We tried math lessons for living education during second grade after trying various math curricula that just didn’t work for us.
everything was going great in our homeschool… except math! and I was bouncing from one curriculum to another trying to find our perfect fit. we tried this one, this one and a few others…was too embarrassed to tell people how many we had tried!
You are reading: Master books math reviews
I was really hoping that this masterbook curriculum would be our Cinderella moment and we would finally have the “perfect” math curriculum for us!
Keep reading this Math Lessons for Living Education review to find out what we loved about the curriculum, what we didn’t, if we decided to stick with it, and how to tell if this curriculum is right for your homeschooling!
wait, what are math lessons for a living education?
mathematics lessons for living education is a maths curriculum from the masters books.
uses a unique storytelling style to teach math as you follow the adventures of charlotte and charlie: homeschooled twins!
This charlotte mason flavored math curriculum is definitely a creative and original way of teaching math that will grab your kids attention!
everything is included in one oversized workbook – no need to buy a teacher’s manual! there is a list in the workbook of suggested items to buy manipulatives.
math lessons for a living education review: exactly what to expect in a lesson
Of course there will be a bit of variety, but I always walk my readers through a lesson during my syllabus reviews. It’s the closest thing to being able to pick up the syllabus and flip through it!
let’s review lesson 22 in math lessons for living education level 2: reading bar graphs and line graphs
exercise 1 (day1)
The lesson begins with a brief reading about how the twins had just learned to read thermometers the week before. now they are learning how to record those temperatures on a bar graph and a line graph.
The twins are given a piece of graph paper and begin keeping track of the temperature every day. they also begin to keep a bar graph of all the different birds they see at their bird feeder in a week.
When the story ends, the lesson continues with brief instructions on how to read a line graph. then the student has 5 questions to answer about the line graph in the story and 2 additional questions.
exercise 2
The next day, the student will answer 5 questions about reading the bar graph from the story.
As a review of last week’s material, there are 3 questions about thermometers.
Exercise 3 
student will make their own line graph using information from a previous week. they are then asked to explain the graph to their teacher and ask about the information.
exercise 4
this is a day of 2 worksheets!
The student is asked to read and understand a bar graph by answering 3 questions about it. the next page uses the bar graph to review some other concepts, like writing number sentences, adding, etc.
exercise 5
The student is asked to make their own bar graph, including labeling the x and y axes.
how do math lessons for living education teach math facts?
This teacher book math curriculum uses right brain flashcards to teach math facts. if you have no earthly idea of what it is, you’re not alone!
I had to read up on this, so luckily there is information that explains everything in the back of the workbook. a summary would be that the student makes up a silly story to help them remember a math fact. then the student writes the entire math operation (including the answer) on one side of the card.
Below is an example from the book: “slim miss one marries nice mr. 9 and they have two kids, skinny sally and big appetite zero!”
This child makes a card like this for all the math facts and then reviews them periodically.
the math lesson for living education also offers math fact sheets in the back of the book that you are instructed to laminate (I just slipped it into a page protector) and use dry erase markers to practice.
how do math lessons for living education teach place value?
Math lessons for living education teach place value using the very popular “house method”.
This is a great way to help children visualize the sometimes abstract concept of place value.
The “house method,” as I like to call it, teaches children about the “house of one,” “the house of ten,” the “house of a hundred,” and the “house of a thousand.” /p>
There are pages in the back of the book to represent the houses. the teacher is instructed to tear them off, laminate them, and obtain containers of various sizes to hold the counting manipulatives. the child will begin to count items using the houses.
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For example, your child may be asked to count 15 beans. Using the house method, your student will start by putting one bean at a time in the “house of one.” the house of one can only hold 9 beans, so when they reach 10 beans, your student will need to put all 10 beans in a bean bag and place that bean bag in the house of tens. then your child will add beans in one’s house again until he reaches 15.
Your child will be left with “a bag of ten” and “five units”, which will equal 15.
I know that sounds a lot more confusing than it really is. Actually, it is quite simple. math lessons for living education has this great 5 minute video that explains the concept in a visual way for parents. take a look here.
how do math lessons for living education teach two-digit addition and subtraction?
