Super Honest Horizons Math Review: Everything You Want to Know

Looking for an exhaustive Horizons Math review?

Want to know every single thing there is to know…and even some things you didn’t think to ask?

I know you want every possible detail before your invest your dollars into a homeschool curriculum…

Because I have been when you’re at! Combing the internet for every last positive or negative curriculum review that will help you decide. 

All of my reviews are about as honest as they come, so sit back and get ready to soak in everything Horizons Math.

You are going to find out why I started using it, exactly how a regular lesson runs, what I like, what I don’t like, what my kid thinks about it, whether I’ll keep using it in my homeschool, and I’m even going to run through a bunch of FAQ about Horizons Math that I think you’re burning to know!

Horizons Math Review: Why I Started Using Horizons Math

The first time I taught 1st grade math was a straight-up nightmare.

Everything in my homeschool was going just fine – except math. We just could not figure it out. The first curriculum was too light and unstructured. The second curriculum I tried was way TOO structured and overwhelming. 

Thankfully, I learned a lot of lessons and we ended up surviving 1st grade, but when my middle child started approaching 1st grade – I knew I had to have a better plan for math. 

A good homeschooling friend of mine recommended Horizons Math and I poured over every review I could find. I ended up taking the plunge and ordering the books. 

It turned out to be the perfect fit for our homeschool, and I am so excited to share everything about Horizons Math with you!

Exactly How Horizons Math Works

When your curriculum arrives, you will have 2 workbooks and 1 teacher’s manual (further down I’ll talk about whether or not the teacher’s manual and manipulatives set are necessary).

The teacher’s manual is very well laid out and will give you more than enough information to teach every lesson.

The beginning of each lesson (as outlined in the teacher’s manual) will tell you what concepts, objectives, teaching tips, and materials you will need.

For every lesson, your child will do 2 workbook pages (technically 1 page that is front and back). 

The workbook pages are broken into multiple sections and your teacher’s manual will tell you how to approach and teach each section. 

There are about 5-6 sections in a lesson so your child will typically be learning and practicing one new math skill, and reviewing 4-5 other math skills they have already learned. 

As the year progresses, the child is encouraged to do a good bit of the worksheets independently as they become confident in their math skills. 

Every 2 weeks or so, there is a test included in the workbook to evaluate your student’s progress and retention.

There are a total of 180 lessons, which comes out to 36 weeks of math – if you are doing math 5 days a week.

Let’s Look At a Sample Horizons Math Lesson

I know it helps to have a real visual of what a day in Horizons Math looks like.

Below are the pages from the teacher manual that I will be teaching next week in my homeschool. It is lesson 83 and will teach a new concept – counting to 200:

The left-hand page tells you the concepts, objectives, teaching tips, and materials you will need for the lesson. To be completely honest for this Horizons Math review…I rarely look at that side of the page.

The right-hand page contains directions for how to teach and review each of the sections on the corresponding workbooks page. So #1 under Activities in the teacher’s manual corresponds with #1 on the worksheet and so on.

I know this looks like A LOT of text to read. Trust me when I tell you that you will learn very quickly how to skim this for the important things. I probably spend less than 90 seconds reading these pages and I know what I need to do. 

Here are the 2 worksheets that are assigned for lesson 83:

The worksheets are bright, colorful, and brief. 

For this lesson, the teacher’s manual says that I will start the lesson by counting from 100-200 with my child using a number chart. This will reinforce the correct way to read and write the numbers. Then my child will complete the first section on their worksheet with your help and assistance as needed. 

If your child isn’t getting it right away – no worries. The following worksheets will give many more opportunities to practice the skill. 

The second section of the worksheet is a review of place value to the hundreds, which was taught in previous lessons.

The third section is a review of number families in addition and subtraction – also previously taught. 

The last section is a review of matching and identifying shapes. 

As you can see this is classic spiral math teaching – one new concept is taught and several others are reviewed and reinforced. 

That’s it! Your lesson is done. 

What I Love About Horizons Math

1. Bright, colorful workbook pages…but not distracting

I have seen both extremes – black and white pages that remind me of math prison and such brightly colored pictures that my kid can’t focus on their work because of all the silly, cutesy things on the page. 

Horizons strikes a really nice balance between those two with my highly distractable 1st grader. The pages are inviting and pleasant to look at…but not overwhelming.

2. Short, Effective Lessons

As I said, I have tried A LOT of other homeschool math programs. My kids do not do well with long lessons that include lecture/instruction time, forced fun games (“Mom, are we done yet? Has this been long enough??”), and multiple pages of problems over the same concept. 

Horizons Math offers such a short amount of work – just 2 pages. And the pages are broken up with multiple math concepts. No doing the SAME thing for 30 painful problems.

