Anyone Willing to Share their Lesson Plans for Miquon

[mathmarm]

Has anyone written lesson plans for Miquon/scheduled it out?

We've started writing some, because Hubby and I both work FT outside the home and would love to have some thing paced-out for us, but it occurred to us that someone may have already manufactured a wheel for us to use.

[mathmarm]

Does anyone have Lesson Plans for Miquon? LOL!

 

Don't tell me we're the only ones?!

[nannyaunt]

I just have the kids do a page or two a day. I don't really plan anything, and I don't always check the annotations. Sometimes I just guess or make it up. We use it as a supplement to Math Mammoth.

[BooksandBoys]

I have the kids do 2-3 pages a day. They can choose the pages, as long as they work in order within each letter thread (so, C1 then C2, but not C6, or can do C1 and F10 and F11, but not the final S in the book if they haven't done any other Ss).

We also finish a book before going on to another, no matter how much my child might like the A thread or the S thread.

My signature isn't up to date. DS1 is finishing Purple now and DS2 is in Orange.

[featherhead]

My daughter is in second grade and we started from the beginning, so I have her do several pages a day. I always look ahead to see how much work is on each page and then decide how many pages I want her to do. Some pages are quite quick and some take longer.

[AimeeM]

It is really hard to schedule Miquon, because of its discovery-based nature. Well, at least scheduling beyond, "We'll do this and this page tomorrow."

Some of the pages take quite a bit longer than others... and when you implement the Teacher Notes and Lab Annotations alongside them, the deceptively "short" lab pages become pretty intensive labs/classes. 

[MeaganS]

Nope. I pick a page and dd picks a page. It always follows thread order but bounces around. We also finish every book before moving on. Lesson plans would be overkill and unnecessary, I think.

[73349]

I didn't do lesson planning for it, just aimed for the front and back of a page each day, or five over a week. Each book took about 60 school days.

[El...]

Our goal was to quit before Dd got too tired or frustrated.  Sometimes that was over an hour, so I had to watch her closely.  Sometimes I just stopped her around 30 minutes.  She went a page at a time, in order, right through the books. 

 

The biggest lesson from Miquon, for me, was to hand her the page and the rods, ask a question like "What do you do for this page?"  and then SHUT UP.  The more I explained, the less deeply she understood.  If I carefully restricted my input and did not lead her too much, she struggled a little and learned so well. 

 

You have no idea how hard it was for me to shut up. 

[RootAnn]

I never implemented Miquon front-to-back. In fact, I think I made more pages than I used from the books. (Caveat:  I only used it in Kindergarten & then to supplement in later grades.)

[mathmarm]

Wow, we both work FT outside the home and we're planning to use Miquon but putting something together "on the fly" or making pages spur of the moment would NOT work. We want to be able to pull out his little folder for the week and keep it moving.

 

 

[wendyroo]

Wow, we both work FT outside the home and we're planning to use Miquon but putting something together "on the fly" or making pages spur of the moment would NOT work. We want to be able to pull out his little folder for the week and keep it moving.

 

I also like things planned out...and I quickly found Miquon was not going to work for us.

 

DS extrapolates from known concepts so quickly, that often we would flip to the next page and find it was far too easy to hold his attention or offer him any challenge.  Other times we would flip to the next page and it would be far out in left field, jumping unexpectedly to a concept that looked too foreign to DS for him to even be willing to grapple with the problems (even if I knew they were well within his grasp if he could just look at them with an open mind).

 

One page would take 30 seconds, another would fascinate DS and he would play with it for an hour, another would frustrate him to the point that we would either skip it or take several days to ease into it.  And I never knew just by looking how he would react to any given page.

 

For us, Singapore Primary Math was a much better fit and when that became too teacher intensive, we switched to Math Mammoth which also offers rigorous, conceptual math in a plan-able, open and go format.

 

Wendy

[Ellie]

Wow, we both work FT outside the home and we're planning to use Miquon but putting something together "on the fly" or making pages spur of the moment would NOT work. We want to be able to pull out his little folder for the week and keep it moving.

 

And that's what you do with Miquon: pull out the sheet, open the teacher lab notations to that page, help dc discover the thing, let him do the page. Next time, open to the next page.

[mathmarm]

If you used and completed all of Miquon (or are finishing it soonish) then can you tell me about the experience in hindsight? What, if anything, would you have done differently? Are there any topics  that are "infamous" on the boards for their difficulty/quirkiness/need to be supplemented or "sat on for a while"?

