newbie math curriculum question

Question:
I already posted this to a different homeschool website but didn't get a huge response so I'm going to ask you folks too. We're looking at math curriculums for primary grades (our school-age kids are K-2) and hope a few of you experienced homeschoolers could compare/contrast the three that we've heard about so far: Saxon, A Beka, and Modern Curriculum Press. Our kids enjoy math and have always been very quick to understand concepts. We think we want a program with regular drill to help students master concepts, regular review to reinforce concepts, and a variety of problems to keep things interesting. Programs with a looser structure (like Miquon) don't appeal to us as much - I think, at least for now, we want something structured. We are, however, willing to be educated on this! can you tell me?

Answer:
-We used Scott Foresman Exploring Mathematics and Sets and Numbers which gave us New Math, NCTM stuff and a decent amount of practice. I find that it's generally helpful to have more than one text available to take care of deficiencies (from my point of view) that exist in all textbooks. You might also be able to supplement with materials on the WWW too. I've found a fair amount of problem- solving stuff (for older kids) that we use in addition to standard textbooks. -we use Horizon Math from Alpha Omega. We love them. To us they are practical & very HS friendly. So far we have used Kinder and half of 1st. grade. I have found all of the TE's used for anywhere from $15.00 to $25.00 on used HS sites. The TE's I found have extra worksheets for practice. There are two workbooks that are used with them. -I can't suggest a curriculum because we don't use one. I can suggest a few books that are about teaching math. I have out of the library right now a new book by Marilyn Burns titled Math, Facing an American Phobia. Another good book is Beyond Facts and Flashcards by Jan Mokros. We have used Miquon some, but mostly we just do what comes up and play games (mostly in the car.) I have also used material from the Math by All Means, Marilyn Burns replacement units. These are aimed at a classroom, to replace about 6 weeks of a different text, but I've found some interesting ideas, particularly in the Geometry books. I got these books from a local library that has a professional collection for teachers. Recently I've been working with a 13 yo on algebra, so my 9yo son got interested and we've started reading the algebra book together.

A good web site is http://www.naturalmath.com/ Another one with interesting materials is http://www.shout.net/~mathman/ One I haven't thoroughly checked out that looks interesting is http://whidbeynet.net/mathman/ As someone else mentioned there are also a lot of interesting sites with math challenges and puzzles. The ones I mentioned are more about teaching.

I'd suggest that drills may help you master the mechanics of an operation but they don't help you master concepts. In fact, at times, after drilling kids no longer think about what they are doing and just try to apply a formula whether it makes sense or not. IMO preserving you kids enjoyment of math is the most important thing.