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Favorite math

cam112198

By cam112198,
in K-8 Curriculum Board

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dripdripsplat

dripdripsplat

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Right now we're loving School of Tomorrow. My kids are in 3rd/4th grade math as well.

 

We used to do MCP, but they were getting really demotivated (it's a huge, thick book)... SoT breaks the year up into 12 books, so the kids finish a book every couple of weeks, give or take. They finally feel like they're accomplishing something, because they can see how many books they've completed and how many are left to go for the year.

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Melissa H. in GA

Melissa H. in GA

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Rod & Staff. Their 4th grade book especially. It is such a foundational year for fractions and kids really need to understand fractions in upper level math.

 

On a side note, we have just started Singapore 3A this week for a little variety, especially since my ds naturally adds numbers in his head the way Singapore teaches.:lol:

 

Melissa

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BlueMorpho

BlueMorpho

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I really like MEP (downloadable from the website cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/) and am using it for the third year with my now-third-grader. It's a British adaptation of a Hungarian school math curriculum. When used with the accompanying lesson plans, it's a fun, fast-paced course with 175 lessons/year (counting the 5th day reviews). I like the tone of the lesson plans -- they're specific enough that you can follow them as written, but the "official" advice to teachers is to adapt the LP's to their own teaching style and students, so if you're the type who prefers to do things your own way you can do that and have a lot to work with. From the third grade there's an online interactive version of the student workbook, though we haven't used that yet.

 

One of the latest learning theory articles I've read suggests that moving fairly quickly from one aspect of a subject to another improves learning by increasing the number of connections the student makes. The MEP lesson plans, which consist of 7-10 short activities or exercises on a related topic each day, totally feed into this approach to learning. Each exercise is corrected/discussed before moving on, and mistakes are approached as a normal part of learning new math and opportunities to clear up misunderstandings. There are mental math problems, word problems, and logic puzzles. Singapore Challenging Word Problems can be a good supplement for some kids. (A downside for homeschoolers with large families is that it's definitely teacher/parent-directed, with lessons lasting 25-45 minutes.)

 

MEP is an extremely thorough program that includes discrete math (counting and probability, number theory), set theory, and so forth even in the early years. I like the way that topics are integrated -- inequalities are taught along with equations and so forth. There's a fair amount of "fact" practice -- probably too much for some kids and not enough for others but that's something you can supplement on your own if you need. Students are taught several different ways to think about each operation and can use the one that makes most sense to them at a given stage. Although there are a very few things that seem unique to MEP, in general the program teaches standard notation and "proper" mathematical language from the beginning. I think this does a lot to make high school topics seem less strange when a student gets there. A student who masters Y1-Y6 should be ready for algebra, but there are optional Ys7-9 that review prealgebra topics in depth for students who start later or otherwise aren't ready to move to high school math after Y6.

 

I do recommend that MEP users print out the "scheme of work," a week-by-week list of topics, and refer to it often. It helps to keep track of where you are if your child moves more or less quickly than the lesson-a-day pace. (While the LP's make it clear a child doesn't need to have mastered everything to move on, in the homeschool setting it seems to work best if the child achieves a fairly high degreee of mastery.)

 

Some of the resources on the MEPhomeschoolers Yahoo group files are also useful -- especially the videos of Hungarian or British classrooms.

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Closeacademy

Closeacademy

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Rod and Staff--they keep at it so that the child doesn't get stuck. Even though new concepts are coming up, they review the old stuff. Even the 5th grade has them work on add/subtraction in the first couple of lessons.

 

I also love--A Little Garden Flower. These stories/ideas really help to bring the math off the page so that they are visual, hands-on and something that the child cares about.

 

I use ALGF to introduce things and Rod and Staff to keep them in practice.:001_smile:

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Halcyon

Halcyon

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I second Crimsonwife's response. My mathy 3rd grader uses sinapore CWP and IP very happily. We supplement with MEP, but only in those areas that my son either needs more work or would gain something by a new approach or problem--great for extra drill. My mathy 5 yo is using Math Mammoth 1a but only because he preferred their sheets to singapore workbooks, and at this point, I think the material covered is similar. I definitely agree that Liping Ma's book is a must-read.

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Mallory

Mallory

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Sooo, is it all clear for you now?

 

Just to add in one more- I love a Miquon/Math Lab approach for the early years, up to 3rd grade or so.

