Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Living and Loving Numbers
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Subject Topic: Singapore Math, MMM, or MUS ??? Post ReplyPost New Topic
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AnaB
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Posted: Jan 19 2007 at 10:56am | IP Logged Quote AnaB
Hi! This year I switched my sons from MMM to Horizon's math. The MMM seems to work for my older daughter, but it seemed like the boys needed something more straightforward. They are enjoying it so far.

I did look at Singapore math and I see that it's more advanced than Horizon's. My boys are in 3rd grade and are not doing fractions yet. (They are still in the first book for 3rd grade in Horizon's as we switched recently so it may be covered later this year).

It looks to me that from the samples of Singapore, the students works out of a text book AND a workbook? Is that true? Right now with Horizon's math, I don't do any teaching. If the boys get stumped on a problem they ask me for help. I'm not a math person and was finding that anything with too much prep time for me, I wasn't getting to. They seem to be doing well working on their own. But now I'm wondering if they are really learning? They can do the problems, does that mean they know how to DO math?

I'm also looking into MUS and have read all the past threads on it and am still undecided. I like that the DVD does the teaching.

My dd is on book 5 of MMM and working completely independently. I LOVE that. But I've heard that MMM is too slow and doesn't prepare them for real life or testing. Is this true? So far it's been working for her, should I consider changing? I do see that despite being in Book 5, she does not have her times tables memorized. But I don't know if that's the fault of the curriculum or just something she needs to work on.

I'd love any ideas on how to sort through all these questions and thoughts!

Thanks in advance.


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Erin
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Posted: Jan 19 2007 at 11:40pm | IP Logged Quote Erin
Ana

We love Singapore Maths, it is a good fit for our family. I have several dc who love maths and one ds who doesn't and yet it works for both types.

The SM is laid out in a manner that is not visually intimmidating, in fact at first I thought it was too easy due to that. But it is subtle the questions are quite stretchy. There is a text but we rarely use it we tend to just do the workbooks and use extra questions from the text if they don't get it. Maybe we'll come unstuck doing that but I can't see how.

Singapore students are apparently 2 years ahead of the rest of the world in maths and it is put down to the approach used. There are lots of problemsin SM. Oh and also in their colleges they are taught maths not by other teachers but by mathematicians, it does make sense.

If you type in your maths programs in the 'search' button up the top you'll find lots on this topic

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Leonie
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Posted: Jan 20 2007 at 10:24pm | IP Logged Quote Leonie
AnaB wrote:
They seem to be doing well working on their own. But now I'm wondering if they are really learning? They can do the problems, does that mean they know how to DO math?.....

My dd is on book 5 of MMM and working completely independently. I LOVE that. But I've heard that MMM is too slow and doesn't prepare them for real life or testing. Is this true? So far it's been working for her, should I consider changing?
Thanks in advance.


My thought, fwiw, is that if it's working, why change it? There are many differing viewpoints on Maths - some will say take a problem solving approach, others will encourage mental maths and others concrete aids.

I believe ( don't stone me! ) that the actual maths programme doesn't really matter. If your kids like something, stick with it. If not, try something else. And the real learning can also come via supplements - a Friday Play day with games or activities or jornals. Or a week on text/week off for real life maths .

This might mean skipping some of the work in the texts, but I always remember Raymond Moore's ( a homeschool writer and pioneer) words - "Use the books, don't let them use you."



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mommylori
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Posted: Jan 21 2007 at 6:09am | IP Logged Quote mommylori
I don't know about the others, but we have MUS and we love it here. Clay just gets it really fast. He is only in the 1st grade though. But you use blocks to show you how to do the concept and the concepts are taught alot diffrent than I learned them.
But anyways, he has flown through it, with out a single issue. I like the DVD thing also I got it so when he gets to high school I can still teach math.lol
What I like is they don't simplify it, you start out learning how to do all addition and subtraction with the big numbers also, and you also already learn how to solve for X, you know 4 + X = 2 X=2

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