I am torn between trying Math-U-See or Saxon next year. My biggest concern with MUS is that there isn't really any review of previous concepts. That is an issue we are having with BJU now. It seems Saxon has a lot of review and I'd rather have too much and not need to do it all than to not have enough or spend a lot of time printing off extra worksheets. So.... any advice? BTW, he'll be in 6th, prob doing 6/5 in Saxon or Epsilon for MUS.
I am not a MUS user anymore *long story, won't bore you! BUT...there is built in review! Each lesson there's 3 (or more depending on level) worksheets that are just the topic you're learning about and 3 that are called "systematic review" which reviews ALL the concepts. You are supposed to work to mastery, but easier concepts are easy to do that with....and take longer on the more difficult ones. It is not SPIRAL....but it does have built in review.
Oh OK.... that may work then.... I wish these companies would let you buy like 3-4 lessons to try before you invest in the while shebang. Thanks!
One other question, do you think it would be better to test him for placement or start with Alpha and work through? I just don't want him to miss anything since it is set up so different from most other programs.
I would test him personally. My son switched to MUS this year from math mammoth and he already understood some of the early concepts in this year's curriculum so I wouldn't be terribly concerned about him not knowing all of what he needs to know. Esp with the built in review. In my experience math concepts build upon each other. Each "new" concept is just taking a previously learned concept to a new level. We really like MUS. I LOVE the built in review AND I LOVE that we can move on to the next concept once I see he's mastered the one we're on. Math Mammoth was too spiral for us and it annoyed my son to constantly be reviewing things that he considered learned and done with. :lol: My son is doing Beta this year and he has used the blocks a handful of times but he mostly does not touch them. I think it depends on the kind of learner your son is too. This son isn't a huge hands on person but I could see my next son using the blocks more.
We have used MUS since my kids started Kindergarten. We really enjoy it. My dd is 100% hands on, so we use the blocks every day, where as my other dd only uses them once in a while. I purchased all the blocks. I find it helpful in introducing new concepts.
I am excited about it... I think instead of finishing the BJU book we are going to focus on getting all of the math facts down and working on any weak areas that would normally be covered by MUS by Epsilon. Thanks for all the help!
I believe the blocks are used through algebra I. They may or may not be used in Epsilon (I can't remember), but they are used later on. They are used for polynomials if I remember correctly. I love this curriculum. It has enough of the new concept and then some review built in the last two or three lessons in that chapter.
I will just add that too, in the 3 pages of review in each lesson he will also cover something they learned in the previous math book and the steps, so that is really nice. I too, thought there would not be enough review, but there is! =)
A question, to get through a level in a year, do you do a lesson a day or over 2-3 days or what? It doesn't matter, just wondering what to expect.
well again we're only in the beta (2nd grade here) but our book has 30 lessons and my son is due to start lesson 26 tomorrow. It really depends on the student though. I have him do a page covering the new lesson and if he does well with the topic I give him a page that includes review of previous topics. Then we move on. Most chapters he does two pages reviewing the current concept and one with the current concept and review of previous concepts. I think that even if he needed to use each page of each chapter we'd still easily finish one book in one school year. I aim to finish one complete chapter a week. I don't know if all of the levels have 30 chapters but for the level we're on one chapter a week gets us done well before the end of the school year.
Like Samantha, we aim for one chapter a week. DS used Singapore 2B for 1st semester of 3rd grade, then switched to TT5 last Spring and this Fall, then before Christmas, we switched to MUS Epsilon. For him, this was the best thing we could have done! He sailed through the first 2-3 chapters and completed 1.5-2 chapters a week for a while and is on Chapter 9 currently (we are in about week 5 with it now). Each chapter has Lesson Practice A, B, and C with that week's new concept. Then there is the Systematic Review D, E, and F, followed by the Test. After 8 chapters, there is a Unit Test. The way we use it is introduce the new chapter and watch the DVD lesson on Monday and complete the first lesson "A" in the workbook. If he breezes through it very easily with no mistakes, the next day we will go on to the Systematic Review; if he needs more practice, we go on to Lesson Review B and go on accordingly. The Systematic Reviews provide enough review for him (TT was overkill, according to him) without being redundant. Hope you enjoy it as much as we are
I found that (at least) the Epsilon book has 30 lessons, also. The schedule you use sounds like it should work great for us, too.
We have used MUS from the Primer to Geometry so far. Love it! Because it is mastery based, we work for mastery and move on. If the student understands the concept right away, we do that first page A, then we do the review page D the next day followed by the test. That way we can take more time on tougher concepts without feeling like it will make us "lag behind". Eventually I got to the point where we just do our math and if we complete a book in the middle of the year we move on to the next one. About the blocks. We only used them in the first couple books. The fraction overlays were such a huge help that I would not skip out on those.
