so today i was looking around and stumbled into the math u see website. it looked really fun and easy for the kids but I'm concerned about the "if it looks to good to be true it probably is". I was hoping that some of you that use it (or have used it) could give me more details as to how it works. is there a dvd that has him teaching and explaining to the kids? is it overly simplistic for 10-11 year olds? what are the actual necessities for it? is it a lot of review? worksheets? if i order for my kids off the site it will be about 160$ and that's too much for me to put out on a whim of the kids' (they saw it over my shoulder and were begging for it). they did the pretests and they would be alpha and gamma levels. So please let me know what you and your children thought about it. Thanks in advance
I have used MUS in the past and I think I still have the Alpha teacher's manual and dvd. I'd sell it for $25 including shipping if you are interested. My dd7 enjoyed it but we are using something else now. My older dd who is now 13 used it for 3 years and she was confused with it. It teaches math way differently than I learned. It is perfectly fine and will work if the child will watch the dvd and then do the lessons the way they show it. The "new math" just didn't work for us. Anyway if you are interested in Alpha send me a pm.
We did Primer and Alpha levels and my boys loved them! They had a blast with the blocks, really learned quite a bit, and had fun doing it. I really love the program, the DVD is helpful for me to see how he teaches it and then I teach the boys. The TM's also had some great activities in it. I also prefer the black and white format of the workbooks because there's less to distract them from the actual math of it.
I like it. I have used it for awhile. You can vegsource.com the homeschooling part and find used ones. That would be cheaper.
Karma, I've never used it myself but I have taught a boy who had used it before coming to me (we now are schooling Other People's Kids). He had done (by his mom's report) up through the third grade level of it - multiplication - but when I tested him to see where he would enter my curriculum (CLE) I had to start him back at the beginning of first grade because there was so much other stuff that he had not yet learned: telling time, measuring, recognizing common fractions (half, third, fourth), and other stuff too. Of course, he zoomed through the CLE first grade stuff and ended up doing all the first grade and about half the second grade or so, because he didn't have to take time to learn his facts like a first grader would have done, so we could focus on the other stuff and just keep on practicing his facts along the way. I'm not saying Math U See is bad or inadequate, just different! But if you're going to want your kids to know measurements, telling time, recognizing fractions, temperature, etc., you're going to have to supplement.
We have now used all books from the Primer through Zeta. We absolutely love it! The DVD's show Mr. Demme teaching each lesson. I found we used it in the early levels but not now that we are into the upper ones. I found the same with the manipulatives. At the Alpha and Beta levels you will use the blocks daily, but maybe not so much as time goes on. Anyway, it is a great program in my opion. Especially if you have a child who gets overwhelmed with too many problems on a page, or if you have a child that isn't understanding all the concepts of numbers. It helped my son to see what he was supposed to do with the numbers rather than just pick up on the pattern. He was 8 or 9 when I started him over with math and used MUS Alpha. He flew through it because he was older and could grasp the concepts easily using the MUS methods. For a couple years he was completely two books a year. Now he is in 8th grade and almost finished with Zeta. He is set to begin the pre-Algebra in the fall for 9th grade. I am just so happy that he has caught up like he has by using the program. Not that it is easy, but that it gives the child many ways to learn the concepts. The child then masters each concept before moving on to the next one. In our home, MUS is a perfect fit.
My ds loved it. I think that the way it was taught was wonderful. He doesn't just give a formula but explains how to arrive at the answer. The building the problems really helped concrete it for my ds. We switched to abeka in 6th grade because we went to the dvds and I didn't want to spend more money but part of me still wants to go back. I am seriously thinking about it for next year.
He should have learned telling time in the Primer and followed up during Alpha. I'd check out the scope and sequence on the MUS website for topics covered in each level. It is a mastery program, so there would be "gaps" if you were to switch to a different curriculum later. When my kids went to public school for a couple years after homeschooling, they were ahead of the game. The one or two concepts my youngest hadn't covered yet were easily learned over a weekend. It was actually more difficult transitioning back to MUS after public school because the concepts they "touched on" at school had not been mastered.
