Please tell me about Miquon Math

[Wonder]

Okay, DD9 will be in 4th next year. Still puzzling a bit over math for her. But, after looking a bit at c-rods and Miquon stuff, I want to investigate further for possible use with my upcoming 1st graders. Can someone explain to me how Miquon "works"? I was considering getting Mathematics Made Meaningful C-rods kit (for supplement to CLE or whatever I end up with), but then I'm wondering...if I end up going with Miquon, will I need the MMM instruction, etc.? Would I just want to get a different set of c-rods since Miquon would have "lessons"? The MMM set comes with 148 rods, but I see on here that I should get 155? How difficult is it really to "figure out" Miqon? Also, could parts of it be used for a 4th grader?

 

Would I need to supplement Miquon somehow if I went with that for my 1st graders? Or is it enough on it's own?

[ondreeuh]

Most people recommend reading the First Grade Diary and Notes to Teachers to get started. I just jumped in with Lab Sheet Annotations. If you just begin at the beginning, it explains how to present concepts to the kids and how the lab sheets are to be completed. Miquon has this mystique about it that I don't understand because it made sense to me. Realize that the lab sheets aren't "worksheets" to be filled out necessarily; many are basically activity sheets to go through. Just grab your Cuisenaire rods and start playing with ideas from Education Unboxed to get familiar with how the rods are used, then start at the beginning of Orange and see how it goes. The Lab Sheet Annotations are really critical for understanding what you really want to get out of a lab sheet. Each workbook has "threads" identified by a letter. So you can work straight through a workbook in order, or jump between the threads. We're in Orange, and my kid was confused by the way subtraction was done (thread D maybe?) so we skipped to the next thread and worked on subtraction different ways before resuming thread D where we left off.

 

For older students you can do all the A threads first (starting with Orange, the first book), then B, etc. That's what the resident experts say, anyway.

[K&Rs Mom]

Okay, DD9 will be in 4th next year. Still puzzling a bit over math for her. But, after looking a bit at c-rods and Miquon stuff, I want to investigate further for possible use with my upcoming 1st graders. Can someone explain to me how Miquon "works"? I was considering getting Mathematics Made Meaningful C-rods kit (for supplement to CLE or whatever I end up with), but then I'm wondering...if I end up going with Miquon, will I need the MMM instruction, etc.? Would I just want to get a different set of c-rods since Miquon would have "lessons"? The MMM set comes with 148 rods, but I see on here that I should get 155? How difficult is it really to "figure out" Miqon? Also, could parts of it be used for a 4th grader?

 

Would I need to supplement Miquon somehow if I went with that for my 1st graders? Or is it enough on it's own?

 

I've got two Miquon "grads" so for some kids it's plenty on their own. After all 6 workbooks, they come out well ahead of what the end of 3rd grade looks like in our local ps.

 

I don't see why the extra 7 rods would make any difference. I can't remember any pages where we needed all the rods at once. You definitely need centimeter rods, though, because on some pages you have to put the rods on the page to match the picture, and I don't know if a "brand" other than Cuisinaire would have the same colors for the same lengths.

 

It isn't too hard to figure out - often the dc knew what the sheet was asking them to do before I did - but definitely get the Annotations so you can look up anything that doesn't make sense. The intro to each section/thread in the Annotations was helpful too, with ways to introduce the topic and some explanation of why they do it that way. If you just open up the workbook and flip through to get an idea what's there, it's not going to make any sense (especially the early pages with no written instructions), but as you sit down to do each page, it really comes together.

[Ellie]

I love Mathematics Made Meaningful. It's what made me love c-rods. I think it makes sense to do MMM first, so that the children are familiar with the rods and all those concepts covered in MMM (not sure I'd complete all the task cards before starting Miquon, though).

 

I only used the Teacher Lab Notations, not the First Grade Diary (I think I read through it, but I didn't get much out of it. Probably just a me-thing, lol).

[MusicMama]

In addition to the great advice given above, I love the education unboxed videos. They helped me see the many ways to clarify mathematical concepts using the c-rods. http://www.educationunboxed.com/

[Wonder]

Great thoughts, everyone. I think I'll go ahead and get the Math Made Meaningful Set now and go from there. I'll probably wait on purchasing anything from Miquon. I was just hoping someone could perhaps "explain" it to me a bit more. It doesn't sound like "lessons," but it still seems like such a mystery. How does one DO Miquon exactly? And has anyone done another math and then switched to Miquon? I realize it's only up to grade 3.

[Ellie]

The way I do Miquon is to open the Lab Sheet Notations to the page for the next lab sheet page we're working on, and help dc figure out...whatever it is, lol. That's where the actual teaching takes place. Then dc does the lab sheet.

