For those of you using MM...

[Hedgehogs4]

Do you find that she provides more exercises than are necessary? At the rate we're going, it's going to take us all year to finish 4A.

 

Do you skip ahead when a child has the grasp of a concept? I find that I look at her exercises and see so much value in each one that I hate for him to skip a problem or a puzzle. He seems to be enjoying it, but it takes him a while to get through two pages of work.

[Veritaserum]

Do you find that she provides more exercises than are necessary? At the rate we're going, it's going to take us all year to finish 4A.

 

Do you skip ahead when a child has the grasp of a concept? I find that I look at her exercises and see so much value in each one that I hate for him to skip a problem or a puzzle. He seems to be enjoying it, but it takes him a while to get through two pages of work.

 

If my child shows competence and understanding, I let her skip.

[Homemama2]

I have the MM cd w/ the light blue series and somewhere on it I was reading yesterday that she only expects you to do 1/2 to 2/3's of the problems. You can save the others for review problems later in the year, or use them that same week if they are struggling w/ the topic. I was very relieved to read that!!!

[i.love.lucy]

We completed 3A and B last year in a hurry as much of it was review but taught concepts in a new way so I didn't skip much. But dd moved along faster because it was more review. Now that we've hit 4A there is more new material that we just can't skip. And I agree so much that ALL the problems just seem to have so much value. It's not mindless repetition. So, I agree, it's going to take us a while too. But I figure if it takes us into the summer to finish 4B, then that's fine because I would have wanted to work in summer anyhow. Personally since my dd is in 5th, I had hoped to jam through it and be in 5A by early spring, but I doubt that will happen. I'm okay with it.

 

Just FYI, we spend an hour a day on math. That's usually a couple of 30 problem speed drills to work on facts, and then 2-3 pages of MM. DD seems okay with it.

[Corraleno]

Do you find that she provides more exercises than are necessary? At the rate we're going, it's going to take us all year to finish 4A.

 

Do you skip ahead when a child has the grasp of a concept? I find that I look at her exercises and see so much value in each one that I hate for him to skip a problem or a puzzle. He seems to be enjoying it, but it takes him a while to get through two pages of work.

Two pages/day should get you through both 4A & 4B in one year. How long is it taking him to do 2 pages? I think 4A is a big step up from 3B; my DS often spent an hour on the 4th grade lessons. If your DS is enjoying it and not complaining, I wouldn't speed up just for the sake of speeding up.

 

My 3rd grade DD does all the problems in all the lessons, although if there's really a TON of problems in a particular lesson, I might let her do some of them orally and I'll write the answers for her. I would occasionally cross out a few of the easier problems for DS if I knew he really understood the concept, but I do think there's a lot of value in really working all those problems. One of the things I love about MM is that the problem sets tend to be quite varied, so it's not just 2 pages of identical problems to chug through.

 

Jackie

[PenKase]

It's a relief to hear how long it's taking others to work through MM. Here I'm thinking it was just us!! I agree in that I too see so much value in all the problems that I don't want have my dc skip any of them. I have two dds using it and it takes my 5th grader, on average, 45 minutes to finish two pages and my 2nd grader 20-30 minutes to finish one page. Glad to know that's somewhat normal.:001_smile:

[MelissaMinNC]

My dd (8, almost 9, 4th grade) is doing 3A. We just switched this year, after using Singapore 1A-2B. It is taking her about 30-45 minutes to do 2 pages. In most subjects I am a "short lesson" person, but I've decided we just need to do 2 pages, even if it takes longer. (I realize that 30-45 mins is not considered a long time by many ppl, but for us and esp for math for this child, it is.) Lots of days, we split it up into two sessions. Do 1 page (about 20 mins), do another subject, then do the 2nd page. I've told dd that we just have to work our math muscles till we can get through 2 pages in a timely fashion.

 

The good news is - she's getting it, and she's enjoying it. I've heard, "I get it! Mom, I get it!" and "Hey, this is fun!" (She seems rather baffled and even a little put out by this, lol - who said math was allowed to be fun, anyway?!) So, I'm encouraged, even if we are "behind" or moving slowly. (She didn't want to switch from Singapore, btw, but I realized she needs more practice and built-in review. We're both enjoying MM's explanations and exercises a lot.)

