All About Math vs Math With Confidence (2026)

Before You Compare Programs

Math is one of the two subjects that need a structured curriculum from the start, alongside reading. Math builds in a straight line, and gaps compound quietly until they surface as trouble with fractions or long division. That makes this choice feel bigger than it needs to be. The honest news is that both of these programs teach elementary math well, so the real question is which one fits your budget, your schedule, and how your child learns.

Whichever program you pick, place your child by skill level, not by grade. Both All About Math and Math With Confidence use their own level systems that do not map one-to-one to school grade levels. A free math assessment shows you where your child stands before you buy anything. For the broader question of how to choose curriculum, the guide on how to choose homeschool curriculum walks through it step by step.

All About Math

Best for: Families who want a fully scripted, hands-on program with a clear manipulative system and are willing to invest more upfront.

All About Math comes from All About Learning Press, the same publisher behind All About Reading and All About Spelling. It launched more recently than Math With Confidence and currently has five levels covering kindergarten through fifth grade. The same multisensory, mastery-based philosophy that drives the reading and spelling programs runs through the math curriculum as well.

Every lesson is scripted. You open the Teacher's Manual and read. The program tells you what to say, what to show, and which manipulatives to use. Lessons aim for about twenty minutes a day, though this stretches depending on your child's age and what is being taught. The program is mastery-based, meaning your child works through a concept until it sticks before moving on. There is no spiral: each skill is taught to mastery and then reinforced through a daily review tracker built into the Student Packet.

Cost is the biggest thing to plan for. Each level's Materials set runs $119.95 and includes the Teacher's Manual, the Student Packet (which contains the activity book and cardstock math tools), and stickers. The Teacher's Manual and Student Packet are also sold separately at $59.95 and $64.95 respectively if you have a second child coming through. The Manipulatives Kit is a required one-time purchase at $109.95 and covers all five levels. So your first-year cost is roughly $230, dropping to around $120 for each level after that. The program backs this with a one-year money-back guarantee.

The Kit contains seven categories of manipulatives: two-color counters, connecting cubes, counting bears, base-10 blocks, and more. These are not optional. The majority of lessons in every level use at least one. Families who already own these items from another program can source them separately, but the Kit is designed so you do not have to think about it.

Math With Confidence

Best for: Families who want a fully scripted, secular program at a lower entry cost, with no expensive manipulative kit required.

Math With Confidence was written by Kate Snow, a math educator who has spent her career developing elementary math materials for parents. Well-Trained Mind Press publishes it. The series now covers kindergarten through sixth grade, with the final level arriving in 2026, and the program is fully secular.

Each lesson follows the same shape: a short warm-up, a hands-on teaching activity, a colorful workbook page, and a game. Lessons run 15 to 25 minutes in the early grades and get longer by grade four. The instructor guide scripts everything, down to the exact questions you ask, so you open the book and read. Games replace most of the drill, and built-in daily review keeps older skills warm. That review loop is the feature parents mention most when they explain why they stayed with the program through multiple levels.

Cost is noticeably lower. The instructor guide runs about $34 and workbooks run $17 to $20 each. From third grade up, each year uses two workbooks. Expect to spend roughly $55 to $75 per level, and less if you buy used, since instructor guides resell well. The program uses household items for manipulatives: coins, playing cards, small toys, a ruler. There is no required kit to buy.

Math With Confidence is parent-led at every level, including sixth grade. This is a feature and a trade-off. If you want to be the teacher throughout elementary school, the script makes it easy. If you need math to run itself while you work with another child, this program does not give you that option at any level.

Where They're Different

Price is the loudest difference. Starting All About Math costs around $230 once you include the Manipulatives Kit. Math With Confidence starts at about $55 with no kit required. If you are buying for multiple children, All About Math's per-level cost comes down since the Kit is a one-time purchase, and subsequent years run around $120. Math With Confidence stays in the $55 to $75 range each year. Over five or six years of elementary math, that gap adds up to several hundred dollars.

The teaching approach is different in a way that matters more than price for many families. All About Math is mastery-based: your child works through each skill until it is solid, then moves on. Math With Confidence uses a spiral structure inside each level, with a built-in daily review that revisits older material continuously. Neither approach is wrong. Kids who feel unsettled by unfinished business tend to do better with mastery. Kids who benefit from seeing concepts resurface in different forms often prefer spiral review.

Manipulatives split the programs clearly. All About Math requires its $109.95 Kit and builds every lesson around the manipulatives inside it. Math With Confidence uses whatever is already in your house. For families who already own a full set of math manipulatives, this matters less. For families starting from scratch, the Kit adds a real upfront cost that Math With Confidence sidesteps entirely.

Both programs are secular and both are scripted. Both are parent-led at every level with no student-independent option built in. If you are hoping one of them will eventually let your child work on their own, plan around that differently: homeschooling two kids at different ages often means one child needs to learn independently while you teach the other, and these two programs both assume you are at the table.

Which One to Pick

Pick All About Math if you want a complete, structured manipulatives system built into the program, you are comfortable with the higher upfront cost, your child does better going deep on one concept before moving to the next, and you value the consistency of staying within one publisher's family of programs if you are already using All About Reading or All About Spelling.

Pick Math With Confidence if budget matters, you prefer to use household items rather than a dedicated kit, your child benefits from seeing older skills revisited regularly, or you want a fully secular program with a completed K through 6 sequence. The instructor guides are also easier to find used, which brings the cost down further.

Either way, start at the right level and protect the daily math slot. If you are still figuring out how to fit everything into your morning, our homeschool schedule examples show how other families structure the day.

The Program You Use Beats the One You Research

Both programs meet the bar that matters: clear instruction, real practice, and a system that builds skills in order. Kids learn math from short daily lessons at the right level, and both programs deliver exactly that.

The families who succeed with either one are not the ones who compared the longest. They picked the program that fit their mornings and their budget, started at the right level, and showed up. Do that with either book and the math takes care of itself.