had to delve into the TM for lots of ideas on different ways to present the info. A lot might depend on your child's learning style. If they need lots of hands-on to reinforce it, the TM might help. It's been a while since I used the 1st grade (but will be starting it soon with my son...he should finish K in about 6-7 weeks).....mostly I think I used it to grade quickly. I loaned my 1st grade TM to a friend or I'd look up more specifics for you. Hopefully someone else will chime in who has the TM handy. I personally love Horizons and because I have 3 kids, I've purchased all the TM (for the grades we've used to date) because you never know when I might need them and it does help me grade them faster....and with 3, I need all the help with staying caught up with grading (which never happens). We've used or are using K-4th grade (with 5th awaiting my oldest on the shelf). Rhonda C.
I have it to sell!!! (Maybe; my sil is seriously considering hs'ing next year if she can convince her dh, a former youth pastor who knows FOR A FACT that every HS'ed kid is socially maladjusted, because he had ONE family in his church, lol!!!) But seriously, my sil has first divs on it. She just yanked her son out of kindergarten and will be teaching him at home the rest of this year, and wants to continue. Having said THAT, I honestly will echo what others said. The ONLY reason you might want a TM is ease in checking answers.
Ditto. I have a first grader now using horizons and I don't have the teacher's manual. Havn't come across any problems yet.
Honestly, you could probably do without the TM until about 4th grade. My oldest is using 4th grade now and sometimes the questions are tricky...not because they are hard but sometimes it is hard to determine what they were looking for. Obviously, you could adjust this type of question or skip it...if you didn't have the TM. This is not the norm though....as I already mentioned, I really like Horizons. Rhonda C.
So it looks like popular opinion is that you don't need it. That will make things much cheaper! But Jackie, let me know if your sil doesn't take it, I may try to see if anyone around here has it so I can take a look.
I will dissent also. I use my TM for the same reasons as the PP. I like to know when to introduce skip counting, and other such topics. Usually if I try to go without, I get bit in the rear end by something. However, if you drill and do the skip counting regularly, you should be ok.
He is good at skip counting already, so am I off the hook?? Actually, he aced the first grade placement test and got half of the second grade placement test right, so I'll be holding off on buying anything because a lot can happen between now and September! But this will be our first formal math program (or anything formal for that matter!) and for some reason it would scare me to jump right to second grade. Maybe if I could buy some used first grade books I could just figure out what we need to cover that way and just do without the first grade books. Just thinking "out loud" here...
You could always get Book 2 of 1st grade (without TM) and see how it goes. 2nd grade does progress a bit quicker but then has more repetition about half way thru. My almost 8 yr old is on lesson 101 of Horizons 2 and doing well. Multiplication is introduced in Hor 2 but not all of the 12 x 12 times tables and its kind of a "soft" introduction to it. Anyway, Book 2 of Horizons 1 would be the "advanced" part from some other curriculums. The reason I say this is when we started homeschooling last March, I bought all of Horizons 1 and we flew thru the first book in like 2 weeks (lots of review). At some point during Book 2, we slowed down because it was introducing concepts that my then 3rd grader didn't have until mid-2nd grade at her Dept of Defense school. We still did Horizons 1 in about 2 1/2 months....just so she'd be ready for Horizons 2....obviously we skipped lots of the repetitive things if she already had it down. Rhonda C.
