shukriyya Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 The thread about why so many people like Math Mammoth inspired me to take another look at the website. I had looked at it a couple of years ago and liked it but then we went the RS route. As we finish up RS C I'm looking at switching to Singapore but the MM site has me intrigued. Dc is math intuitive but doesn't love the repetition of Singapore that we've done so far. Would MM be a better fit? Would it be as challenging as Singapore? Please, chime in with your experiences :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Depends on what you consider "Singapore". I think it is somewhere between the Singapore textbook/workbook and the IP/CWP. So if you're just using Singapore textbook/workbook, MM is more rigorous. If you're using IP/CWP, Singapore is more rigorous. And that's why I use MM as my spine, with IP/CWP as added extra challenge. :D This is working fabulously here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I think a kid who finds Singapore a bit repetitive will find MM mind-numbing. And I say this as someone who loves MM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I think a kid who finds Singapore a bit repetitive will find MM mind-numbing. And I say this as someone who loves MM. Whoops, I missed that sentence of the OP. Sounds like the OP's child might prefer a spiral program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shukriyya Posted September 30, 2011 Author Share Posted September 30, 2011 I think a kid who finds Singapore a bit repetitive will find MM mind-numbing. And I say this as someone who loves MM. Let me rephrase my initial post, dc is not keen on all the drill in Singapore and I, too, feel it's a bit much but I also feel that at this stage of learning drill is important to cement the facts. In terms of defining 'Singapore' I meant the textbook and workbook. Boscopup (love your username btw) using MM as a spine and the CWPs as supplement is an idea I hadn't considered and might be just the way to go. We are currently supplementing RS with Edward Zaccaro's Primary Math Challenge and it's successful so far. I'm still unsure though. It seems that all the mathy folks on this board are big Singapore fans and not being mathy myself but having a mathy dc I want to do what will be most useful for dc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perogi Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Depends on what you consider "Singapore". I think it is somewhere between the Singapore textbook/workbook and the IP/CWP. So if you're just using Singapore textbook/workbook, MM is more rigorous. If you're using IP/CWP, Singapore is more rigorous. And that's why I use MM as my spine, with IP/CWP as added extra challenge. :D This is working fabulously here. Interesting. Thus far we've only been using the SM text and workbook. At the 3A level we're adding in the CWP (starting with book 2 and hoping to move through it quickly). Dd has struggled a bit with fractions and I was wondering about grabbing the MM fractions book to try it out. I like the sounds of it being a step about the text/workbook of SM in one comprehensive book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I'm still unsure though. It seems that all the mathy folks on this board are big Singapore fans and not being mathy myself but having a mathy dc I want to do what will be most useful for dc. I'm mathy (and an engineer) with a mathy dc, and I like MM. I'm sure I'd like Singapore too. I just read up on both, looked at samples of both, etc. and chose MM. I saw Singapore textbook/workbook at a convention and was happy with my choice. :) Both are strong programs and will get your child where he needs to be by the end of 6th grade level. They have a different scope and sequence. Singapore is "ahead" in s&s in the early years, but then slows down towards the end (and some here say it gets repetitive in 5 and 6). MM has a more traditional s&s (eg, introduce multiplication in 2nd grade, really get into it in 3rd grade), but hits some of the prealgebra topics a bit more in grades 5 and 6. I've looked ahead and don't think it will be repetitive like Singapore supposedly is. MM has more problems than Singapore, but Maria Miller says you don't have to assign them all! I think it's a bit like the textbooks we used in school. My teachers always assigned all the odds or all the evens for homework, never ALL the problems. MM is designed to be used the same way. You have plenty of problems there if you need more practice, but you only need to use about half of them normally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarlaS Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I think a kid who finds Singapore a bit repetitive will find MM mind-numbing. And I say this as someone who loves MM. :iagree: I do a good bit of be-bopping through it with my dd11 (level 4 had something like 70 pages on division. :svengo:). I never thought I'd say this, but I really should have put her in Saxon. Or something more spiral. Instead, I am accelerating a bit and then putting her in Lial's Basic College Mathematics or Pre-Algebra if I need to fill another year before Algebra. I do have CWP. Time to pull it out since it's now almost October. Thanks for the reminder. My dd will be thrilled. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haiku Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 It seems that all the mathy folks on this board are big Singapore fans I consider myself mathy, and dd9 is definitely mathy. I have used both Singapore (with dd-now-17) and MM. I really disliked Singapore. I have referred to it in the past as "weird." I know that's not very descriptive, but I will say that I feel that MM takes a concept and explains the concept very clearly, while Singapore takes a concept and really muddies it up. Both are trying to teach concepts, but Singapore doesn't do it step-by-step the way MM does, so the student/teacher are left trying to fill in the blanks themselves. If I could draw a picture of what I mean, it would be an arrow pointing from concept to method, with the steps marked along the way, for MM. For Singapore, it would be a circle (concept) around a dot (method) with a few steps marked along the circle, but no direct arrow to the method. Clear as mud? Tara Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shukriyya Posted September 30, 2011 Author Share Posted September 30, 2011 Thank you so much for all your replies. They've been really helpful. Tara, I'm quite taken with your creative and very visual description of the difference between the two :D I went ahead and ordered MM and we'll jump into this after RS. I only ordered half a level, B, so we can try it for that time period and then reassess. I also bought the Real Life Math (or whatever it's called) and I think we'll get a Singapore CWPs as well. With all this we should have all our bases covered for now. I don't know if it would have occurred to me