They All Hate Math. Here's What's Working Anyway.
I have three kids doing math at the same time. One has memory problems that make retention genuinely hard. One is simply struggling — math doesn't come easily and she knows it. One is perfectly capable and fights me on everything anyway, math included, not because it's hard but because school itself is the battle.
Same subject. Same time slot. Three completely different problems.
I don't have a different system for each of them. I found one thing that meant something different to each of them.
What We Actually Do
We use CLE for two of my students and IXL with Abeka for my third, who works with a tutor that plans his entire math curriculum — I just come alongside when he needs me. All three curricula include speed drills, and we use those daily.
The games came from Math Mammoth. We used that curriculum for years and I genuinely love it, but when we moved on, the one thing I couldn't leave behind was their practice games. Every day, before we hit the heavy part of the lesson, my two struggling students run through the games. It takes some of the weight off. They still dread math — I'm not going to tell you the games fixed that — but the games are their favorite part of class. There's a difference between dreading something and refusing to engage with it. The games live in that gap.
While one works through the games independently, I have ten to fifteen minutes to sit with the other one. No splitting my attention. No one waiting. The games bought me that.
I didn't design this system for three kids. It evolved into something that serves three kids for three completely different reasons — repetition without drudgery, engagement without pressure, motivation without argument.
I'm not a curriculum designer. I'm a mom running a split classroom solo, trying to find the fifteen minutes to work with each child without the other two falling apart.
Some days this works beautifully. Some days someone still cries before snack. But the system holds even on the crying days, and that's what I was actually looking for.
You don't need a different solution for every child. You need something flexible enough to mean something different to each of them on its own.
Build that, and let them show you what it becomes.
What I Actually Learned
Math is his strongest subject. What he struggles with is doing anything he's been asked to do.
He watched his siblings play the games and decided he wanted in. I let him want it — sat with that want for a while, actually, until it was real. Then I made him a deal.
If language and math are finished before snack break, he earns the games. Same games his siblings are working on, no exceptions, advanced level. It doesn't line up with his current lesson. I don't care. Giving an inch with this child costs me a mile and I'm not interested in that negotiation.
He has never once complained that math is boring. On the days he doesn't earn game time, he's frustrated, and I let him live in that frustration. I tell him to be more diligent tomorrow. He tells me he doesn't care; the games are stupid. He almost always earns them the next day