Our Strategy

The Excel Math curriculum uses a proven approach, with powerful features and advantages, including:

To understand how it all fits together, let’s look at the overall Excel Math strategy.

Excel Math Strategy

The school year

The first few weeks each year review the previous year's concepts. You can evaluate how your class grasps basic math concepts. Students should be confident before tackling new ideas. This powerful feature is built into Excel Math grades.

Most of the school year is devoted to introduction and reinforcement of math concepts, using a sophisticated spiraling approach. We regularly add new math concepts to meet state guidelines. Each week we introduce several new concepts. Students practice familiar concepts and prepare for assessment a week or two later. They have ample time to explore what they have learned ­ in class and at home; in calculation and word problems.

Kindergarten and First Grade follow a similar strategy, but with more activities and features tailored to younger students with limited reading skills.

The final few weeks of lessons each year summarize what has been learned, and introduce a few new concepts that will appear in the next grade level. The year's main concepts have been introduced by lesson 135 or so.

Projectable Lessons

Starting in August 2009, you can enhance your daily classroom experience with an electronic version of the lesson, which can be projected on a wall, screen or interactive learning board.

Each week

Each class “week” has 6 pages, with 5 lessons, and a test with our Create A Problem page that encourages Critical Thinking and literacy. You may find there is more material each week than you can use, especially if you have field trips or holidays. Use your own judgment to work through the lessons consecutively, or move quickly if your class is comfortable. Although we show the days here labeled as Monday through Friday, no day labels appear on the Lesson Sheets. Take two days on a lesson if your students need more time.

You may choose to do the fifth lesson and test during the Friday class period, and do the Create A Problem on Monday since there is no homework to discuss.

Testing

Weekly, Quarterly and End-of-Year Tests are all cumulative. Charts in the Teacher Edition show you where each concept was introduced, should you need to go back for refreshment.

End-of-Year tests let you assess students’ grasp of the entire year’s content. We offer a summer school program for those who need special attention or tutoring.

Activities

We supply Activities in a separate section near the back of each Teacher Edition. These 12-15 exercises cover concepts that are not suitable for exploring in the Lesson Sheet format. They are critical to covering all your state requirements, so please don't neglect this section. It can be used on special days, or at the end of the year if your class finishes early.

Summer School

We offer summer school editions for all grade levels. These 6-week products are ideal for InterSession or AfterSchool programs. You can select a lower grade for remediation, or a higher grade to provide challenges for advanced students.

Better All Around

Our curriculum retains all the features of past Excel Math editions, and adds new concepts, tools and resources. It helps students exercise creativity and literacy. We didn’t stop with improving just the content ­ you will also find a new look, a cleaner style, better graphics, and easier readability. Excel Math will do an even better job for you, as you encourage your students to develop thinking skills, build proficiency, and gain confidence!