How an Online Math Program Can Simplify Your Homeschool Day and Reduce Stress
Struggling with math lessons during your homeschool day? Learn how an online math program like CTC Math can simplify your homeschool routine and reduce stress for both you and your kids.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post for CTCMath. I received free access to the product and was compensated for my time. I am not required to give a positive review and all opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.
So often as a homeschool mom of many, it feels like I’m being pulled in several directions all day long. As soon as I finish helping one child, I’m able to sit down for about 3.2 seconds before another child is calling for my help.
This can quickly lead to frustration for me and for my kids as they have to wait for my help. Because of that, I’m always on the lookout to simplify our homeschool days so we’re all less stressed. Luckily, I’ve found several ways to have our curriculum work for us to make our days less hectic. One of those ways is to get a helping hand with teaching through online classes. Continue reading to learn why online math learning is a necessity in our homeschool.
Through the many years we’ve been homeschooling, I’ve tried several different math programs. Some of the homeschool math curriculum used a mastery approach, while others used a spiral approach. We’ve used math textbooks, living books, online math programs, and games to teach math.
All of these approaches to teaching math worked well, especially our first year or two when I was only homeschooling fourth grade and kindergarten. Then my children got older and started learning more complex math concepts. I also started homeschooling my third child and added a baby into the mix as well. Math became a time-consuming, tear-inducing part of our homeschool day.
I quickly realized that having my children learn math online makes for much less chaos in our day. My children still learn the necessary math concepts for their levels, but I don’t have to be the one teaching them. This frees up so much of my time, which also relieves much of the daily stress homeschool moms experience.
Why an Online Math Program Makes Your Day Easier
So how can an online math program simplify your homeschool day? Why can it be a more efficient method of teaching math than using a textbook when you’re homeschooling multiple children?
Imagine all of your children from K-12 doing their math lessons at the same time on separate devices. Instead of spending at least half an hour per child teaching math, you simply walk around and help as needed. Your children can use headphones to listen to their lessons so that everyone can work at once.
What if you don’t have enough computers for each child to work at the same time? Then you can simply have your children work on math one at a time. Since they can listen to the lessons using headphones, they won’t disrupt siblings doing something else. During this time, you can work with another child on a different subject, or have the others work independently on other assignments while you tend to younger children or get lunch started.
How an Online Math Program Helps Us Simplify Our Homeschool Day
As I mentioned above, once my children got into more time-consuming math concepts, math became so stressful that it quickly became my least favorite part of our homeschool day. Not only was I trying to teach concepts to three children in three different grades, I also had a young baby to tend to. I was stretched so thin!
As soon as I finished one lesson, I set that child off to work on math problems while I started a lesson with child two. Then, of course, as I was teaching that lesson, child one had a question. It was just too much. With lessons for all three of my homeschool-age children, math was easily taking up half of our day, especially once that baby became a toddler to chase after. I knew using textbooks with lessons I had to teach wasn’t working anymore.
Enter online math. Once we started using online math curriculum, I noticed we had more time in our homeschool day. Everyone’s math lessons can happen at the same time instead of taking half of our school day.
Give CTC Math a try with a free trial.
How I Use CTC Math
Each weekend I write out plans for the next homeschool week. Thanks to CTC Math, preparing for math only takes a few minutes. Through my parent account, I create a weekly task for each boy. I can choose which lessons I want the boys to work on, including the grade they need to receive to pass the lesson. They can be new concepts or a review of previous lessons in which they need more practice.
Along with choosing four lessons for each boy to work on per week, I also create a quiz for Fridays. To do this, I simply add a question bank to the weekly task. I choose how many questions will be on the quiz, which lessons it will cover, and the difficulty of the problems. I appreciate seeing how they do on this so I know if they should review any information.
My boys each have a Chromebook so that they can both work on math at the same time. They each use headphones as well for less noise and disruption. When it’s time for math, they can easily put in their username and password to begin the day’s lesson. The lessons are short, which works well for attention spans. I receive an email report of their progress, so I can easily make sure they are doing, and understanding, the work.
You can see how quick and easy it is to use CTCMath in your homeschool in this video.
When you’re homeschooling multiple children, teaching math can take up way too much of your day. You want to find a math curriculum that will work with your schedule and keep you from getting pulled in too many directions.
Online math programs like CTC Math help ease the chaos in your day by teaching the math lessons for you. Your children can work on math at the same time while you walk around and help as needed or tend to little ones. Or one child can focus on their online math learning while you work with a sibling in a different subject. Either way, you aren’t spending your entire day teaching math! Try out the CTC Math free trial to learn how to simplify your chaotic homeschool days.
