Daddy's Girl came to live with us when she was in 3rd grade. She was 3 years behind in math (coming out of a public school). Within a little over a year she was completely caught up & now math is one of her favorite subjects.
The blocks really work & give the kids a wonderful visual of what they are doing. On the flip side of this Momma's Boy started Math U See in Kindergarten & is in 2nd grade now, doing 3rd grade math. I love that Math U See encourages mastery & moves on - not spending unnecessary time on a topic the child already has mastered. Some weeks Momma's Boy is able to do 2 lessons in 1 week.
For our family Math U See has helped my Math CHALLENGED child, as well as my Advanced child.
I really cannot think of one dislike I have for Math U See. I will admit that God truly had to throw this curriculum at me. In my search for a math program I continuously came across MUS, but was intimidated by it. Finally, I looked into it & am so glad I did. Once you do your first lesson the intimidation is gone & you quickly get the hang of it. In my opinion it would be easier to use Alpha (addition)before Beta (subtraction) & Gamma (multiplication) before Delta (division). It may be a little confusing to start with subtraction without having the addition rules & the same for multiplication & division. I'm sure there are families that start "in the middle" & it works for them, but from my experience I can see that it may be a little confusing to do this.
MUS also has a great website. If you have never used MUS before they have a placement test you can give to your child to see which level is best to begin with. MUS also has great Online Helps. Two that I use frequently are the Online Drill & the Worksheet Generator. The worksheet generator is my favorite. This year I went on & printed from all previous years (lots of printing), hole punched & added to the back of their math section in their binders. I used these pages for times when I could see they needed a review or for weeks we just didn't get to a do a regular week - I had ready made pages & no "teaching" was necessary.
A typical math week for us:
Monday is my teaching day & I allow a little longer time frame for math on Mondays. I watch the video with each of my kids. Then I do the first page (sometimes just a portion) with them to make sure they understand & are ready to work on the lesson independently. Then I have them do the next page on their own - showing me their work after doing a few problems alone. In short - Mondays: Video, instruction, 2 pages = about 45 minutes - hour.
Tue-Wed 1 page a day, sometimes an extra page or a review page if the work shows signs of needing extra practice.
Typically the kids are ready for their test on Thursday. If not they still do 1 page (by now it is a review page). Sometimes the test isn't taken until Friday.
Depending on the lesson, we do have weeks that 2 lessons are done in 1 week. I let my kids work at their own pace - moving on when I feel that they have mastered a lesson & they do well on a test. If they bring me a page without any errors I will ask them if they think they are ready for the test. If they want to take the test I will usually have them do a review page in the lesson (each lesson has 4ish "lesson theme pages" & a couple review pages) before taking the test. There have also been weeks that a lesson may take 2 weeks or that we take a week to review what we have already learned.
I do want to add that MUS is very affordable, especially when using with multiple kids. There is always the option for reselling the videos & teachers guides if you aren't planning on using them with younger children later. We have had a couple DVDs that needed to be replaced & MUS just charged me for the video & shipping without having to pay for the whole package. *This is only an option if you purchased the video from MUS though.
WE LOVE MATH U SEE!!
3 comments:
We like Math U See as well! :) Works for us!
I was confused by your comment about the order of the books. Alpha is supposed to be before Beta and Gamma before Delta. It does build from addition to subtraction to multiplication to division. Did you do them in a different order?
No, I mean it would be a little confusing for someone to begin using Math U See with Beta & not having used Alpha or to start with Delta having not used Gamma. For example if someone used another curriculum for first grade & started using MUS with Beta (2nd grade). B/c some of the addition/multiplication rules taught are also applied in the subtraction/division books. I hope this explains my point a little better.
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