Switiching from Singapore essentials K to MUS Alpha

[cseitter]

We are currently using Singapore Essentials K and are in the last half of book B. I want to switch to MUS. I have already purchased Alpha and in looking at the workbook for singapore the two might overlap.

 

Should I go ahead and switch to Alpha or would you finish out the essentials workbook and then do Alpha? My kids are 4.5 (very advanced for her age, catches on faster than her 6 year old siblings) and twin 6 year olds (boy/girl).

[heyyou]

If you were attracted to Singapore, you might look at Math Mammoth. It is much easier to teach and much, much cheaper, but it has the same high educational content. It was written by a Finnish math teacher.

 

MUS is much easier than Singapore. I think you'd be safe to just quit the Singapore and switch.

[Lugrita]

I actually did exactly that - switched from Singapore to MUS, and my younger son went from Essentials to Alpha - and the switch was super-easy but years later I wish that I'd never switched away from Singapore. We did a couple of years of MUS and it wasn't great for us (though it's a great program and many love it!), then we did Saxon, and I just bought Singapore because I so regret leaving it, I have two younger kids now also, and we are going back to Singapore! We were in a homeschool PSP during those years and they were big on MUS and Saxon, so I felt it would be best to use one of those programs at the time to keep things equal with testing...that was my mistake. That same kindergartener who switched from Essentials to MUS Alpha is now a 6th grader who does well in math, but would be doing so much better if we had stayed with Singapore!

 

So the switch is easy, and it's great if you plan to stay with MUS for the long haul, but otherwise I'd consider keeping Singapore in the mix while you do MUS, or I would suggest keeping Singapore alone or looking at Math Mammoth.

[dereksurfs]

We started all three of our dc with MUS Primer and went all the through Zeta and part of Pre-Algebra with ds11. However for our two dds MUS was never a good fit. They weren't retaining the material and disliked the approach. I wasn't thrilled with the S&S either. We eventually switched them to CLE and they are doing much better now. IMO, it really depends on the child. We are also apart of several homeschool groups where Saxon, TT and MUS seem to be the popular defaults. I'm thinking this partially has to do with ease of use. But there are many other, sometimes better math options worth considering as well.