I love the way this math curriculum teaches two-digit addition and subtraction. continue the theme of the house from place value and have the children solve the problems in this way:
Children this age get very confused by the fact that they should read from left to right, but need to add and subtract from right to left (especially when you start to borrow and take). this method is a great way to remind them to start with the house of units and move to the left as you go.
how do math lessons for living education teach take and borrow?
Both taking and borrowing are taught in a story of charlie and charlotte sitting with one of their parents. the parent guides the twins through the lesson using the place value method.
A one is “transferred” to the tens house when adding larger numbers and a one is “borrowed” from the tens house when subtracting.
It’s definitely the classic form that you were probably taught in school.
Personally, I really like the little boxes they put in the houses of units and tens to help the student with this new concept.
mathematics lessons for a living education review: what we loved about the curriculum!
1. practical application of mathematics
In my opinion, this is the star feature of this math curriculum.
student learns math concepts as they apply in real life! here are some examples of the syllabus:
- learn about measurement and perimeter while helping a grandpa measure boards for a birdhouse
- bar graphs show the types of birds seen in the birdhouse
- cups, pints, quarts, and other volume measurements are taught by cooking an actual recipe that is included in the book
- twins teach weighing things by seeing how they weigh their new little sister on a scale
This is perfect for the kid who rolls their eyes and says, “why do I need to learn this?” there is a constant explanation of why you need the information and how children use it!
2. short lessons = no homeschool math fight bus rides
We had been doing long, boring black and white worksheets with this curriculum, so the colorful, short, story-like math lessons for living education were a game changer for us.
mathematics became a much more relaxed and calm subject. no more tears, whining or resistance.
I would say that most of the lessons were between 10 and 20 minutes long and there were usually less than 10 problems to solve.
3. Christian values woven throughout the curriculum
As with all master book syllabi, it can be clearly seen that the book was written by Christians.
all the stories are intertwined with conversations about god and how he works in the world and in our lives.
There’s even a multi-page story that retells the birth of Jesus around Christmas time! As a Christian family, it’s always nice to see those values reinforced during school hours, even with math!
4. built-in review time style
Mathematics lessons for language teaching include embedded review (unlike some mastery-focused curricula).
The review is very cleverly written as letters from the twins to their friends or family about what they are learning in everyday life, which coincidentally includes math!
I love this for kids who don’t understand checkpoint. if you’ve ever heard, “ugh! we already did this!” then you will love this review style!
5. variety = no complaints of boredom
again, coming from our black and white worksheets that only focused on math facts, the math lessons for living education were a breath of fresh air.
every week we learned something new with math! I loved that my son realized there was so much more to math than *just* math facts and learning to count to the hundreds.
6. it’s easy on your homeschool budget
Math Lessons for a Living Education is definitely something most families can afford. There’s no teacher’s manual to buy and the workbook costs less than what I usually pay at chick-fil-a for dinner for my family!
check out amazon pricing for the workbook here.
mathematics lessons for a living education: what we don’t love…
I never mean to be harsh, especially with a Christian resume company! but I know you have to make a serious decision about which curriculum to teach your children, so this review includes things I found missing from math lessons for a living education curriculum.
1. right brain cards didn’t work for us
I know I just said that my son loved that we didn’t focus too much on math facts…but teaching strong math facts is still the cornerstone of elementary level math. everything else that comes along the way will be based on those mathematical operations.
As mentioned above, Math Lessons for Living Education teaches math facts through the right brain flashcard method. the student takes a list of math facts and makes cards that tell a story the child can remember.
My son was completely overwhelmed by this and, to be honest, so was I. the amount of time, effort, and creativity to put these cards together (for each math operation!) was extensive. and then my son had to remember all these little stories to learn the fact.
We did the best we could but ended up abandoning it entirely. If you end up going to math lessons for a living education, I would recommend replacing the right brain flashcards with the math facts sticking in the kate snow series. Books are great, game-based ways to learn all the math facts using number sense, without the need for storytelling.
2. not challenging enough
That says a lot coming from a homeschooling mom who was tired of teaching math to a kid who hated math.
but the lessons were so easy and short. too easy and short, unfortunately.
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I’m pretty sure my daughter even noticed.
