Math 2 Math-U-See Gamma - Learning Options

MATH 2 MATH-U-SEE GAMMA IS A YEAR-LONG COURSE FOR STUDENTS IN GRADE 2.

The perfect curriculum for the hands-on learner. The simple, colorful manipulatives make abstract math concepts clear and relatable. Now that students have mastered single-digit and multiple-digit addition and subtraction, they are ready to move on to multiplication. Students will focus on single-digit facts and multiple-digit multiplication.

The Veritas Approach to Math

Unlike some classical educators, we believe math is a crucial subject. It’s necessary for a well-rounded, rigorous classical education. In the grammar years, math provides content for developing memorization tools. In the dialectic years, subjects like Algebra I and Geometry develop students’ reasoning skills. In the rhetoric years, Pre-calculus, Calculus, Statistics, and Business Math lead students to value math in real-world applications.

At Veritas, we’re convinced that math has been dumbed down in America.١ Most students are more capable than we think. Our mission is to help make sure your children don’t become a dismal math statistic. For more than 25 years, we’ve been proving that our math standards shouldn’t come from what we were raised with. After all, if the education we ourselves received was as education should be, why would we be doing something different for our children? A study of historical٢ and international math standards helps us see this clearly.

Maybe the best way to understand our approach is to mark some milestones.

Veritas recommends Saxon Math for K–6th, Jacobs for Algebra I and Geometry, Foerster for Algebra II and Pre-Calculus, and Larson for Calculus.

Saxon, with its incremental advances and continual review, works best with the grammar stage. Thankfully, Harold Jacobs understands the dialectic student and has written a superb curriculum for them with Algebra I and Geometry. One of his former students, Paul Foerster, writes where Jacobs left off, providing us our favorite texts for Algebra II and Pre-Calculus. Finally, Larson, a most prolific producer of Calculus texts, provides the capstone to our math curriculum.

Some prefer to stick with Saxon into the secondary school years. We are fine with that—even offering live class options using Saxon—but prefer texts written with more of a classical pedagogical approach.

Today, all math education needs to address the use of technology. At Veritas, it’s simple: use technology as a tool, not a crutch. Learning to work a two-variable algebraic equation is important. When mastered, however, why waste time plugging and chugging the numbers to develop a graphing solution? Let a machine do the number crunching. Students simply need to know how to do it.

Math is crucial to classical education. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

١Americans are lagging in math: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/

٢A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education: https://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html

٣Is Calculus necessary? http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/use/index.html

You Teach

You Teach is our term for those who take our curriculum and teach it themselves, whether at home or at school.

Math-U-See is a systematic, cumulative approach to teaching math that helps students master material using a definite, logical sequence of concept instruction. The Math-U-See Gamma Universal Set contains everything you need for a successful experience with this program:

• Instruction manual with complete solutions
• Instruction DVD
• Student workbook
• Tests booklet
• Integer Block Kit
• Lifetime access to Math-U-See's Gamma Digital Pack with lots of resources, including digital manipulatives, skip count songs MP3s, and songbook PDF

Once students have mastered the concepts of addition and subtraction, covered in Alpha and Beta, they are ready for multiplication. Gamma teaches single-digit facts and multiple-digit multiplication skills. Major concepts and skills include using strategies based on place value and properties of operations to multiply, fluently multiplying any combination of whole numbers, solving for an unknown factor, measuring and computing area, relating concepts of area to addition and multiplication, and solving abstract and real-world problems involving addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Time, currency, units of measure, fractions, and representing, recording, and interpreting data are other topics your student will explore in this course.

The Math-U-See system is structured with step-by-step procedures for introducing, reviewing, practicing, and mastering concepts. Each lesson teaches using multisensory tools such as videos, manipulatives, and other resources, designed to appeal to any type of learner. With all these resources, you can adapt the program to your student's homeschool style.