The short, no pressure lessons with tons of daily review just works for my kid. 

3. Spiral Crushes Mastery

Speaking of tons of review, the spiral method is the way to go with the elementary grade level. 

What is the difference between spiral and mastery? 

Mastery curriculum focuses on one math concept at a time until the child fully masters it and then the student moves on to a new concept. 

That sounds really good right? Who doesn’t want their kid to fully master a math concept before piling on more things?

That would explain why I bought this mastery math curriculum. 

I quickly came to find that my elementary school child did meet the standards of mastery…but she would forget things weeks or months later without continuous review – which most mastery math programs do not provide. 

My homeschooler would also struggle with a concept and be overwhelmed with having to wrestle with it every day until she mastered it. She wanted a break from it instead of feeling like she was failing every day. 

I love that Horizons Math allows kids to learn other things along the way. Maybe my kid is struggling with odd/even number or subtraction facts, but that is not the ONLY thing we are learning. She has chances in other parts of the lesson to have victories.

4. Minimal Supplies Needed

Elementary school math can get pricey with all of the extra things the curriculum calls for.

Maybe it’s tons of things that need to be printed, copied, and laminated. 

Maybe it’s playdough and candy for games. 

Or a massive, very expensive manipulatives set. 

The Horizons Math teacher’s manual will occasionally call for some random supplies like a felt board, but I can usually find a different way to teach the lesson without them.

The main math supplies I have needed for Horizons Math 1st Grade include:

• Inch and centimeter ruler

• Flashcards

• Clock model

• Place value manipulatives

• Number charts (in the curriculum)

• Money manipulatives

• Calendar

Older elementary kids will need less of the “extra” things for math as they get accustomed to more abstract thinking. 

5. Horizons is Advanced Math Curriculum

I feel so comfortable that my kid is learning everything for their grade level – and then some! 

One of my friends was shocked to hear some of the things my 1st grader was learning in math because those same concepts were just being touched on for her public school child towards the end of second grade.

Thanks to the gentle, short lessons with tons of review – my kid does not feel overwhelmed though. 

I feel very confident that she will test well this summer and be more than ready for 2nd-grade math.

6. Horizons Math: Minimal teacher prep, open and go!

This should probably be at the top of this Horizons Math review list as opposed to the bottom…but I saved the best for last!

I have used math programs that required me to do extensive planning before lessons. I would have to watch videos, read pages of teaching instruction, and/or setup intricate math games. 

Horizons is so, so simple. 

You can open your teacher manual and just start teaching. I personally prefer to quickly review the lesson the night before (takes less than 2 minutes) to make sure I am fully prepared, but you could easily prep the morning of…or just teach the lesson as you read the teacher manual prompts. 

If you are a busy mom (who isn’t?!) and/or have multiple other homeschoolers to teach – the open and go format is essential to sanity. 

For some of the review lessons and problems, your child can even do the work independently! 

That is a huge time saver!

What I Don’t Love About Horizons Math

To make this Horizons Math review as thorough as possible, I wanted to also include the things I didn’t like and how I dealt with them. Some may seem very minor or nit-picky to you, but they may be deal-breakers for others, so I wanted to include them.

1. The Way Math Facts are Taught

Math facts are essential building blocks in the elementary school years. If you don’t know your addition and subtraction facts…everything else is so much harder. 

Horizons Math calls for the student to learn math facts by being drilled with flashcards that have the answers on them for a certain number of weeks. And then they are drilled with flashcards that do not have the answers on them.

I have been homeschooling for almost 4 years now and I thought that sounded sooooooooooo boring. And ineffective for a 1st grader. 

I just skipped that all together and supplemented with this outstanding and inexpensive Addition Fact and Subtraction Fact Program. 

Keep in mind that some 1st graders are not developmentally ready to memorize facts, but my 1st grader is on the older end (late birthday) and has done just fine. 

2. Skip Counting Standards

I am all about the advanced math curriculum that Horizons offers…but I thought the skip counting was unnecessary, and I cut it from our lessons.

Yes, I taught the basic skip counting of 2s, 5s, and 10s. But counting by 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s, 8s, and 9s??

Confusing and unnecessary for 6 and 7-year-olds. 

I know they’re laying the foundation for multiplication, but I think it could easily frustrate and bore a child more than strengthen their math foundation. 

If you do decide to purchase the Horizons Math Program, I would recommend you skip the excessive skip counting if your child is resistant to it.  

3. Reading Expectations

Horizons Math had a number of lessons about teaching kids to recognize number words. 

I was okay with number words “one” to “ten”, but beyond that I found it to be too much of an emphasis on sight words.

