Here’s what makes our curriculum different:

• Arithmetic teaches children that YHWH is orderly and that His laws govern all of His creation. Unlike some math curriculum that teach “fuzzy” math, which says there are no absolutes and that it’s more important to encourage self esteem than correct answers, our curriculum emphasizes right and wrong, proper procedures, and orderly, incremental learning.
• Your children will learn to be precise, exact, neat, and disciplined in their work. In the book of Proverbs, this is called “diligence,” a character quality upon which YHWH places great importance.
• Some math curriculum de-emphasize memorization and drill. However, we believe that Scripture places a premium on memorization. Learning math facts is one way to improve our children’s memory. Our goal is to help your children know their arithmetic facts automatically.
• Our goal is to continually review math concepts, rather than teach them in units. Scripture teaches that we learn better when we constantly bring things to our remembrance.
• In Scripture, YHWH chose “the work of skilled craftsman” to build His tabernacle and temple. We include plenty of real-life “story problems” so that your children can apply their arithmetic skills to life and learn to become “skilled craftsman” in service of their Creator.

Our Scope and Sequence:

• Kindergarten through Third Grade
• Fourth through Eighth Grade

Here are some features of our math curriculum:

• Together Math Drills — For 3 days each week, all your children will play math games together, do math drills, and enjoy some fun competition. (Only one child? That’s okay! He or she will enjoy doing the drills with Mom!) For the other 2 days, we provide “story problems” from the Bible, such as the size and mass of Noah’s ark, the dimensions of the tabernacle or temple, timelines and dates, the size of people groups, money, weights and measurements, distances between locations, and more. We also study biblical and historical characters who excelled at math, and we learn why YHWH chose to use them for His purposes. Learn more >>
• Daily Arithmetic Instruction and Review (Grades K-8) — We choose arithmetic “themes” each week so that all your children can be learning similar concepts at once, but we provide daily worksheets, tests, and individualized instruction for grades K-8 (as well as answer keys for Mom).

How to Use This Curriculum

LESSON PLAN FORMAT

The curriculum includes:

• Lesson plans plus answer keys for the teacher, designed to be printed and placed in her 3-ring binder.
• Student pages, designed to be printed and placed in their 3-ring binders.

SUPPLIES NEEDED

• Students will need notebook paper for writing their answers.
• The supplies will vary from week to week, but we tried to include things you should already have around your house (like buttons, straws, coins, rubber bands, and crayons).
• Some lessons require printing charts from the Internet.
• Mom should check the lesson plans for the week early enough to collect the supplies she’ll need and to print any needed charts.

Manipulatives:

• If you were to purchase anything, we would recommend a clock and an abacus. However, these are not required, as long as you have a clock in your home you could look at and simple objects your child can manipulate and count.
• Flashcards for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are handy. You could make these yourself, or you could purchase them inexpensively at a dollar store.
• Need more review? We recommend this website for free, printable worksheets.

Other:

• A dry-erase board hung on the wall comes in very handy for math each day.
• Dry-erase markers and an eraser.
• A 12-inch ruler.
• Each child will need a pencil with an attached eraser, plus crayons.
• Older students (4th-8th grades) have occasional need for an inexpensive compass and protractor.

If money is tight, be creative with what you have on hand!

AGES

This curriculum is intended primarily for children from kindergarten through 8th grade.

Need Help Teaching Arithmetic?

If you are struggling with explaining an arithmetic concept, don’t be nervous. Send us an email if you’re having trouble understanding or explaining a topic. We’ll make a video and show you how we teach it at our house. That’s what community is for!

About Foundations of Arithmetic

Foundations of Arithmetic is copyright 2013 by Anne Elliott.

All rights reserved. No part of this curriculum may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. You do have permission to photocopy the curriculum for your own personal use. You may select individual pages to copy, or you may copy the entire curriculum! It is up to you how much of the information you want to copy and for how many children in your family you want to use it. You can copy this curriculum for use in your immediate family only; redistributing the book to other families is strictly prohibited.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible, unless otherwise noted.

Scripture taken from the English Standard Version (ESV) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Image Credits: Images used are copyrighted and have been used with permission. Image sources include Microsoft Clip Art Gallery, istockphoto, Edupic, and Zip-a-dee-doo-dah-Designs.

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

Published by Foundations Press.