 

I love the flexibility and fluidity of the program, and I'm aware that it's light on word problems and lacking in drill, but I'm not entirely sure that that is a problem for us. I'd rather lay that thinking and exploring foundation . We are loving the program thus far and I read my LSA religiously. :) I'm just looking for some "things to watch for" from those who have BTDT with Miquon.

[3 ladybugs]

My son is older (just turned 8) and we are almost half way through the program. We have had him do 4 pages (2 pages front and back) a day. I give it to him in order as it is in the book. This works well for him and doesn't overwhelm him.

 

The only thing I wish I did is try this sooner. It has worked GREAT for him. Today he got to a new page and typically DH does math with him. So I didn't know what has been covered before. I looked at it and while I knew the answer, I wasn't sure how they were wanting him to get to the answer. I looked in the book and while I was figuring it out, my son told me how it was suppose to be done and proceeded to do it! Impressive!

[Farrar]

We used all of Miquon with one of my ds. I agree with others that asking for preset lesson plans is basically missing the point with Miquon.

 

Have you read the First Grade Diary? That definitely gives a picture of a year with Miquon that you could emulate.

 

Do you have the Annotations? They really, really come in handy. I say this as someone who initially didn't see the point of them really. But by the end, I found I was using them more and more and wished I had all along.

 

The way Miquon looked for us was similar to others - the goal was to do a couple of pages a day, mostly by his choice. And for me to do a mostly on the fly lesson a couple times a week. My rules were thus - no starting new threads within a book. When you want to start a new thread, I do a lesson. I did do the lessons mostly on the fly - but I'd sort of look ahead at the Annotations and get teaching ideas about how to introduce topics. If he was struggling with something, I'd find a game for it with the C-rods or make one up. I probably only sat down with it once a week or so for a bit to "plan" at all. Mostly just skimming ahead or thinking about what he needed to work on. When he was working, sometimes I'd make up new lab sheets for him. Don't underestimate the importance of that. It really is a key part of Miquon, at least it was for us.

 

My Miquon boy moved on to Beast and from there to Jousting Armadillos. He's now using Mathematics: A Human Endeavor and brushing up on some needed Pre-A practice with some old Dolciani. Miquon was excellent for him. I wish to death there was one more year of it. Now there's Beast, so I think maybe there's slightly less need, but it's different. I used to joke that I wanted a Miquon Navy to conquer all the other math programs.

 

I agree with others that if you're a planner who needs things laid out, Miquon might not be for you as a teacher. And that's okay. It suited my buffet style planning perfectly. But it might not be right for you. On the other hand, like I said, it wasn't a difficult program to plan if you can let go and let it be itself.

[mathmarm]

Thanks for bearing with me everyone. It's so great to have feed back from others. Thanks Farrar for weighing in. We (Hubby and I) we do read and study the Lab Sheet Annotations and we have 2 kids (6yo and 3yo) that are using Miquon. We don't have the FGD or Notes to Teachers. Should we get them? By studying LSA ahead of time for select topics, I do think that we'll feel more comfortable teaching/guiding the kids in the topics "on the fly", when a new sheet or idea catches their interest. I love Miquon, the fluidity and the exploration in the program is fantastic so I'd rather hold my "Want to plan it all out" urges in check and use Miqoun than switch, so I guess that is going to have to be our tactic

 

Since we have the series as PDFs we need to know which sheets to make available for them and roughly when. Hubby & I both work FT outside of the home so a little forethought is required to make the days run smoothly. We've put together a basic order of topics that we want to cover with them so we'll just print the pages for each topic and keep an open mind.

 

We're not going to put any time frame on them, but there are 4 broad units that we want do a bit of this year with each kid.

 

We're already big on base-ten, place value and playing with numbers. We want Miquon to mesh and flow with the way we do math around here, the kids have been really receptive and enjoying the rods, so what I don't want to do is make Miquon a chore for them.

 

So our target Scope/Sequence for PreK3 is

"Unit 1" is A: Counting*  B: Even/Odd, L: Equations and Inequalities.

"Unit 2" is E: Addition and Subtraction*, H: Fractions* ~: Number Bonds

"Unit 3" is F: Multiplication* J: Division*

"Unit 4" is K: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Fractions and Division  V: Grid and Arrow Games,

 

For the 6yo, we'll be able to move at a faster pace. She's got more familiarity with the concepts and ideas already. She has a more persistent focus on arithmetic.

 

So our target Scope/Sequence for 1st grade Math Enrichment for her is

"Unit 1" is ~: SKIP Counting, number bonds L: Equations and Inequalities M: Place Value N: Number Lines and Functions

"Unit 2" is E: Addition and Subtraction*, H: Fractions* S: Geometric Recognition

"Unit 3" is F: Multiplication* J: Division*, O: Factoring, T: Length, Area and Volume.