 

Then we have moved to Singapore in 4th. The simplicity of the workbooks is nice, but it isn't nearly as much fun as our math lab. WE are doing the CWP too, but next level we are going to do just the Intensive Practice and see how that goes.

 

If we had a faster internet I'd do more with MEP (I do the Reception Year with my 4yo).

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ElizabethB

ElizabethB

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A combination of Miquon, Singapore (with IPs and CWPs) and MEP, rounded out with Right Start games and place-value cards and teaching ideas for teaching place value as an introductory topic to math education.

 

Bill

 

You held yourself to four!

 

It is too bad we moved, my son loves math, he begs to do more, I could send him over!!:lol:

 

He did 20 pages of Singapore one day last week and was sad when I told him no more, I had to do laundry and get dinner ready.

 

I am going to print out some MEP for him, and I have the original Belgian C. Rod math book. I don't speak any French, but it is mostly in math, not French.

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Spy Car

Spy Car

Posted
Posted (edited)
You held yourself to four!

 

If I listed them all people would think I was nuts :D

 

It is too bad we moved, my son loves math, he begs to do more, I could send him over!!:lol:

 

We should have had a play-date.

 

He did 20 pages of Singapore one day last week and was sad when I told him no more, I had to do laundry and get dinner ready.

 

We had one of those today. He was saying: "I love math, it is so much fun"!

 

And we've had the other kind of days too ;) :D

 

I am going to print out some MEP for him, and I have the original Belgian C. Rod math book. I don't speak any French, but it is mostly in math, not French.

 

MEP is wonderful. We need to "cherry-pick" to some degree (although truth-told we do most of it :D). But the exercises that are not unique I do feel free to skip if need me. And the Lesson Plan portion of MEP is filled with non-workbook Math Lab-style ideas that are very engaging. Again, we don't do them all, but I do glean.

 

If I had already taught one child through with Singapore and really knew their method cold, I think I'd be tempted to use MEP as my main program and just add in the Singapore methods myself and/or use the Singapore materials as the "supplement." MEP is that good. I just wasn't raised with this style of math so I won't let go of Singapore as the "spine." But MEP is often more interesting and more demanding of critical thought.

 

Bill (combo guy :D)

Edited by Spy Car
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sagira

sagira

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Math Mammoth is my favorite

 

I really like how it makes the child think, and not just memorize. My ds likes to see the bigger picture as well, and not just "do this". Why? "Just because."

 

I also like Miquon! The math labs are cool.

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Spy Car

Spy Car

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Thanks for all the replies! Could someone tell me what MEP is?

 

MEP is the Mathematics Enhancement Programme. It is a university based initiative to improve math education in the UK and is based on a Hungarian model. The method is sympathetic with Singapore, but it looks quite different. Very mathematical. MEP is notable for its puzzle-like problems that often require a good amount of thought (and are therefore fun and engaging for students) and day to day lesson plans for teachers which can be used in total or gleaned for gems.

 

The CIMT allows home educators to use the materials without a fee, and they are top notch!

 

Bill

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NanceXToo

NanceXToo

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I just started using Teaching Textbooks with my 5th grader and really like it. It's engaging and fun for her, it's got lots of review, it's always explained very clearly. If she gets a problem wrong, it will show and tell her step by step how to do it correctly (via computer CD). She looks forward to doing math every day and since I'm math phobic myself, it's been a huge relief for me since basically someone else is "explaining" it to her! :D

 

For 4th grade, we had used the math that was built into our Oak Meadow curriculum. We love Oak Meadow over here! In my older version of the curriculum, though, they no longer had their own math from 5th grade on, hence, the switch to something else (which turned out to be TT).

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AngieW in Texas

AngieW in Texas

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My favorite math sequence is Miquon Math until it's finished and then Singapore Primary Math starting with 3A.

 

Miquon didn't work at all for my youngest. Singapore worked great for her until 3A. We spent a full year struggling through 3A and then tried other programs for one year and then came back to Singapore.

 

Singapore stopped working for her again in 5B, so I dropped it for her altogether. We did a bunch of the Key to books and now she's working in MUS Prealgebra.

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cam112198

cam112198

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It is a free math program similar to Singapore math in the way it teaches.

 

http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm

 

A few people here use it as their main curriculum, and there are even more who use it as a supplement. If you search MEP, you will find a lot of threads about it.

 

 

Thank you! I will have to check it out.

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