Math Mammoth ?

[m0mmaBuck]

Would this work well as a first math program for a kindergartener? As a complete program for 4th grade? Thanks.

[boscopup]

MM doesn't have a K level. It starts at first grade. You can go to the website to see what the readiness is for the first grade level and what she recommends doing for K. It might be too much writing for a K'er, so that would be my biggest hesitancy. I've started my 4 year old very casually on RS A, and after that, we'll probably switch over to MM 1, which will probably be sometime before he's in first grade. I might need to alter it for the writing, depending on when he's ready for MM. My oldest could have definitely done the math in MM 1 in K if I'd known about it, but he couldn't have written that much. He's handled the writing fine in first grade though. I assigned only half the problems if there were a lot of problems on the page (that's allowed, per the author of the program ;)).

 

For 4th grade, yes, it should be a complete program. Some people might add Singapore CWP, as I believe Maria Miller recommends that around 3rd or 4th grade? I don't have the 4th grade in my hands yet. I have 1st and 2nd. So far, the word problems in these levels have been excellent.

[5Wizards]

My 4th grader uses MM and we've been very happy with it. It can definitely be used as a stand-alone program.

[robsiew]

I'm using MM with a k'er and 4th (and 2 in between!) It certainly is a full curriculum. We don't supplement at all. For my kids it is challenging enough.

 

For my k'er we move very slow. He could do all the typical k math things so I felt like it was okay to move him into 1st grade MM. (There is only so much you can pattern and count to 100!:D) I use the snapshot tool to print less on a page, thus making it less work at a time and the spaces bigger for my k'er to write in. Sometimes it takes us 2 days to finish 1 page. I figure that's just fine because, after all he is working in a 1st grade book. I don't want the concepts to advance too fast for him. Most of what we've done so far has been addition and subtraction working into number families and he's been doing great with them. He's also a really young K... so I'll probably continue our slow pace into his first grade year... as long as your child has basic number sense down I think it should be fine... just work slow!:D

[Aconnolley]

My 5yo daughter is doing MM1 this year and is doing fine. To be honest, this is not her first exposure to math though. She dabbled with MUS and did the Abeka K book with manipulatives instead of memorizing math facts. I also offer to do writing for her if her hand gets tired on long pages. (like filling in the 100s chart) There were a few things that were challenging for her, like being introduced to even and odd numbers and counting by 2's and then not much later, having to count forwards and backwards by 2's on even and odd numbers. (starting on 31 and counting up or starting on 62 and counting down. She did it, but I had to be there to walk her though it. :001_smile:

 

Maria did recently send out an update to the 1st grade program. (which reminds me, I need to download it!) it is supposed to make the writing areas bigger, and I think, have less on each page to accommodate the bigger writing area. My daughter is nearly done with level 1 and she did fine with the smaller writing space. My son would have had a harder time at that age though. It just depends on their level of fine motor skill development.

 

You can always slow down if you need to. I seem to remember the only prerequisite to starting level 1 being that you needed to know the digits up through 9.

 

Also, I have one using grade 3 and one on grade 4. Make sure that you look at the end of the year tests. I had to fill in some gaps (like mental addition and subtraction) at a lower grade before moving up to grade level.

 

 

 

Angela