RightStart Math Level A review

The next post in my series sharing curriculum review as we wrap up our first year of homeschooling is all about MATH!  Here’s my RightStart Math Level A review.  This has been such a comprehensive, fantastic curriculum and I can’t wait to tell you about it!

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*scroll on to the bottom of this post for the video version of my review*

How I picked RightStart Math

As a former high school math teacher I wanted to make sure that I picked a really good curriculum that would really provide a broad number sense and would be very hands-on.  I dislike the “traditional” math curriculums that have tons of worksheets and practice problems, I want something that’ll result in a deep understanding and a love of math.

I researched several options but RightStart Math really caught my eye because of all the manipulatives that are used.  After watching YouTube videos, reading blog posts, talking to some other people who use RSM, I decided this was the way to go!

Some of the things that attracted me to RSM were:

• Like I said before, all the manipulatives!  It’s a very hands-on curriculum.
• It’s also game based.  If you read my Logic of English review that was something I really liked about LOE too.  I think it is so much better for kids to learn via games and hands on experiences than to do loads and loads of repetitive problems.
• There are very few worksheets – instead of doing worksheets to reinforce ideas the kids play card games that help them practice what they’ve learned
• RSM uses a spiral approach (introduce the topic and keep revisiting as review) verses a mastery approach (well, technically they say they use a blend of spiral and mastery but I’d call it more spiral than mastery)
• While I was reading reviews I found several that were written by other former high school math teachers or college math professors who all sang RSM’s praises.

Other things that make RightStart Math unique

A few things about RightStart Math that are helpful to know if you’re totally new to this curriculum:

• There is a focus on developing a deep understanding of numbers rather than just rote memorization of facts.  So for example for the first half or so of Level A you refer to numbers as “one-ten two” instead of “twelve” or “three-ten seven” instead of “thirty seven” so that kids really understand the numbers being made up of groups of 10.
• The abacus is used in just about every lesson for most every concept.  It’s a fantastic tool to help the kids really visualize numbers in groups of 5 and 10, as a manipulative for adding and subtracting, to count by 10s, and so much more.

What’s included?

As I’ve mentioned a time or twelve ;), RightStart Math is very manipulatives-heavy.  To do RightStart Math Level A you will need the teacher manual, the student worksheets, and the manipulatives.

I’m not going to list out all the manipulatives, as that is a very long list, but it includes things like the abacus, a math balance, tiles, centimeter cubes, tally sticks, tangrams, a clock, place value cards, geometry solids, and more.

You could just get the teacher and student books and then piecemeal the manipulatives together from here and there, but honestly I think it’s easier and more cost effective to just purchase RightStart’s manipulatives bundle.  And the great thing about that is once you’ve purchased that it carries you through all the levels of RightStart so in subsequent years you’ll already have the manipulatives and only need to buy the next level of teacher and student book.

If you’d like to see what all comes in Level A + the manipulatives kit, here’s the unboxing video I did when I got my order.

And as there are quite a lot of pieces to keep up, you may also like to see this video of how I keep it all organized.

What does RightStart Math Level A cover?

Some of the things that RightStart Math covers in Level A are subitizing, evens and odds, tally marks, what combinations of numbers make up 5 or 10, adding, subtracting, money, time, calendar, fractions, weight and measurement.  Basically the standard things you’d expect from a kindergarten curriculum, however, I feel like it’s taught with a lot more depth so that the students get really good number sense.  I have looked through several kindergarten math curriculum workbooks and all of them were very unimpressive to me as far as the low-level skills they taught.  RightStart Math is head and shoulders above those workbooks, in my opinion.

There are 132 lessons in Level A and that took us the full kindergarten year.  We usually did 1 lesson per day, occasionally we could do two in a day but it was usually one.  While I have heard of other kids who do 2 or 3 lessons a day that would have been way too much for us so we just stuck to one.

While this is a fairly parent-heavy curriculum (i.e. you have to sit with the child the whole time they do the lesson, play the games with them, etc. rather than them working independently in a workbook) it does not require lots of prep work and is not hard to teach.  It’s pretty open and go – the lessons are all written out for you with some tips and notes to the parent/teacher in the margins.

I have heard many other RSM parents saying they skip A and go straight into Level B with their child.  I don’t have Level B yet so I can’t really look ahead and see if I think Hudson could have done that, but I’m glad we went with A.  I wanted to make sure he had a solid foundation and there were a lot of things in A that he definitely didn’t know so unless B has a ton of review in it, I think we made the right choice.

Pros and Cons

While I LOVE this curriculum, it does have some things that could be a drawback for some people so I wanted to touch on those too.

Pros:

• it is super hands on
• the variety of manipulatives mean there are multiple methods that can be used when learning a concept
• it provides a thorough understanding of math
• lessons are scripted out for you so there is little prep work
• very few worksheets
• lots of engaging games

Cons:

• Because of the manipulatives kit that is needed it pricey for the first year (around $300 for the books and manipulatives) but in my opinion it’s so worth it!  The manipulatives kit is a one-time purchase so subsequent years are much less expensive as you’ll only need the book.
• While this was a pro for me it could be a con for others so I’m putting it in both spots: there are lots of manipulatives.  Clearly ;).  While I love that, it’s so not so great if you get overwhelmed easily by lots of pieces or if you often do school on the go and would not be able to easily take all your pieces with you.
• It’s not a super colorful or fun/cutesy curriculum.  I looked very seriously at several other curriculums – some wove stories through all of their math lessons, others had adorable little manipulatives that were like vegetable gardens and bees and such.  I love colorful and fun and gravitate toward that naturally, but in the end to me the methods of RightStart Math won out over the cute, colorful stuff.  And I should say, Hudson loves all the RSM manipulatives and games!  I don’t think he cares at all that it’s not cutesy.  That’s just me and what I’m drawn to.
• RSM is pretty teacher intensive.  At the kindergarten level I really can’t imagine them being too independent so I think all math curriculums will be teacher intensive at this point, but that’s one complaint I’ve heard about Right Start – that it requires the parent to sit there with the child the whole lesson.

My thoughts

I love RightStart Math and it has been a great fit for our family!  It really checks all the boxes for what was important to me when I was looking for a math curriculum.  Hudson loves it and it seems more like play than a chore.  I feel like he has gotten a good, deep understanding of math.  And if we’re being honest here, I have too.  Yes, I was a high school math teacher and love numbers but I’m actually not that great at mental math and I feel like RSM is helping me learn little tricks and putting concepts together in a way that my mental math skills are improving too.

While we’re doing the lessons I can’t always tell if Hudson is “getting it” but then he’ll say something later where he has clearly taken what he’s been learning and applied that to some other situation (adding up the money in his play cash register, for example) all in his head.  It blows me away!

Example lesson

Here are some pictures from the book if you’d like to see a couple of example lessons.  I also did a flip through of a lesson in the video linked below.

Video review

If you’re more a watcher/listener than a reader, here’s a video review I made on my YouTube channel

Final thoughts

I am so happy we went with RightStart Math and I think it’s a fantastic program!  I highly recommend you take a look at it as you’re deciding what math curriculum you want to do with your child.

Check it out on their website!

• Level A book bundle
• Manipulatives set

Once you’ve purchased Level A, check out my Level A Getting Started Guide full of helpful links and info!

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Other posts you might like:

• Logic of English Foundation A review
• Our full homeschool kindergarten curriculum line up
• What we used for our casual homeschool preschool
• 10 reasons why we decided to homeschool