I always felt unsure about where my son was in math and if he was keeping up with kids his age. He felt like the rest of the world was speeding past us as we took a leisurely boat ride down the “don’t try too hard” charlotte mason river.
3. not enough problems
The short lessons are, of course, due to the fact that there are usually fewer than 10 problems per page. I’m not saying my son needs to do 50 problems a day, but I do think it takes more than what’s on the worksheets.
If you looked at my earlier example from lesson 22 in the workbook, I’d say most kids could do a whole week’s work in 1 or 2 days.
As I said in a previous master book review: “I know the charlotte mason technique is all about ‘less is more,’ but in this area, it seemed like it wasn’t enough.”
4. stories can be cheesy and fluffy at times
charlie and charlotte’s stories did a good job of bringing in math concepts, but quite a few of them are just bubbly, conflict-free stories about two kids hanging out with their family. little or no math is included.
and everyone is so happy all the time it’s hard to get excited about “what happens next” with charlotte and charlie.
For example, Lesson 13 continues with paragraphs about the joys of winter and the upcoming Christmas holidays. it ends with the mother calling the children to the table to learn about the weather.
Since the lessons are so short, I wish the stories were more math-focused and “meaty.” and I would have liked a little more excitement.
5. felt like a gamble
again, just being honest here.
perhaps the math lessons for a living education would have worked.
maybe it would have been fine, and my son would have made it to third grade with flying colors. but I felt that he would be taking a chance with this master book math curriculum.
Math is a core subject (where homeschoolers are often notoriously behind) and I just wasn’t comfortable with something so light and “gimmicky”.
frequently asked questions about math lessons to live education
1. Is there a placement test for math lessons for a living education?
yes! master books offers a free level test.
You will need to print it out and review it with your child.
click below for proof of location:
mathematics lessons for an education for life placement test
2. Are the math lessons of a living education secular?
not.
Math Lessons for Living Education is definitely a math curriculum that includes Christian values and lots of talk about God and Jesus.
If you are not a Christian, I would say that this curriculum will not seem offensive. It really is about two happy twins who live in a loving family that also loves God. I don’t think you’ll find anything here that would be considered negative or annoying.
3. Are math lessons for a living education a common core?
definitely not.
This math curriculum teaches math in the same basic, easy-to-understand way you learned in school.
4. Are math lessons for living education too easy?
A common complaint about the masterbook curriculum is that it is too easy.
and I would have to agree. the lessons don’t offer much in the way of academic challenge, critical thinking, or mental toughness.
I’ve read that some kids have benefited from moving up a grade in the curriculum for more challenge.
do we end up staying with math lessons to live education?
Well, if you’ve read this far, you won’t be surprised to learn that we didn’t stick with that.
I originally decided we’d end the year with that and try something else in the fall. but I had my daughter take a free textbook teaching trial in the spring to see if it worked for next year…and we never took a math lesson again to live education.
Reviewing the syllabus to write this review, I will say that there are parts of the syllabus that I like. and got us through a tough time where my homeschooled son hated and struggled with math.
I would consider using it again as a supplement for my younger children if they are struggling with certain concepts, but not as an elementary math curriculum.
Math lessons for living education might be right for you if…
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you want a moderate math curriculum
you need a math curriculum on a budget
your child loves listening to stories
your child hates math and you need to find a new approach to get them back into it
you want a fun add-on to go along with another math curriculum you’re already using
you love charlotte mason style exercise books
You are a Christian and love to include a Christian curriculum in your homeschooling
you don’t want anything to do with common basic math
Math lessons for living education may not be right for you if…
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you want a rigorous math curriculum
you really don’t understand (or don’t want to understand) charlotte mason’s teaching style
your child hates being read to
your child doesn’t like worksheets
you want to teach math with games and other hands-on activities
likes a lot of revisions to keep his skills sharp
You want your curriculum to come in a kit, you don’t want to have to go out and buy a long list of materials to go with it.
your child needs a lot of practice to understand new concepts
summarize the math lesson for a living education review
I hope you appreciated the painful honesty of this review of math lessons for a living education.
I really wanted this to be our “perfect” math curriculum. I know there are many homeschoolers who love and trust him. it just didn’t work for us.
Have you used math lessons for a living education?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! good, bad, or ugly, I know my readers will appreciate your perspective!
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