PB & J Girl is a visual and hands on learner, so finding math curriculum for her can be difficult. We had been using an online math curriculum, but she was dissatisfied with it and hoping we could try something else. A review came up for CTCMath, so we decided to give the program a shot. As part of this review, we received a 12-month Family Membership for up to 5 students.
About CTCMath
CTCMath is a complete online math curriculum for kids in grades K-12. (We reviewed CTCMath five years ago, and at that time it was only a supplemental math program, so I was happy to see that since that review it’s developed enough to be a complete math curriculum.)
The following grade levels or courses are available on CTCMath:
- Kindergarten,
- 1st Grade,
- 2nd Grade,
- 3rd Grade,
- 4th Grade,
- 5th Grade,
- 6th Grade,
- Basic Math & Pre-Algebra,
- Elementary Measurement,
- Elementary Geometry,
- Algebra I,
- Geometry,
- Algebra II,
- Trigonometry,
- Pre-Calculus,
- Calculus
CTCMath is used both in schools and with homeschoolers.
CTCMath was developed by Pat Murray, a father of 10 living in Australia who has taught math for over 30 years.
Features of CTCMath
Each CTCMath lesson has a short explanatory video as well as questions to be answered.
Parents can choose the order their children complete lessons. For instance, if the child is in 5th grade but is struggling with math, the parent can place that child in 3rd or 4th grade math, or if a 6th grader is advanced, the parent can place that child in pre-algebra. When you buy the Family Membership, you have access to all of the math levels in the program, which I think is a wonderful feature!
In addition, there are several other supplements in the program:
Speed Skills–There are math fact drills. There are four levels that cover addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Times Tables–This has a video game feel. Kids “shoot” at the right answer to multiplication problems. In the beginning, they can choose what multiplication tables to work on.
Swap Pieces–This puzzle works on logic and has students move all of their puzzle pieces into the correct location.
Because there are many components of CTCMath, the company has included several how-to guides to help users use the program successfully.
Our Experience with CTCMath
We used the 5th grade level. I assigned PB & J Girl an assignment a day, which she was usually able to finish within 20 minutes.
Parents can set what level of mastery they want their children to achieve on each lesson. I chose 80% or above as passing, so there were a few lessons that PB & J Girl had to repeat.
In general, we used the program 4x a week.
What We Loved about CTCMath
I love, love, love the flexibility of CTCMath. I love that you can put your child in the appropriate level for them regardless of age. (I also love that you have the ability to hide the grade level from your child, so if they’re a grade or two behind, they won’t see that when completing the problems.)
I’m not particularly high tech (I prefer my paper and pencil planner), but if you are, you’ll love this program. You can assign students assignments and CTCMath will give you a link directly to the assignment so you can share it with your older child via social media, email, or an online planner. They can just click the link and get straight to their lesson.
What We’d Like to See Changed
I’m not going to lie, I struggled with this program a bit. It wasn’t intuitive enough for me.
For a few weeks, I had PB & J Girl take a diagnostic test, and then I chose her lessons based on the areas where she scored lower. I didn’t like doing it this way, though. I wanted to just follow the lessons in order.
When I was on the search for how to just have her do the lessons in order, I tried to place a call with CTCMath for help. The person who answered the phone could take a message for me but could not answer my question. Instead, my question had to be answered by a person in Australia, and with the 14 hour time difference, I missed the call when it finally came in several hours later. I called again the next day, which was Friday, but didn’t hear back because it was the weekend in Australia. I would love to see CTCMath have a person available in the U.S. to answer questions.
When I did finally get a call back from Australia, I found that how to have my daughter do the lessons lesson by lesson was very obvious; I had just missed it.
One other time, the program wouldn’t let me use the down arrow to choose my child’s grade level. It just showed my kindergarten. I emailed about this problem, and within a few hours, my emails was answered and the problem was resolved.
Once I figured out all of the kinks, we decided to keep PB & J Girl in this math curriculum for the duration of the year.
If you’re looking for a quality math curriculum that students can use independently and that can work for your entire family, this may be the right curriculum for you!
Keep up with CTC Math via social media:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
YouTube
Instagram
I was one of 60 people to review CTC Math. To read more reviews, click on the link below:
Leave a Reply