"Unit 4" is K: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Fractions and Division V: Grid and Arrow Games

 

*With supplemental word problems/oral quizzes.

 

I feel better having decided on which topics to do. It helps me prep the correct living math books, games, songs, etc. I can keep those pages of the LSA handy and student books handy. We don't want math to be a daily slog around here

[Farrar]

No one seems to find the Notes to Teachers useful, so I wouldn't get that. The FGD though... many people feel like it's the meat of Miquon - the thing that really helped them "get" it. So you might want to read it. It's not something people tend to refer to on a daily sort of basis though. More like a thing that you read to understand and envision the program better.

 

In general, I keep thinking the Miquon as PDF thing is inferior. But if you print out a bunch in a bundle, that's probably a good solution. But you do realize that the threads are broken up between the books. Like, some of the threads go all the way from Orange into the final Purple book (or, even more from Orange to Yellow or Red to Purple) - in other words, some parts of the threads are meant for first graders, others for third graders. So you don't want to follow a thread all the way through unless you're working with an older kid, which you aren't. Definitely I would be shocked at a 3 yo capable of doing the work in the Yellow and Purple books. That would be one truly gifted kid.

[RootAnn]

If you can check out or borrow the First Grade Diary, it is helpful to read through at least twice. 

I recommend reading it first all the way through with a cup of tea or glass of wine.

The second time, read through with a notepad & pen and make notes on *how* Miquon is taught in FGD, not necessarily on order of topics.

 

Farrar said what I was trying to much better than I did. 

[mathmarm]

No one seems to find the Notes to Teachers useful, so I wouldn't get that. The FGD though... many people feel like it's the meat of Miquon - the thing that really helped them "get" it. So you might want to read it. It's not something people tend to refer to on a daily sort of basis though. More like a thing that you read to understand and envision the program better.

 

In general, I keep thinking the Miquon as PDF thing is inferior. But if you print out a bunch in a bundle, that's probably a good solution. But you do realize that the threads are broken up between the books. Like, some of the threads go all the way from Orange into the final Purple book (or, even more from Orange to Yellow or Red to Purple) - in other words, some parts of the threads are meant for first graders, others for third graders. So you don't want to follow a thread all the way through unless you're working with an older kid, which you aren't. Definitely I would be shocked at a 3 yo capable of doing the work in the Yellow and Purple books. That would be one truly gifted kid.

 

Thanks, I'll check out the FGD. We've been using Miquon with the 6yo since early this year and she's in school. Jrs been learning the rods for a few months now. PDF was the best way to make it affordable for multiple kids and get my instant gratification to seeing Miquon :laugh:

 

We do a lot of math play around here. Jrs pretty good with counting and has varying levels of familiar with number bonds already. We have been playing with place value, expanded notation and decomposing/composing 100s, 10s and 1s for months now. We plan to take our time with the worksheets though.

 

The :LAB SHEET LEVEL CHART is the one we printed several copies of and while we'd like to touch on many but not ALL of the skills that Miquon presents for each topic so when we reach a wall, we've got no problem taking the time to stop, do something else, back up and return next day/week/month.

 

We do math play and number games daily, but Miquon lab sheets will be 2-4x a week for the kids, depending. The time between is playing with the concepts with rods and other math manipulatives. We try and read a lot of living math books and I may introduce different math videos too, but probably not yet. We're a low-tech household.

 

Both kids have ~4 years to get through Miquon so it's okay with us if we have to revisit a topic down the road.

Edited October 1, 2016 by mathmarm

[MeaganS]

I like the PDF. What I did was make a binder with dividers for every letter. Then I printed out the whole book and put the pages behind the corresponding letter. Each day I turn through the letters and pick one page and let dd pick a page, so long as it is the next one at that letter. Each day I mark what pages we did on the progress sheet so I can see at a glance what has been accomplished. This system works wonderfully and is very simple. Dd feels some ownership over her work and I can even out the difficulty for the day by picking longer or shorter pages based on what dd picks. I think the way we do it would have been more difficult with the printed copy actually. And it is crazy cost effective for us. But I'm one of those freaks that almost prefers pdfs.

I also didn't find the fgd to be that necessary, especially with education unboxed available. If you need to get a better idea of how to teach miquon, it could help though. Also helpful is that Gattegno video that has been linked to before (I'm on my phone or I'd link it) and Gattegno's textbook. 😀

 

ETA: Here's the video of Gattegno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMty8v2DqI

Edited October 2, 2016 by Meagan S