Maths Work Books

[Marjoriew]

Grandson and I are looking at some workbooks to start in September now he's 11.
Up to now we've used a mixture of worksheets/primary workbooks which we've bought from The Works, WHSmith etc.
We also use CDRoms and have a subscription to The Maths Factor.

I've been reading/hearing a lot about the CGP books.
Has anyone used them? What did you and the kids think about them?

Have you considered Conquer? You can get a good discount with Education Otherwise and it's a very good programme.

We use CGP generally and like them, but don't use any workbooks at all for Maths as we find Conquer covers ds's needs. It's not an online programme as you have to print out a worksheet after the lesson and input your answers.

Galore park are excellent! There's lots of mental maths prcatice & my dd's are really improving with their maths.
I did try CGP but didn't think there was enough practice.

Oh & theres also cimt plymouth wich is completely free, just print off as & when you need them.
Some of it is password protected, but if you email & tell them you're home edding they will give it to you.

www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm

streakybacon, you are supposed to be able to do conquermaths online!! You should be able to call up the worksheet/answer selection sheet at the same time and input your answers. Then you hit send and the system marks them for you.

At least that's how DS1 does it and how the maths teacher at my school showed me (I got a user name via school for DS1 )

Can I second Galore Park - but well worth investing in the answer book and then he can mark his own stuff!

Also a comment from the writer of the course which someone passed on on another forum:

He/she does not expect any child to do every exercise/every sum!! We tend to do 'first 5 and last 5' approach. If they get them all right, they can move on.

The Galore Park site is rather confusing. Grandson is 11. Which books would I need?

Yes, of course you can do Conquer online, but what I mean is that you get written worksheets so it's not solely online - you have a record of work and written practice at answering questions. I mentioned it because I wanted to be clear for the OP that it's not just an online programme. Hope that makes sense now!

You can download samples from each book.
I would probably get him the junior maths book 3.
www.galorepark.co.uk/page-home_schoolers/catage_range-2/2/0/0/0/0/7/filter-criteria.html

Or if he's able, the this book is for the 1st year of senior school.
www.galorepark.co.uk/product/home_schoolers/65/so-you-really-want-to-learn-maths-book-2.html
Hope this helps.

DS1 is currently in year 7 and has been using So You Really Want to Learn Maths book 1. It is technically a book for year 6 but that is year 6 of a selective prep school (and GP judge that to be year 7 of a state school).

I found it helpful to start with book 1 because it reinforces the basics and has covered a few topics that he hasn't done before. Owing to my inability to actually look at the book properly, I planned for 10 chapters this year and there are 20 and I didn't realise till half way through the year!! So he is actually a bit behind now, being on chapter 15. Hopefully he will get that finished next term and move onto book 2 fairly soon.

DS2 (year 5) has been doing this book too recently. So he will use it as his main book next year in year 6 and may finish it.

(Boys have also been using GP English book 1, which I found quite accessible with interesting fiction/non-fiction excerpts.)

To summarise:
year 3 - GP Junior Book 1
year 4 - GP Junior Book 2
year 5 - GP Junior Book 3
year 6 - GP Book 1
year 7 - GP Book 2
year 8 - GP Book 3
Nothing for year 9 as Prep school finishes at the end of year 8! So it's fine if you are a year behind their plan - it takes you to the end of KS3!

DD2 uses Galore Park's "so you really want to learn English Book 1" (for year 6) and has found it good - maybe a bit stretching (as English isn't her strongest thing), but thorough. Their books are worth a look.

We used GCP for years 5 and 6 books, but I didn't like their early secondary ones so much Later on, their GCSE workbooks are great.

DD2 is currently using WHSmith revise maths Year 7 book 1, which has been a huge success. It explains everything really well and takes them on from year 6 in small steps, whilst still covering all the year 7 work over 2 books.

Also, have a look at AE tuition. We bought their set of 6 maths books, for ages 9 -12, so bridges Years 6 and 7 (I'd say a bit hard for your average Year 5 child). We worked quite a lot of them, left the bits she found too challenging, and will go back to them later. It was a good investment.

I'll try linking in a mo!

AE tuition

WHSmith Revise Maths

for my eldest we just left out key stage 3 CGP and went on to this foundation level book which was actually more accessible

we found this Year 6 book useful for making sure she had a firm grasp of everything in the primary curriculum

Have you used the AE creative writing books? They look really good

I second (and third or fourth ) The so you really want to learn.... galore park books. They are really good quality across the different subject areas, very good with providing explanations as to why things are done a certain way, etc. Very thorough too. Also for maths the Singapore Maths books are very good too. I order mine through the Maths No Problem site What's great about them is the way they include lots of visualisation of working out math concepts, which my children need; games and activities to reinforce understanding and provide extension activities to help children to think. I've started a combination of both with DS1 and it seems to be going well...although I could be speaking too soon...we'll see

chatterbocs, no we've only used the maths ones and the spelling and vocabulary ones (which have been quite good for both her spelling and vocabulary and she likes them, they're like doing a crossword). I've never used the creative writing ones, but I do quite like their books. I started by just ordering one book only rather than the sets. You can sometimes pick them up a bit cheaper on amazon.

Thanks Posy, how do they compare to Galore Park books?

They're very different in look and feel - they're black and white workbooks that you work in, whereas Galore Park are more textbooks with exercises in if that makes sense. Content wise, I've got Galore Park for English and AE for maths, so it's hard to compare, but I'd say they are similarly stretching - both harder than what you'd do in a state school at the age given. They explain things quite well - we found them fairly accessible. Only downside of the maths was all the same topic was together, ie all number, all shape, etc so she got a bit fed up of the one thing and we started dodging around a bit which was better. But I'd imagine Creative writing would be different to that.

I'm not sure if it's on their site or on amazon, but you can see sample pages and that helped me decide.

I've been looking at Conquer Maths. It looks good, and I've read quite a lot of feedback on it.
I can't make up my mind about workbooks.
Grandson does well on the computer and prefers it to workbooks.

For DS1, conquermaths is great but just didn't give him enough practice, which is why we went for GP as well.