 

Because I tend to be OCD, lol, I took the Lab Sheet Notations to Kinko's and had the spine cut off, and the book drilled for three holes; I put the book in a three-ring notebook, and attached tabs to the pages to make it easier to find the lab sheet notation I wanted.

[Grover]

Like Ellie we just worked through the books as laid out. DS loved it and finished the entire programme in a year. It's definitely given him an excellent grounding. Some days he'd do one page, other days he'd do 10 - I just followed his lead. DD is starting Orange now (about 8 pages in) and she's much more inclined to take a single page and then expand on those ideas with the rods. I can see she's going to need more encouraging to move on.

[Wonder]

Because I tend to be OCD, lol, I took the Lab Sheet Notations to Kinko's and had the spine cut off, and the book drilled for three holes; I put the book in a three-ring notebook, and attached tabs to the pages to make it easier to find the lab sheet notation I wanted.

 

Ellie, it looks like you're "done" homeschooling? Do you do tutoring or ??? Is Miquon all you use? Or are "supplements" needed?

 

Thanks!

[MistyMountain]

I do some of the activities from education unboxed but I really want something more laid out to work with the c-rods with my kids. This seems so confusing. You need the notes to teachers, lab sheet annotations and the 1st grade diary plus the orange book to start with? I don't see myself reading through all of those and working with them all to figure it out. I wish there was an easier program for working with c-rods. My 4 and 6 year old have been enjoying what I have been doing with the c-rods.

[Meriwether]

My boys hated Miquon. I know kids are supposed to love it, but... I tried to start Ds6 in the first book when he was five. He already knew his facts (from hearing his brother) and had good number sense. He'd look at the page and say, "Do I have to use the rods? I know that answer. And that one. And I know how to do this." My, "Just get the rods out and do it. This is supposed to be fun," probably didn't help. :nopity: I know that there are neat (and much more advanced) things they could do with the rods, but now they grimace whenever they see them. I let Dd3 play with the rods. Maybe she'll like them.

[Ellie]

Ellie, it looks like you're "done" homeschooling? Do you do tutoring or ??? Is Miquon all you use? Or are "supplements" needed?

 

Thanks!

 

Oh, yes, I'm way, way finished homeschooling. But it turns out that I will always be a homeschooler, lol.

 

I started an umbrella-type school when I was in California (technically, a private school satellite program), when dds were 10 and 13, and I did that for 16 years (until I moved here to Texas in 2004); that involved curriculum counseling, which meant I had to stay up on everything, plus I talked with the families monthly and they told me about the different materials and whatnot they were using. The first Internet sites I checked out were homeschooling sites, and I've just never given those up. :-)

 

I used Miquon in the little one-room, multi-grade school at my church that I started when my younger dd was 14. Long story. :-) I did not use all the books. I did not supplement, although I have known people who used something like Calculadder to teach math facts.

[Five More Minutes]

I do some of the activities from education unboxed but I really want something more laid out to work with the c-rods with my kids. This seems so confusing. You need the notes to teachers, lab sheet annotations and the 1st grade diary plus the orange book to start with? I don't see myself reading through all of those and working with them all to figure it out. I wish there was an easier program for working with c-rods. My 4 and 6 year old have been enjoying what I have been doing with the c-rods.

 

 

I think that Miquon sounds more confusing than it actually is because it uses unfamiliar descriptors (lab sheets, lab annotations) and because it doesn't have to be followed in order.

 

The First Grade Diary and the Lab Annotations together form the equivalent of an Instructor's Guide. I think of them as presenting two complementary instructional approaches: the first approach is led by the teacher using activities and dialogue (this is what you see on Education Unboxed), and the other approach supports students as they explore a topic using a lab sheet as a guide. The two instructional styles are complementary, reinforcing, and very fluid, to be used at the teacher's discretion.

 

In First Grade Diary, one gets a sense of how an instructor can routinely set up activities and discussions to lead students into learning about a topic. It describes several months of Miquon in a classroom: how the teacher introduces new topics, identifies areas for follow-up, helps struggling students, and most of all uses her knowledge of the students to tailor the learning to them.

 

The Lab Annotations then give you, the teacher, specific notes for the lab sheets so that you can help students as they investigate math topics more independently. You don't have to read them all ahead of time. I've flipped through them (because I read math for fun :-) ), but often I only pick them up if my daughter seems to find a particular sheet difficult. Then I turn to the annotations for activity ideas.

 

A young student typically starts with the Orange book and works through it consecutively, but this is not necessary. (The student *could* move through threads instead, doing the addition activities in both the Orange and the Red books before moving on to subtraction, and so forth.)

 

If you're already doing the activities at Education Unboxed, then you're doing the "hard" part of Miquon. The easy part is found in the lab sheets, which you can often hand over to a student to work through and simply be available to help as needed.