Little Homeschool Blessings: Alpha Omega Publications: Horizons Kindergarten Math Set {A Review}

Alpha Omega Publishing sent us the complete set of their Horizons Kindergarten Math Set to review. The set includes: 2 student workbooks and a teacher’s guide.

What is it?

Horizons Math Kindergarten is a traditional workbook mathematics program, beginning with basic mathematical skills (shapes, colors, numbers) and working up to 2 digit addition and subtraction, measurement, time, money, place value, problem solving, and more.

The Scope and Sequence for Kindergarten is as follows:

Counting 1-100
Number Recognition
Number Writing
Number Value
Number After
Number Before
Number Between
Place Value
Addition
Subtraction
Money
Time
Calendar
Number Theory
Colors
Shapes
Comparisons
Direction and Position
Graphs
Measurement
Units of Measure
Fractions

Teacher’s Guide

The Teacher’s Guide contains a scope and sequence, appearance of concepts chart, daily lesson planner, development of concepts chart, introduction, teacher lessons, and black line masters with a chart.

The teacher lessons include an overview, materials and supplies, teaching tips, activities, answer keys, and worksheets.

Materials Needed

To complete the worksheets in the student books, you’ll need basic materials like pencils and crayons.

In addition to the materials needed to complete the worksheets, there are other materials and supplies listed with teaching tips for their use. For example in Lesson 33, the Materials and Supplies list includes: Teacher’s Guide and Student Workbook, white board, objects for counters, number flashcards, pennies & dimes, number chart, number line strip, count by 10’s flashcards, calendar, crayons, color flashcards, and ordinal number flashcards. Many of these things can be adapted with what you have on hand or be handmade.

Additionally, there are black line masters in the back of the Teacher’s Guide that can be used for reinforcement. The Teacher’s Guide has a chart that explains when the concepts in the black line masters are first introduced. These can be copied and used multiple times for reinforcement.

Time Frame

Lessons are designed to be completed in 25-30 minutes a day with 160 lessons. We found this to be accurate when we completed the additional activities under the teaching tips section.

Our Experience

Li and I worked together to complete each days activities. We worked about 3-4 days a week, but for us to complete every page in a year (we have school for 36 weeks), we would need to complete 4-5 a week.

The concepts he worked on were writing numbers to 7, counting to 15, top and bottom, left and right, first, middle and last, counting pictures up to 15, pennies and nickels, shapes (circle, triangle, stars, squares), colors (red, green, blue), and recognizing numbers up to 15 from the workbook pages.

In addition to the student workbook pages, we did several of the suggested activities in the teaching tips section.

Many of the concepts we worked on were not new to Li. He has been counting over 20, labeling numerals, identifying shapes, and recognizing colors for quite a while. I decided not to skip any of the pages though because I thought it was pretty impressive for a kindergartener to be working on double addition and subtraction by the end of a year. I felt that it was important to complete the work (even what he knew), so that we wouldn’t miss a step.

He really liked doing the activities and workbook pages with me. He would ask me to get his math out if we had a late start. Often he is the first one up in the mornings, so it was something we worked on together before anyone else was up. He does not necessarily enjoy writing letters on lines, but it is something that he needs to practice and something that we do not do on a regular basis. We found recognizing left and right was a difficult job for him and something we will need to practice in different situations so that he understands the concept better.

Recommendation

We’d recommend this set to those that want to use a traditional math program with workbooks and practice pages that allows the parent to do the teaching.