Talk to me about Miquon..

[threelilbirds]

How does it compare to Right Start, Saxon? I started with Right Start, got frustrated with it, and moved to Saxon, looking at the Saxon 1 book, I see nothing but frustration for DS6, I think he will get very bored, it moves soo slowly it seems.

How is Miquon? I hear so many good things, but just not sure..

I knda wish we had stuck with right start, but how easy is it to start with a child that is so used to counting on an individual number basis, rather than visualizing in groups??

I would really like to hear more about Miquon..I dont know much about it, is there a website with good info? thanks so much for your input :)

[KristenR]

If you can pick up a copy of First Grade Diary you can read how the program works and what it entails. The books is pretty cheap.

 

I just recently started Miquon with my 5 year old. My girls love using the rods and I noticed that my daughter is now getting to the point where when I put the workbook in front of her she likes to try and figure out what to do without any direction from me. The worksheets are not like normal worksheets so it is great in the way children can look at it and figure out for themselves.

[Lots of boys]

I have been using Miquon with my ds5 and ds7 for about a month now. So far they like it but they don't use the rods as much as I would like them to - they tend to get a little frustrated and feel that it slows them down. Generally I am happy with the program. The pages are set up to look like handwritten, not overcrowed pages that appeal to my ds's.

 

We will be using Singapore in the fall when we start homeschooling full force (right now we are just using Miquon as summer fun and will continue it in the fall along side Singapore) so we are not using it as a stand alone program - although I am impresessed with the breath of this program so I think you could.

[....]

Hi, we use Miquon. We use Singapore as our main program and 3x a week, we do Miquon as a math lab. I try to give each of the kids 5 review problems at the beginning of math and we review math facts.

 

I think Miquon is an excellent program if you add...math facts review and some word problem review. My kids love Miquon and they've told me several times that they prefer it over Singapore.

 

The only thing I've noticed about my older kids who use Singapore + Miquon is that they have a bad habit of trying to work every single problem in their heads. I mean, my 9 yro tries to do long division in her head. :glare: OK, Lady. You may NOT do long division in your head. We even had a talk about how in ps our work would have been marked wrong if we didn't write it out and show how to solve the problem. I just think they need to be able to show how to solve the problem. Maybe this is just my kids and maybe this is Singapore that did this and not Miquon.

 

OK, so math facts review and word problems and you're good to go. I make my kids memorize their math facts, but that's just me. It's just a huge time saver and makes them more confident with problems (I've noticed).

 

FWIW, my kids are pretty good in math. So, those programs work (for us).

[Jay3fer]

I would add that even if you end up using another program, early use of the rods is fantastic and you can pull them out to use with ANY math program later on down the line. We're no longer using it as our main math, but dd (6) really KNOWS which colour rod "means" which number and it helps her in so many ways.

 

(ETA: Take at least a few weeks to just let them "explore" the rods, gently showing them how to build "trains," "staircases" etc. The key here is that the kids discover many properties on their own. As in Montessori, there is almost no way to use the rods "wrong" unless they are really abusing the material, ie throwing them, scratching them, hitting another child with them. I've seen it all. :-))) )

Edited August 2, 2011 by Jay3fer