I never even actually looked at it - I was just going by what the kid knew and didn't know, and he didn't know anything but math facts... I'm glad to know MUS teaches more "other stuff" than I thought!
We love MUS! We used it for high school mind you ot sure what age you are doing. For us it was great for dd to get the maths at that level. THis year her private school did both SOS and MUS at the same time so MR D could help instruction on areas the teacher couldnt get through on.. We plan to use MUS for ds for all three hs main maths, then who knows for TRig. I think you may like to look at Teaching Text books and see if they fit your mode too, Video text is another one but it comes in smaller moduels and ends up costing more in the long run, but worth checking out.
I was thinking of using Math U See this year but just bought TT instead. We had Math U See, Epsilon(sp?) and I like the way it flows as well as the way it is taught. But I have heard wonderful things about TT and decided this is what we wanted to go with for the coming year.
I had my hands on the MUS Primer a year or so ago... my kids would never tolerate the black and white book (same reason things like Saxon would NEVER work for us). My kids like color and variety (not just plain square blocks). With my oldest we made up our curriculum until he could use Teaching Textbooks. With my littles, we are using McRuffy Press (very colorful, lots of manipulatives) and then when they get to the end of the road with them we will be going with TT because we love the computer based lessons of it.
Wow thank you for all the feedback and the generous offers. She's starting 4th grade math this year and in the gamma level currently i'd hate to have to go back through and start over with a new method. and since money is an issue at this point and knowing that they'd have to go through so many levels in a year? I'm content to stick with the curriculum i already have. I'm divorced and i told the kids that i wasn't buying it but they were more than welcome to either save their money or ask their father. Thank you again for your input
Not sure if this is relevant to anyone, but even though the black and white format of the books might look drab to some, the Primer and Alpha are designed to be colored in to learn block/number recognition by sight. Dd used her glitter crayons for hers and the pages sparkled! :lol:
Yes I agree. Also I have one dd who prefers color but once we switched to MUS, the color of the blocks has been great to sustain that color driven part of her. I do feel this is a great program which addresses all learning styles. So far I have two old enough to use it and do plan to use with with my up and comers as well.
We used MUS at various levels and ultimately abandoned it. My dc did not do well with a mastery program. They found the repetition in the lessons boring. They much prefer something that has a little of everything. Also, my 2 oldest are very independent learners. They found the lack of instruction on the pages frustrating. If they had a question on how to do something, or wanted clarification, they had nothing in the book to go back and look at, no explanations on the page. They always had to come to me or go to the video, and they really, really couldn't stand that. I think that was the main reason we abandoned it.
The teacher books have that Did you not use it? My dd is independant learner too that is why I asked. She used the teacher book to look up examples and so did I for her when she got a couple wrong. The instructions in word form plus the video worked for us for the couple times she actually did not get it the first time.
The new TM's also have expanded answer keys to show each step of the problems. The sb's also have explanations for review sections and there are example problems for each new concept. They seem to be improving some of the "problem areas". Quite honestly, I haven't gotten the TM out for teaching except for conversion charts. The DVD's have been more than adequate for teaching methods, but math is my forte. I really only use the TM for quickly checking answers. That being said, one of the reasons I like MUS so much is that Mr. Demme teaches math the way that my mind processed it anyway. It's like teaching non-math minded people methods that math-minded people do naturally. I have a friend who said that she had a tangible wall in her mind with math in school. Teaching math was her biggest fear for homeschooling. She has been able to teach math smoothly and with confidence--all while learning to think about math differently. She says she has improved her own mathmatical thinking with daily tasks and problem solving.
Yeah, we had it. They just like having examples in their books. Most of the math books we've used (Saxon, CLE and R&S) give explanations at the beginning of the lessons. When we tried MUS, they were like"This is odd. Why do we have to go to another book for a hint or an example. Why don't they just put it in our book to begin with." They just viewed it as an extra unnecessary step after using other books.
I liked that part, cause with some of the tings we looked at, I didn't like the way they taught it in the student books, I had to teach them the way to do things right a different way anyway, with MRD dd got it right away so that wass a relief for me!
