kristinannie Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 First of all, I am sorry to keep bothering you all with so many questions, but you all are such a wealth of knowledge!!! I am trying to decide between McRuffy (spiral) and MM (mastery) for kindergarten math (and I am also hoping to continue using whichever I choose for the long haul). How do you know which would be right for your child? Mastery might work best for DS because he gets so annoyed when he has to do stuff he already knows how to do (although he sometimes doesn't know quite as much as he thinks he does :lol:). I do like the idea of review though so that new skills become really a part of you and don't get forgotten once you move onto something else. Is the only real way to figure out how your kid learns to test it in real life? I just don't want to spend a lot of money on something and then have it not work for my child (although I guess it could work with the next child...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desertmum Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Same boat here :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelBee Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 We worked spiral at first and ds11 was forgetting concepts. (Younger at time) We switched to a mastery program and he started flying. I am actually in a pickle now because I believe a spiral approach may be a better fit for my ds6. We LOVES working multiple concepts and mixing things up. So maybe we will do a bit of both. :001_huh: :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarrieF Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Honestly, in my experience (and from what I hear from others, too) it is mostly trial and error. :glare: I have gone through 3 math curricula (which really isn't THAT many!) and we have finally hit our stride with Horizons. ABeka was a little TOO repetitive, MUS was TOO mastery based (I LOVED having Mr. Demme teaching the lessons via video, so that was a hard one to give up, but DC were going nuts practicing the same operations for an entire book!), and finally settled in with a nicely paced spiral approach in Horizons. If your DC seem to get "lost" or glazed over when you move on to a new topic, they probably need a mastery type of curriculum; however, if they catch on quickly and enjoy learning a variety of things at the same time, spiraling will probably work best for them. That is the long and short of it! Ha! ha!:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelBee Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Honestly, in my experience (and from what I hear from others, too) it is mostly trial and error. :glare: I have gone through 3 math curricula (which really isn't THAT many!) and we have finally hit our stride with Horizons. ABeka was a little TOO repetitive, MUS was TOO mastery based (I LOVED having Mr. Demme teaching the lessons via video, so that was a hard one to give up, but DC were going nuts practicing the same operations for an entire book!), and finally settled in with a nicely paced spiral approach in Horizons. If your DC seem to get "lost" or glazed over when you move on to a new topic, they probably need a mastery type of curriculum; however, if they catch on quickly and enjoy learning a variety of things at the same time, spiraling will probably work best for them. That is the long and short of it! Ha! ha!:001_smile: It is trial and error. Ds11 and ds18 LOVE MUS. :D They finally "get" it. Isn't that funny? :lol: Each little one is so different. Dd9 is doing MUS and hasn't really shown any distain. Ds6 was like "Can we fast forward?" :lol: He did like 9 lessons in a row and I had to stop him. He didn't want to do all the worksheets for it though. Too much. He said, "Yeah, I already know how to do it anyway!" :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Yeah, I think you just have to try one and see how it goes. My son used spiral in school (Saxon), and he didn't need that much review. I started Math Mammoth with him in first grade, and that's been a great fit. We plan to stick with it through 6th grade level. He hasn't missed anything by switching programs, since MM doesn't start until first grade anyway. I think you should just pick something you think you'll both like, try it out for K, and if you need to switch for first, that's fine. You just don't want to be switching a lot after that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BatmansWife Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 First of all, I am sorry to keep bothering you all with so many questions, but you all are such a wealth of knowledge!!! I am trying to decide between McRuffy (spiral) and MM (mastery) for kindergarten math (and I am also hoping to continue using whichever I choose for the long haul). How do you know which would be right for your child? When you are saying MM....do you mean Math Mammoth or Mastering Mathematics?? I thought in the other thread when you referred to MM you meant Math Mammoth. Now, I'm not so sure. The reason is that I know for a fact that Mastering Mathematics is mastery. I thought Math Mammoth was spiral. Maybe it depends on the Blue or Light Blue?? I'm confused now. :lol: But, anyway...yes, it all depends on each child and you often don't know until you try. I thought my son would love variety on the page so I tried CLE with him, which is spiral. Turns out it was too much for him and he seems better with mastery (focusing on one thing at a time). My one daughter, on the other hand, would be bored out of her mind if she had to work on one concept for an entire book or for weeks on end. She loves the unexpected fun of each page of McRuffy (not that I'm trying to sway you to choose that at all :001_smile: ). It definitely helps that McRuffy's spiral is not a "cluttered spiral" like CLE seemed to me. With McRuffy, each page is not loaded with tons of stuff like CLE or Math Mammoth. And, this is just my humble opinion and I don't want to offend any CLE or Math Mammoth fans. :blush: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 we have finally hit our stride with Horizons :iagree: We love Horizons math. It is advanced for it's grade level and it has spiral review built in, but not crazy amounts of review. Every now and again something from a previous lesson will show up again to make sure your child really learned it. My daughter loves math because of this program! We can complete an entire math lesson (review math facts, skip counting, and her worksheet) in about 20 minutes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veritaserum Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I agree that it's trial and error. My 1st and 3rd are mastery (Math Mammoth) and my 2nd is spiral (Christian Light Education math). I'm not sure about my 4th and 5th, yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 When you are saying MM....do you mean Math Mammoth or Mastering Mathematics?? I thought in the other thread when you referred to MM you meant Math Mammoth. Now, I'm not so sure. The reason is that I know for a fact that Mastering Mathematics is mastery. I thought Math Mammoth was spiral. Maybe it depends on the Blue or Light Blue?? I'm confused now. :lol: Math Mammoth Light