TouchMath Kindergarten Homeschool Review

TouchMath has been a program that I have utilized both for my own kids and for various preschool classes.  Please visit the Preschool TouchMath Review Link on June 12, 2013.  I have found that TouchMath is a terrific foundation for teaching and learning basic math skills.  CJ has been exposed to the preschool TouchMath program for multiple years both for his own learning and being present while I was teaching his brother.  The preschool program by TouchMath has prepared CJ for a life of success in Math.  This became obvious to me when CJ was able to complete the assignments quickly, and quite often independently, throughout the TouchMath Kindergarten curriculum.  CJ was quick, accurate, and confident in his Math skills.  Topics that were not yet mastered were clearly introduced and set up for students to quickly gain confidence and mastery.   

Touch Math generously provided us with the TouchMath Kindergarten program for Review.  It came in the form of a digital download (PDF files) that I then was able to load onto my iPod Touch (or easily to another tablet or device).  I sorted through the files to find the student work pages and printed them in sets.  The curriculum has four main units. 

Unit A: Counting, Adding and Subtracting within 5

Unit B: Adding and Subtracting within 9

Unit C: Understanding Numbers 1-20

Unit D: Measurement, Data and Geometry 

Each of the four main units is broken into 6 sections.  Follow this link and click on the unit title to see the sections of each unit. This worked for me because I was able to bind the student pages into two packs per unit.  It made it much easier to have a smaller pack to carry around and work on.  Other curriculums that come pre-printed and bound are quite large for the whole year.  Not easy to carry up the flight of stairs with your pencil box for days you wish to do school in a different room. It's conveniently printed in black ink only, however I did feel that there is much wasted paper space.  It is part of the TouchMath model to not have instructions that are unreadable to younger students cluttering up pages, but I felt that many of the pages could easily have been printed 2 per page and saved a few trees along the way. 

When we sat down to do math I could easily reference the lesson plans on my iPod to guide the learning activities for the day and CJ could pull out his bound pack of student work pages.  We ended up utilizing pencils, crayons, scissors and glue throughout the curriculum.  It was also handy to have other manipulatives around (poker chips, unifix cubes, place value straws), though only a few of them were specific TouchMath products (TouchNumerals with Base 10, Texture Cards, TouchShapes).  

The Kindergarten Curriculum contains much of the same concepts that are introduced in the preschool program.  These concepts are now expected to be mastered in Kindergarten.  Some pieces were extremely easy for CJ.  He had done the preschool program for 2 years and mastered some of the concepts in the process.  We still went through every page, though often there were elements that he sped through to "get to the exciting stuff!" (addition).  The foundation of Touch Math is invaluable and has supported all my students in a life-time of confidence in Math.

Overall, I'm impressed with the Kindergarten TouchMath curriculum.  CJ and I both look forward to diving into the First Grade TouchMath curriculum right away.  He loves math and is eager to tackle the challenges of bigger numbers in addition and subtraction as well as learning more about measurement, time, data and geometry.  Bring on the math!