to combine things like this. This board is great for this kind of thing. I can post a question and get all kinds of perspectives on people's experience. Love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaffodilDreams Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 We have used Singapore for three years, and dd was happy with it until recently. I have been happy with the results I've seen, but I've been discouraged with my ability to effectively convey the concepts. I am NOT a mathy person - which is exactly why I chose Singapore in the first place (though it has backfired due to my own weaknesses in the subject). I made it through math via rote memorization. I was determined dd would not follow that path and wanted a program with a strong focus on math concepts. Singapore was great for dd in that regard for a bit. Her mental math skills are quite good. However, she recently hit a wall in Singapore and began hating math. I stumbled on MM while researching ways to get beyond this point, and I was impressed with what I saw. I especially liked that the instructions are geared towards allowing the student to be self-directed because I fear it's my own lack of mathematical thinking that began making things difficult for dd. Since the switch to MM, dd has gotten back on track and is once again loving math. She is a visual-spatial learner, and so far MM perfectly plays to that aspect of dd. There are a lot more problems on each concept in MM than Singapore, so she is actually doing more work than she was, but she has yet to realize it because her confidence and joy in this subject have returned. I still think Singapore is a strong program that can create excellent math students, but it's not easy for someone like me to teach. MM so far seems to create the results I wanted while making it easy for this language/fine arts oriented mom to teach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I consider myself mathy, and dd9 is definitely mathy. I have used both Singapore (with dd-now-17) and MM. I really disliked Singapore. I have referred to it in the past as "weird." I know that's not very descriptive, but I will say that I feel that MM takes a concept and explains the concept very clearly, while Singapore takes a concept and really muddies it up. Both are trying to teach concepts, but Singapore doesn't do it step-by-step the way MM does, so the student/teacher are left trying to fill in the blanks themselves. If I could draw a picture of what I mean, it would be an arrow pointing from concept to method, with the steps marked along the way, for MM. For Singapore, it would be a circle (concept) around a dot (method) with a few steps marked along the circle, but no direct arrow to the method. Clear as mud? Tara See, I agree with this exactly and it's why I like MM and why it works for us. But I think for some kids, that leap they have to make in figuring it out (which is like wading through the mud for other kids) is what makes Singapore work and really stick. So... while I think it's a great program, it makes me hesitate before recommending it to mathy kids. Shukriyya, we also supplement MM with the CWP's this year and are enjoying that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annic Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 (edited) I think with the Primary Mathematics they expect the material to be taught and discussed, so they don't give the steps outright sometimes, else the kid doesn't have to think through them, just follow them. I don't think the textbooks were ever meant to be the main teacher of the material. I think the teacher is supposed to guide the student into thinking about what could come next so they have to think for themselves and discuss. That can be hard if the parent doesn't understand the math well enough. The HIGs I think try to give too much information so the parent can think of it in different ways to be able to do this process with the student. Confusing to try to understand it all viscerally or fundamentally. But it could possibly be less thinking through the material by the student if the steps are provided. When I was doing the CWP problems ahead of my child I learned a whole lot more trying to do them without steps provided, and was better at helping my child think through the process, since I had to think from scratch, so to speak. But my son actually had some better approaches than I had, and better ones that the few solutions in IP sometimes. I don't even like a few of the solutions in the new CWP; whoever wrote some of them did not have the most elegant approach. At least in my mind. US textbooks do give lots of steps. Do this, and this, and this, and practice it. They were so boring. Edited September 30, 2011 by Annic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jennynd Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 A lot people mention concept jump in SM. Is there a example of that?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Whoops, I missed that sentence of the OP. Sounds like the OP's child might prefer a spiral program. Well, IMO she could still use MM by mixing up the topics a bit such as not doing all of the addition and trying some subtraction or clocks or money as well. One could then go back to the addition pages or whatever and break it up a little. Also, one could do every other problem or something similar if desired. That is what we are doing:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Well, IMO she could still use MM by mixing up the topics a bit such as not doing all of the addition and trying some subtraction or clocks or money as well. One could then go back to the addition pages or whatever and break it up a little. Also, one could do every other problem or something similar if desired. That is what we are doing:D I do love that MM is so flexible and easy to tweak :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 A lot people mention concept jump in SM.Is there a example of that?? Not really a lot of people, mostly one person who says it often ;) :D Thus far, not seeing it. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jennynd Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Not really a lot of people, mostly one person who says it often ;) :D Thus far, not seeing it. Bill that's what I feel too. I didn't really see a jump that I really notice.. but again, I didn't start from 1a so i might not know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shukriyya Posted October 1, 2011 Author Share Posted October 1, 2011 See, dc likes a challenge math-wise and has been complaining that RS moves to slowly. Yet Singapore hasn't scored well here due to all the drill tho the CWPs are quite popular. I'm hoping that MM will fit the bill. And as I read everyone's responses I feel more confident that I'm not 'shorting' my child with MM. In fact MM sure gets glowing reports. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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