Blue. It's mastery. It's not mastery to the point of "do addition for an entire year, then do subtraction for an entire year" like some programs. It is "do addition for this chapter, do subtraction for this chapter, now do addition and subtraction together for a chapter so you can see how they correlate, now let's study clocks for a chapter, etc." :D There are review pages and cumulative chapter tests thrown in, which takes care of your review, and they also do throw in review problems to each chapter, but the chapters themselves are working on mastering a particular topic. And I'm not at all offended by the "cluttered" comment. :) I think it would be cool if Maria took half the problems out of the work texts and stuck those problems into a separate "extra practice" book (still in the same curriculum purchase, but just a separate PDF and thus separate pages), as that would help to not overwhelm young kids. She recommends only doing half the problems anyway. Thankfully, my son has no problem seeing a lot of problems on a page. I guess he's just used to it. That and he likes math and loves having more problems to work. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BatmansWife Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Math Mammoth Light Blue. It's mastery. It's not mastery to the point of "do addition for an entire year, then do subtraction for an entire year" like some programs. It is "do addition for this chapter, do subtraction for this chapter, now do addition and subtraction together for a chapter so you can see how they correlate, now let's study clocks for a chapter, etc." :D There are review pages and cumulative chapter tests thrown in, which takes care of your review, and they also do throw in review problems to each chapter, but the chapters themselves are working on mastering a particular topic. Thanks for explaining. In my mind, mastery is like MUS and Mastering Mathematics where it is the entire book (entire year) on basically one type of concept. So, MM didn't seem to fit that for me. I guess I can see what you are saying. But, it still seems like maybe it should be referred to as masteryish. :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Thanks for explaining. In my mind, mastery is like MUS and Mastering Mathematics where it is the entire book (entire year) on basically one type of concept. So, MM didn't seem to fit that for me. I guess I can see what you are saying. But, it still seems like maybe it should be referred to as masteryish. :tongue_smilie: Well, you're still doing one topic *at a time*. I'd call MUS "extreme mastery". :lol: In a spiral curriculum, you'll introduce counting one day, then introduce addition the next day and also have problems on counting, then introduce subtraction the next day and still have problems on counting, addition, and subtraction... etc. So you're constantly reviewing all the previously lessons in every single lesson. You have your new topic, but you also do problems from several other topics. In a mastery program, if the lesson that day is addition, you'll have 10 problems of addition, and maybe have a little review section somewhere if needed. My son did Saxon at school, and on one homework sheet, there would be "write the number 17 3 times" to work on writing, then there would be a word problem that uses addition or subtraction, then there would be a set of apples where you count the seeds and then figure out a number sentence for the seeds, and then there would be 10 squares and they'd be told to color 8 squares red and tell how many squares are not colored. These are all topics of different lessons, and they all build on each other, but they're spiraling through. In fact, the "new" topic for the day might not even be on that worksheet! They might see it several lessons later on a worksheet, and it would be one problem, along with a problem from each of several other lessons. Compare to Math Mammoth where you have a chapter of addition, and within that is a section titled "Addition Sums with 5", and there would be several problems dealing with fact families that have a sum of 5. At the end of the section, there might be some review problems that deal with sums of 4. That's the review. But most of the section is just sums with 5, mastering that topic. Hopefully that makes sense. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BatmansWife Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Hopefully that makes sense. :) Yes, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawn E Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 We've actually been using a mastery program (the same one our entire hs time), and I am changing to a spiral. This is a pivotal time to cement math facts before moving forward, and I thought that a spiral approach might help with that. Until this level (4) I have been happy with mastery, so I'm not certain if it is a m vs. s issue or just a season. Dd conceptualizes math processes quickly, but she just needs to build speed with her facts. All that to say, I'm still not sure what dd fits best into, but starting this month we will be using both...CLE and MM as a supplement. I guess I'll learn soon enough. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 We've actually been using a mastery program (the same one our entire hs time), and I am changing to a spiral. This is a pivotal time to cement math facts before moving forward, and I thought that a spiral approach might help with that. Until this level (4) I have been happy with mastery, so I'm not certain if it is a m vs. s issue or just a season. Dd conceptualizes math processes quickly, but she just needs to build speed with her facts. All that to say, I'm still not sure what dd fits best into, but starting this month we will be using both...CLE and MM as a supplement. I guess I'll learn soon enough. :) I can see adding something extra to drill math facts. I'm doing that with my son. We are using RightStart games, Personal Math Trainer on his DS, and other such things to help cement those facts. I don't see a need to do a separate program though. Mastery still works for him. There just needs to be outside drill on facts also, no matter what program you use (CLE and Saxon have drill built into their programs, but that doesn't really have anything to do with being mastery or spiral, I don't think). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Robyn Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Both. Mastery works wonders for my kids for facts practice, but I can't imagine doing a whole unit of say, finding the perimeter, reading a graph, spatial exercises, patterning.... Also, it puts my mind at ease to go back to previously learned material now and then just to make sure it wasn't lost up there somewhere. We use both McRuffy and Math Mammoth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I don't think it matters. I especially don't think it matters that everything you use in every subject is the same method. Further, I think your dc might change from year to year. I think the actual presentation is more important than whether it's spiral or mastery or somewhere in between. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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