Learn Math Fast Review

Math is the subject for which I had the hardest time finding a homeschool curriculum that worked. I tried several different math curriculums, and one that worked for one child did not work for another child. A math curriculum that worked one year did not work another year. I am a big proponent of experimenting until you find the one that works for you. So, I happily dug into the Learn Math Fast curriculum to find out what type of kid this math curriculum is for.

(This is a sponsored post, and all of my opinions are my own. I have like 1 or 2 affiliate links of specific things I recommend picking up to work with this curriculum.

What is Learn Math Fast, and what ages is it for?

Learn Math Fast is designed to be used with kids who already know how to count and write their numbers. I started out reading the opening “how to use this curriculum” in level 1, and it starts off by laying out how to use this for each age group.

• 6-8 year olds- Starting at the beginning, you work through slowly starting at book one, working to mastery. This is my favorite style of teaching math, so I was happy to see this. As I was taking pictures for this post, I made sure to share that on Instagram. At this point, you’ll start off reading the lesson to your kids.
• 9-14 year olds- The kids are old enough to start reading it on their own and work through it at a slightly faster pace. They’ll probably work through the first few chapters of volume one fairly quickly, as it covers simple addition and subtraction, then slow down as it gets into multi-digit addition/ subtraction and multiplication. After those first chapters, they will probably start to slow down and take more time to master the lessons.
• High School- Read through the lessons and take the tests to see what you’ve mastered, and once you hit the point you can’t master a lesson, then stop and start working on that lesson.

As you can see, it’s broken down how to start this system at any age. I’ve just summed up an entire chapter in a few sentences, and I’m looking at this and thinking how useful this would be for my college kids. My son is planning on being an elementary teacher, and the first couple of volumes, especially volume one, would be great for him. The later volumes would be great for my daughter, who wants to brush up on her high school math skills before taking algebra this summer.

Learn Math Fast uses manipulatives you already have

As I looked at each of the lessons, I noticed how they kept using things you already have: money.

Why?

Because we use it all the time, it’s already in the house. Also, it’s useful to know how change works.

My recommendation. Pick up a set of play money like Melissa and Doug’s money set. This will be helpful for most of the lessons in volumes 1 and 2.

The complete Learn Math Fast kit has a small manipulative kit, which includes 10 foam tiles that could be used in place of the toy money. I just like the added tactile of the toy money. Totally get that manipulative kit, so you have the handy dandy protractor and other little odds and ends that, yes, you can make and get all of those little things on your own, but the extra cost is just about the same amount you would pay making them yourself. Just buy the manipulative kit; you are not saving that much money.

Lessons are designed for active kids

Obviously this is going to be more obvious in the early books, where kids are encouraged to literally move coins or other literal objects around, but in later books, they are still designed for students who need specific details called out and lots of white space around the words to help make math easy to understand.

I’ve come to understand that the layout of the textbook is very important. At the point your kids are in high school, the textbooks are still bigger text, so if your students are struggling with reading, it won’t be discouraging, but it also allows lots of room for notes or white space to allow for kids to not be distracted by other things.

Multiple colors to help emphasize where to look

I color-code my notes. I get teased about this, but it helps me study and it helps me remember things.

At 40-something years old, I was diagnosed with ADHD, and this has been one of the hacks that has helped me for years.

Learn Math Fast uses the same trick I do in my notes: use colors wisely to bring focus to things you want noticed.

Sometimes, things are in different colors, and sometimes things are boxed.

It’s a small detail, but it’s a small detail that can help you learn.

Extra practice is available on the website

The Learn Math Fast System has 1 page of practice problems for each lesson and then a test. Obviously, most kids won’t be ready to move on after one page of practice.

To help with that, you can go to the Existing Customers page, enter the password in your book, and download extra worksheets to do with your kids.

BONUS: YOU CAN ALSO DOWNLOAD THE ORIGINAL WORKSHEETS FROM THE BOOK. J.K. Mergens is a former homeschooler, so she knows we like to reuse materials and made it possible for us to do that.

I love it when homeschool companies know how we use materials and make it possible for us to use them in that way.

https://learnmathfastbooks.com/Learn Math Fast Grade Levels

With only seven levels, obviously, it does not split up clearly to one book per grade level.

If I had to write this down for purposes of reporting or converting for a report card.

• Volume 1 covers most of 1-4 grade math. You could almost complete 1 chapter a year and consider that solid. I know when I taught 1st grade in public school, one of the final requirements was to have math facts memorized to 10. Only in the single digits. So completing through chapter 1 would get me slightly further.
• Volume 2 covers fractions, decimals, and negative numbers. This is frequently 5th and 6th-grade math. Or I remember learning about negative numbers in 6th grade. This is where it starts getting squishy, different curricula will cover it at different rates.
• Volume 3 is pre-algebra. I took pre-algebra as an honors course in 7th grade, and most everyone else took it in 8th grade.
• Volume 4 is Geometry. This is officially designed to be an 8th-grade class, according to the curriculum.
• Volume 5 is Algebra.
• Volume 6 is Algebra 2 (Applications of Algebra). I find it so interesting that we have changed to now teaching Algebra 1 and 2 together; this makes so much more sense than how I learned it with Geometry in between the two.
• Volume 7 is high school geometry.

If you are looking to fill out a high school transcript, you can easily put down 5-7 for your high school transcript.