For those who supplement with Singapore

[oliveview]

We use Saxon and I am wondering how or why I should supplement with Singapore. I have read that this is something that a number of people do. My guess is that it is just a different way for them to "look" at math and therefore a different way to "think". Is this correct?

 

So, what do you use to supplement and how do you fit it into your schedule?

[Sunshine State Sue]

We use MUS and supplement with Singapore's CWP. I do this for several reasons:

• to challenge my math-oriented ds (I have a degree in math)
  
• because MUS is light on word problems
  
• to work on math from another perspective and to a different degree
  

 

As an example, CWP has a section on area & perimeter. Ds could do a bunch of area problems easily, a bunch of perimeter problems easily, but mixing them up really made him have to think about the difference. A number of the problems, he had to use both. They would give him the area and ask for the perimeter or vice versa. Many of the CWP take multiple steps to finish.

 

MUS has 30 lessons in a book. I counted the number of CWP this year (290) and decided to do 9 per week. He does math 3x per week, so he does 3 per day. The first year we supplemented, we focused on CWP during the summer. It was tougher to do that. It's better for us to spread it out. One year, I did 3 weeks MUS, 1 week CWP. Again, it's difficult to work many at once.

 

Good luck!

[linders]

My DS and I use and love RightStart for our core math. He finished A and B and is now in C. RS is great for conceptualizing math (my DS became quite fond of the abacus), but I threw in SM to get math "on paper" more. I guess as an engineer, "I" needed to see that. I had DS do a lot of SM PM1 and all of Challenging Word Problems 1.

 

Now, RS throws in more work on paper starting with Level C, so we will probably back off to just adding SM's Challenging Word Problems. I love the word problems, they make math "real life" and I think DS appreciates that.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Linders