Saxon Math K-3

I bought the manipulatives to go with the course. It is easy to use. My kiddo doesn't like the teaching part of the lesson with the meeting book so we skip it and go straight to the lesson. The lessons build on what was previously learned it can get a bit boring but it does work .

This is the only math that has worked for my hands on learners. It's teacher intensive but I don't mind.

My students loved this math curriculum, and did I. They made it very easy for me to teach various math concepts. The lessons didn't take a great deal of time and were broken down into steps that made it easy for my students to grasp.

My daughter like Saxon. She really caught on with all the review that you do. We ended up switching only because I could not stand all the review. It seemed like they never moved on to something knew.

Saxon maths I received with my Sonlight package. I did give it a go. But since I need to rely on daily lesson plans, Saxon maths workbooks didn't have any kind of instructions or lesson plans. I had to figure it out myself of what I wanted to teach my kiddos.
But the content is very colourful which my kids loved. This package just did not do it for us.

This curriculum is fine if you like scripted lessons. This will certainly teach your child math. The Saxon Math Kit you can buy and it comes with things designed to be used from K to 3rd grade. I'm glad I bought the math kit but not the book.(Though in hind sight I could have easily acquired all the kit items online) I hated how it repeated everything, only covering a subject minimally before moving to the next. The way it cycled through the subjects my son found somewhat confusing. But, some people love this curriculum and love the cycling approach.

We have been through a lot of Math curricula, in the quest for just the right one. Saxon was by far my favorite once I discovered it while doing 2nd grade, and we continued it into 3rd.

The consumable textbook made it really easy for my daughter to do the work. Saxon also covers so much more than standard curricula, including pre-algebra skills, square roots, and both English and metric measurements. I also liked that it constantly reviews, and reinforces, concepts that they have already learned.

I will warn you though, that the format completely changes from 3rd grade to 4th. It becomes more of a standard textbook, which is not really what I was personally looking for.

My daughter loves this program. She is very hands on and gets bored doing the same thing unless she likes it. She liked the hands on activities. Once in awhile she would be bored with doing an assignment that she had already mastered, I would just skip those assignments. Other times she needed the repetition to grasp the concept. We are planning on using this for grade one and are excited to start

it can be tedious but it creates a strong math foundation

Saxon K-3 is in a very easy-to-use, scripted format.
Each lesson begins with a "meeting", where the child practices things like recognizing a daily pattern, counting coins, skip-counting, fact memorization, charting the day's weather, etc.
After the meeting, there is a lesson that contains the day's new material. Everything is scripted for the parent, which is very helpful if you're a new homeschooler or not totally comfortable teaching math. It isn't stilted or unnatural to read the scripts, though once you're more experienced you might read the lesson yourself and put it into your own words instead.
The worksheets which follow the lesson (not present in K) are two-sided. Because of Saxon's incremental format, each worksheet contains practice on what was just learned, as well as a review of everything covered so far. This constant review is amazingly helpful. Things that are learned are not forgotten. You can do both sides of the worksheet at once, or do one half during math and the other half later in the day.
The meetings CAN get tedious for the adult. The practice is very good for the child, but after 4 grades of repeating patterns it's totally understandable if you want to throw the meeting book through the nearest window. I admit I did stop charting the weather after a while. But....
Do not skip things! The real beauty of Saxon is in the way it's planned so meticulously. You don't just learn a new skill one day, each skill is built up to with careful planning. The flow is so gentle and natural, resulting in lessons that feel "easy" and there are not a lot of discouraging wrong answers. Everything in Saxon has a purpose, even if you don't see it at the time. A complex skill, like, say, long division, is the culmination of smaller skills that have been learned and practiced over a long period of time. So y the time you finally learn the actual long division, the child fully understands not only how to perform the function, but also how and why it works.
In Saxon 5/4 the format changes to a more traditional text book that is written to the student rather than to the parent. You can still very easily sit with your child and go through the lesson together. Or a more independent student can do the lesson completely unassisted. I do suggest keeping up with the lessons, though, in case the child needs help with something. It's good to be familiar with exactly where they are in the process of learning those bigger skills, and to know the particular vocabulary the lessons have been using.
Starting in Saxon 5/4 there is no more meeting. Rejoice! It's replaced by a section called "mental math", in which there are a handful of problems meant to be calculated mentally and recorded on the special recording sheets (I personally redesigned the recording sheets, as I didn't like theirs as much https://greencarrot.wordpress.com/wp-admin/upload.php?item=393 ).
Every day there is a times fact sheet (master sheets in school texts, pre-printed in homeschool versions). You're supposed to time the student for 5 minutes while he does the sheet, but many people count up instead, or don't use a timer at all. It depends entirely on how that particular student responds to pressure and self-competition. Some love it, some hate it.
After mental math there is the short lesson introducing the new material. This is almost always very easy, as Saxon takes things in small steps rather than throwing a difficult skill at them all at once. Following that there is a small number of problems directly related to the lesson. Then there is a longer section of review problems, which practice everything learned previously. VERY useful, so don't skip these! Some people suggest doing only odds or evens in the review set, but I have found that doing so results in poorer retention, as a lot of things end up never being practiced.
Please, don't skip! The time invested in this review pays off, big time.
Saxon will take your child from Kindergarten up through high school. If one year is spent on the extra pre-algebra work, you will get through Algebra 2. If not, there is an "advanced mathematics" book that is for very mathy students who are going to pursue college work in math or engineering. We are currently in the 7th grade book (8/7) which includes a lot of pre-algebra and algebraic concepts.

Saxon builds a great foundation for elementary math. My boys started using Saxon in public school. It didn't prepare my son for Algebra in middle school. I continued with Saxon when I began homeschooling. It works well for my middle son for 4th and 5th grade. My youngest son, who gets math, was frustrated with the slow pace. We switched at the beginning of First Grade to Horizon and everyone is happier.