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Making Math Meaningful - what do you use next?


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I have not used Making Math Meaningful level 6, but I own it. My suggestion would be Jacob's Algebra. The first third of Harold Jacob's Algebra is Pre-Algebra concepts, the last two-thirds are a thorough treatment of Introductory Algebra. It's written in a similar bent to Making Math Meaningful. The style in which it is written, I think it's a good book for self-teaching or minimal instruction.

 

Each lesson has four problem sets. GoogleBooks has an extensive preview of the book, so you can see if your kid would approve of the problem sets. The first problem set is like a "check for understanding", five easy questions to show that you are ready to answer the questions. Problem Sets 2 and 3 are like the Even and Odd versions of each other (twenty questions that start easy and work up to challenging, and doing both sets isn't necessary). Problem Set 4 is a small section of about four questions that really require you to apply your knowledge (good Challenge questions).

 

 

Additionally, before going into Jacob's Algebra, you might want to consider first going "sideways" with a year of Math Mammoth or Singapore (grade 5 or 6). Grade 5 because both grades cover similar concepts (just Grade 6 has the harder computations, higher numbers, etc.), and it's approaching summer time so it might be a good time for "light review" as opposed to "repeating a grade". ;-)

 

I love Math Made Meaningful's approach and frequently reference them as teacher's manuals / lesson plans, but I think that the program suffers from being skewed in grade level. The early grades stay on track (teaching above-grade level concepts in fact). Once it hits division, however, the program peters out and doesn't cover the full 6th grade math scope. While a kid who completes MMM has a deep understanding of division, fractions, and algebra in a way that a kid in traditional PS math wouldn't receive, the MMM student may not be able to calculate exponents, express numbers in scientific notation, or find mean, median, mode statistics that are covered in traditional curriculums. That's why I feel like a runthrough of Math Mammoth 5 or 6 would be a good chance to make sure all your bases are covered before moving out of arithmetic and on to algebra. For the long-term, Jacob's would likely be a good fit with your math philosophy and desire for a curriculum that can be done independently.

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Thanks for this input - I was thinking the same thing about some topics being missing from MMM 6, and possibly a year of overlap with another 6th grade being a good idea. My only qualm about Jacob's Algebra is then switching curriculum - again - for high school, since there's no algebra 2 that follows on. But maybe I'm borrowing trouble too far ahead.

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DS was in MMM5 when we discovered Life of Fred. We did LoF Fractions with MMM5 and Lof Decimals and Percents with MMM6. We tried to go straight from there into Lof Beginning Algebra but it was too much (the pre-algebra books weren't out yet). We did MMM Algebra and then LoF Algebra without to many problems. We have stuck with LoF since then and have recently added AOPS (wish I had known about this earlier).

 

My bonus student is half way through MMM4 and we are using the Lof Intermediate books along side this. The plan for him is next year to do MMM5 with Lof fractions and D&P. That would set him up to do MMM6 with the Lof Prealgebra books and then move into Algebra.

 

If a student is not ready for a heavy Algebra course after MMM6 you could either do a heavier pre-algebra course next, or use MMM Algebra as a Algebra-lite before moving to a heavier Algebra.

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