Our homeschool uses phonics, and we will cover the number words when we get there…I don’t need the math curriculum to do it.

On several lessons, I just crossed out those assignments and moved on.

4. Test Day Lessons

So this is just me being a bit picky, but I didn’t like that Horizons Math schedules a new lesson to be taught AFTER a student takes a test.

What?!?!

Why would you try to teach new material after a child has successfully completed a test? That is the time to celebrate and/or discuss what was missed on the test.

I chose to not do the assignment until the next day, which will probably add an extra 2 weeks to our math lessons. 

What My Kid Thinks About Horizons Math

My middle kid is 7 and in the first grade, so she’s not really at the age that she can sit down and deeply discuss the pros and cons of a curriculum just yet. 

Now that we are halfway through though, I have asked her several times what she thinks of the Horizons Math and she says things like, “I like it!” and “I love it!”

When I ask her why she loves it, she usually says something about the fun workbook pages. When I ask her if she wants to do reading or math to start off her core curriculum work for the day, she will often say math. 

This is so interesting to me because my older daughter (now 4th grade) cried through math when she was in 1st grade. I truly wish that I had Horizons Math for my oldest – I think it would saved us so much stress and frustration. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Horizon’s Math:

1. How Long Does Horizons Math Take Every Day?

This is extremely child and teaching style dependent.

If you follow the teacher manual to the letter and you have an average skilled child, I would estimate that math would take you 30-45 minutes. 

I do not follow the teacher’s manual to the letter, but I also have a distractable kid who I am often working to keep on task. On average, I would say Horizons math takes us 20-30 minutes daily.

We have had days that were 10 minutes though and some that were 40 minutes depending on the material.

2. Does Horizon’s Math Need to Be Supplemented?

Horizons Math is definitely a complete and solid math curriculum. You should not have to supplement anything. 

As mentioned above, I did supplement the math facts to suit my personal taste for how they should be taught. 

 Whether or not you supplement that portion of the curriculum depends on your teaching style and how your child learns best. 

3. What Do I Need to Buy for Horizons Math?

The curriculum usually comes with 1 teacher manual and 2 workbooks. You also have the option to buy the horizons math manipulative set. 

Younger students are going to greatly benefit from having concrete manipulatives to work with, so I recommend you find the most cost-effective way to purchase those items.

****I personally did not buy the manipulative set because I already had most of the items on hand in my homeschool. 

As for the teacher’s manual, I think for 1st grade that I could have managed without it. I have been homeschooling for a while now and I am pretty comfortable with teaching this level of math.

If you are new to teaching/homeschooling or teaching an older grade, I would recommend getting the manual to make you feel more confident and prepared for lessons.

It also helps that the answers to all the worksheets are in the back, which makes for quick and easy grading. 

****There are “drill” sheets included in the back of the teacher’s manual. We have never used them. It looks like busy work/homework that would be used for a private school. 

4. Is Horizons Math Common Core aligned?

Yikes! This is a hot button issue that I actually had to look up since I am not well versed in Common Core. 

According to the wonderful Cathy Duffy reviews, Horizons Math did not write their curriculum to line up with Common Core, but “it seems to cover the standards although sometimes at a grade level earlier than required by the standards themselves.”

So again, Horizons Math is a bit advanced beyond the typical grade-level standards. 

I know Common Core has a reputation of being very confusing, but I have seen none of that with Horizons. The math we have used so far is taught in the traditional way I learned it as a child. 

5. Where Should I Buy Horizons Math?

Unfortunately, Horizons Math is not a quick buy on Amazon like many other homeschool curriculums. 

You may get lucky and find a good deal – click here to see what Amazon has for Horizon today. 

For the most part though, you are going to get a better deal from ChristianBook, eBay, and/or my personal favorite: RainbowResource

Horizons Math is For You If…

• Your kid is cool with workbooks

• You think regular review is crucial – yes for the spiral learning style!

• You like short and efficient lessons

• You are flexible with adding and taking things away from a curriculum depending on your student’s abilities

• You are busy and need a grab and go curriculum

• You like the idea of an advanced curriculum that will challenge your child

Horizons Math is Not for You if…

• Your kid hates workbooks

• You prefer a mastery curriculum style

• You need something completely independent for your kid

• You want lots of math games and other hands-on math activities

• You do not think your child is ready for an advanced, challenging curriculum.

Recap Horizons Math Review

I hope that this Horizons Math review has answered any and all questions that you could think of!

My blog is always aiming to help the homeschool mom make the best decisions for her kids and herself – and I think Horizons Math is a pretty solid choice. 

I fully intend to purchase Horizons Math for second grade and continue with this high quality, but efficient math program.

If you have more questions, drop them in the comments and I’ll do my best to get you answers!

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