jwoodbri Posted July 23, 2010 Share Posted July 23, 2010 I should probably just stick to Montessori at least for math because I really like Montessori math. I used to teach upper elementary so I know thos materials and lessons very well but I don't know much about the younger ages/grades. My son is almost five and starting hs kindy next year. What I like about Montessori math is that it is very hands on and you really learn the why behind each concept. You get to see how it all works through use of the manipulatives. What other programs are very manipulative based that I might like. I was thinking about trying Right Start A/B and Miquon too. Thoughts? Other suggestions? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2squared Posted July 23, 2010 Share Posted July 23, 2010 I would guess that RightStart would be perfect. Dr. Cotter (the author) was/is a trained Montessori teacher and many of the manipulatives are extrememly similar to Montessori items. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truebluexf Posted July 23, 2010 Share Posted July 23, 2010 Yes, I was going to recommend RS also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyofsixreboot Posted July 23, 2010 Share Posted July 23, 2010 Yep, I third Rightstart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithr Posted July 23, 2010 Share Posted July 23, 2010 I'll be different and recommend Shiller Math http://www.shillermath.com/sm/home.php?src=index.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwoodbri Posted July 24, 2010 Author Share Posted July 24, 2010 I was reading the responses and thought great I'll do Right Start until I got to the Schiller Math response. :lol: I had stumbled upon it before but for some reason I wasn't drawn to it. Or it could be that I'm leaning to RS because so many people love it. I'm a bit of a sheep that way. I wish I could sit down and actually flip through both of them. Has anyone used Schiller Math? What did you think? Thanks for the responses! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Marcy Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 I used Shiller and was not happy with it. Everyday we were doing something different. It jumped around a lot. This confused my previously Montessori schooled son. We switched to Right Start and had great success! I liked it a lot, but I had heard so many wonderful things about Math U See that I have now jumped to trying this one out. So far....I like MUS the best, as does my son. (age 8 starting 2nd grade) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 Ditto, RightStart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwoodbri Posted July 24, 2010 Author Share Posted July 24, 2010 I used Shiller and was not happy with it. Everyday we were doing something different. It jumped around a lot. This confused my previously Montessori schooled son. We switched to Right Start and had great success! I liked it a lot, but I had heard so many wonderful things about Math U See that I have now jumped to trying this one out. So far....I like MUS the best, as does my son. (age 8 starting 2nd grade) I've also been interesting in MUS. Any way you could explain the differences or what you like more about MUS? I'd love more input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephanieZ Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 Miquon done the way it was intended (child-led). I was in a Montessori school K-2 and I vividly remember being able to select what I wanted to work on each day. If you do Miquon as designed, it is very much that way and very exploratory and self-teaching. Buy the teacher's books to get the idea of how it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Marcy Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 MUS uses more worksheets, more repitition so as to really get the facts in and memorized. You don't move forward until your kiddo has it mastered. The math blocks in MUS are closer to the montessori beads as well. They are different colors for each number and stackable (lego style). My son really liked getting back to this style. He is not fond of the worksheets, but I can see where they have really helped. (My son is dyslexic with auditory processing problems.) Another thing my son and I both like are the videos. Each lesson has a video of Steve (the guy who wrote the program) teaching the actual lesson to children and the children responding to him. He cracks a lot of jokes in there that my son likes. The main website for it has some video demos you can watch. We have only been using MUS for a couple of months so I can't give you a full review just yet. I can say that stuff he just wasn't getting, he finally got. Right Start was a great program though! We had fun with the games, but it was a bit too fast paced for my son. There is VERY little written work in Right Start. (He liked this, but I feel that writing his numbers daily has really helped his recognition of them.) It is mostly manipulatives, oral, and games. We had a blast, he did learn and he liked teaching his dad how to use an abacus. The main reason we switched was the dyslexia. My son needs to use all three learning styles, a multisensory approach (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) before he will get it and retain it. MUS for us just seems to work better. Going back to the different colored blocks was a great step for us. (Shiller used the all blue manipulatives, RS used the abacus.) The biggest similarity between the two...They both use 1ten, 1ten 1, 1ten 2, 1ten 3, naming instead of 10, 11, 12, 13. Hope I was able to help a little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithr Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 The good thing about Shiller is it takes no teacher prep whatsoever. I never could wrap my mind around RS and it seemed so teacher intensive. However, I do agree Shiller jumps around a lot. My older kids abhorred MUS but I bet my younger ones would have loved it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2squared Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 For me, RS doesn't include any teacher prep. It's completely open-and-go as long as I have the manipulatives within reach. Level A does require some copying and cutting, but I have always done that on the go or skipped it. We do Level A for 15 min per day, 2-3x per week. Level B was 20-25 min per day, 4 days per week. I haven't used anything else, but I assume I would be spending similar amounts of time on any K-2 math choice. My younger children like to play with the manipulatives while I teach. I have a zoo of younger kids, so I do like to have some of them napping during math time. I don't have enough manipulatives to make everyone happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwoodbri Posted July 24, 2010 Author Share Posted July 24, 2010 Thanks you ladies very much for your input! StephanieZ- I do have all the Miquon resources and have been looking forward to reading them. I'm glad to hear this about Miquon. I liked the child discovery aspect of it. Marcy- It is very helpful to hear from someone who has been able to try out these programs. I do like the colored "bead" from MUS and the abacus from RS. I keep thinking if there was only a program to combine them all! :lol: I think I will go back to Montessori with the kids at some point but for my first homeschooling year at least I could something easier for me. Decisions, decisions... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Closeacademy Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 You can just do Montessori math with him. There are free albums online and places that have printables so you can make your own materials. Here are some posts from my blog that will take you to good links to get started: http://closeacademy.blogspot.com/2009/09/getting-started-with-montessori.html This will take you to some albums and printables. http://closeacademy.blogspot.com/2009/09/making-montessori-yahoo-groups.html These are yahoo groups that have nice files that you can use to make manipulatives. http://closeacademy.blogspot.com/2009/09/making-montessori-teens-and-tens.html A post I did on things I made to work on numbers. I also have a page about visual and hands-on learning that includes Montessori links to albums and blogs. Hope this helps.:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NanceXToo Posted July 24, 2010 Share Posted July 24, 2010 I'm of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset. If you really like Montessori and its ideals, and know it works well- why not just stick with it? I would! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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