 

I'm sorry...what was your question? ;)

Melissa

[khall]

It's taking us quite awhile to get through the pages of 4A also. We tend to use Charlotte Mason methods, and like to keep lessons to about 20 minutes. What we've ended up doing with MM is to work through a page together, usually one of the pages that contains the instruction. I put the problems from the page on a marker board and we do the whole page that way. That usually takes about 20 minutes. Then I give him the next page and it's for him to do independently as "homework" later on in the day. That takes another 20 minutes, but he's usually able to do the second sheet independently and I think splitting up the time seems to give him a chance to process what we did together. We're doing the same thing with DD8, who is working through 2A. It's definitely nice to know that we're not the only ones who think MM is WORK! :tongue_smilie:

[Hedgehogs4]

It's a relief to hear how long it's taking others to work through MM. Here I'm thinking it was just us!! I agree in that I too see so much value in all the problems that I don't want have my dc skip any of them. I have two dds using it and it takes my 5th grader, on average, 45 minutes to finish two pages and my 2nd grader 20-30 minutes to finish one page. Glad to know that's somewhat normal.:001_smile:

 

it is taking about 40 minutes to finish two pages of problems. he's pooped at the end!

[lamamaloca]

It is designed as a mastery program. Only assign those problems that they need in order to master the material. I would do any word problems, and only skip problems out of sets which have a lot of the same sort of problem. She actually suggests skipping some problems, then using those as review later if you want to incorporate more review into the program. Of course, if the student needs all the workbook problems for mastery, then you use the worksheet maker to make worksheets if you'd like extra review later.

 

For my 1st grader, we are skipping a lot of the problems. He has many of his math facts down, to my surprise. He is doing about half of the problems in each lesson.

 

Now, my third grader needs to do most all of the problems. Despite going through MUS Beta last year which really focused on addition and subtraction, he has needed a thorough review of regrouping (borrowing/carrying) and is not used to such challenging word problems. He varies between 1-3 pages a day, depending on the lesson and how much of the page is introductory and instructional material versus practice problems.

[robsiew]

We take a lot of time here too. Much more than MUS. I think whether you do all the problems has a bit to do with your thoughts on learning/teaching math.

 

I was all for skipping problems before I read The Core. In there she talks a lot about "over learning". Especially in math. This has changed my view point of math practice. In the "over learning" viewpoint, we should practice something enough that it becomes instinctive. That we could do it in our sleep. It becomes so easy that we don't even have to think much to complete it. For us, I think that means we do most, if not all the problems. We school year round though, so I'm not too worried about getting everything done. Also... if a child finishes 6b in 6th grade he/she will be doing pre-algebra in 7th grade. That's plenty early I think.

 

2 pages takes my ds9 45min. to an hour depending on what it is. He's working in the 4th grade book. This is right within the time suggestion in WTM for math for a 4th grader so I'm not too concerned. I've told him to stop at 1 hour if he's not done and he can finish the rest on another day.

 

That said, if a page is really overwhelming I will cut out a few problems, but not too many. I don't skip entire sections though. (except for my eldest who is just filling in holes from MUS...)

[Hedgehogs4]

We take a lot of time here too. Much more than MUS. I think whether you do all the problems has a bit to do with your thoughts on learning/teaching math.

 

I was all for skipping problems before I read The Core. In there she talks a lot about "over learning". Especially in math. This has changed my view point of math practice. In the "over learning" viewpoint, we should practice something enough that it becomes instinctive. That we could do it in our sleep. It becomes so easy that we don't even have to think much to complete it. For us, I think that means we do most, if not all the problems. We school year round though, so I'm not too worried about getting everything done. Also... if a child finishes 6b in 6th grade he/she will be doing pre-algebra in 7th grade. That's plenty early I think.

 

I heard Leigh Bortins speak on learning math at a practicum a couple of years ago. I loved her perspective, and i think that this "overmastery" is my goal. she likened it to the dailiness of a farmer who, no matter what day of the week it is, he still has to milk the cows. now, i do not require math to be done on weekends, however, every day that we do school, the math must be done.

[robsiew]

I heard Leigh Bortins speak on learning math at a practicum a couple of years ago. I loved her perspective, and i think that this "overmastery" is my goal. she likened it to the dailiness of a farmer who, no matter what day of the week it is, he still has to milk the cows. now, i do not require math to be done on weekends, however, every day that we do school, the math must be done.

 

I'm loving The Core. I don't buy many books (mostly use the library), but this one I did. It's giving me a different perspective on things. I would love to hear Leigh in person! SWB too! I got to hear Steve Demme a couple years ago and that was neat. Sometimes I feel bad for ditching MUS! :001_huh: