PLEASE help me....MUS question

[kfeusse]

My son just started fractions. His problem was somehting like this:

 

4/5 of 20=

 

I was teaching him the MUS way...taking out 20 blocks, dividing them into 5 equal groups and then counting 4 of the groups.

 

My husband happens to come into the house and says, why don't you just teach him: 20 divided by 5 is 4 and 4 x 4 = 16??

 

So, my question is, "why don't they teach it that way and is it bad if I do??"

 

I am running into the same issue with my daughter who is several lessons ahead of her brother...adding together 3 fractions with different denominators. She is NOT getting any of the 3 ways MUS is teaching in lesson 8 and I am just about ready to jump to the way I learned. but I am not sure I will be doing her a favor by doing that. What do you guys say???

[Trillian]

Funny, I almost answered this is my last post. DS likes the visual set-up and the way MUS repeats (I've tried other math programs - trust me!) but there are lots of things that bug me about the order things are ntroduced, times things seem unnecessarily complicated, etc. So, I try teaching it first "the MUS way." But, if DS doesn't get it or seems confused, I feel free to teach it in a way that makes more sense to me.

 

In fact, I have a free download from a community college of a pre-algebra book and I find the fraction explanations there clearer, so I bookmark what we're coming up to, use that explanation, and the MUS problems.

 

HTH,

[tomandlorih]

DS likes the visual set-up and the way MUS repeats (I've tried other math programs - trust me!) but there are lots of things that bug me about the order things are ntroduced, times things seem unnecessarily complicated, etc. So, I try teaching it first "the MUS way." But, if DS doesn't get it or seems confused, I feel free to teach it in a way that makes more sense to me.

 

TH,

 

:iagree:Exactly=D

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Funny, I almost answered this is my last post. DS likes the visual set-up and the way MUS repeats (I've tried other math programs - trust me!) but there are lots of things that bug me about the order things are ntroduced, times things seem unnecessarily complicated, etc. So, I try teaching it first "the MUS way." But, if DS doesn't get it or seems confused, I feel free to teach it in a way that makes more sense to me.

 

In fact, I have a free download from a community college of a pre-algebra book and I find the fraction explanations there clearer, so I bookmark what we're coming up to, use that explanation, and the MUS problems.

 

HTH,

 

:iagree: Totally. The point of learning math is to understand the concepts. I don't think it matters how you learn it, as long as you learn it. If he's not getting it the MUS way, try your way. We use MUS, and there have been a few times that I've had to explain it my way for ds2 to understand.