Can anyone tell me about Mathematical Reasoning by Critical Thinking Press?

[allijammomma]

I want something spiral because ds8 tends to forget concepts easily. I didn't love all of the copying in Saxon because he hates to write, so we went with CLE. I really liked it, but it was tears, mental breakdowns, crying all the time for him. I think the colorful pages might help, too. (I let them chose a workbook spelling on their own, and he chose BJ spelling because of illustrations and colors.)

 

I'm terrible at searching this forum so if I'm missing all the posts on this one, feel free to fwd or post or however it's done here.

 

Thanks!

[HomeAgain]

Well, it didn't work for us.  I bought one book (I think the K or 1st grade level).  I thought my son would love it.  He hated the colorful pages, he hated the format, and it was pulling teeth to get him to sit with me.  After looking through the whole thing I came to agree with him for a different reason - the lack of concrete and hands on work did not make it a winner in our house.  We switched to a black and white curriculum and made it a priority to go through concepts with different manipulatives before sitting down with any written work.  He found it a lot more interesting than the colorful book and became much more engaged.  He carries his math book around with him now. LOL

 

Moral of the story: spiral or mastery, the "see it, do it, say it, write it" method is what my kid needs to progress and keep it all straight in his head.

[desertflower]

Yes, I think it's spiral.  My ds and dd liked it.  I think I used it for K and 1. 

 

I think the only thing they liked about it was that it was colorful.  It didn't teach me how to teach them.  I used it as a review if we go somewhere and I need them to do something quietly. 

[UnlikelyHomeschoolingMama]

I use it as a supplement.  I don't know that it would work for us as a main math curriculum.  We use ABEKA which is GREAT for arithmetic.  My kids are strong on their math facts and understanding of Math.  The Mathematical Reasoning books help supplement by making them "think" a little differently about what they are learning.   But I'm a big fan of traditional math as a spine, but always offering a different approach to make sure they can come at things differently.  In kinder and 1st for my DD we used Singapore for that.  Just the workbooks...nothing else.    

 

I will switch to Saxon in 4th grade, but will still use MR as a supplement.  

 

Good luck!!

[Ewe Mama]

I tried it on two different occasions; Once with Joy who worked through about half of the first level and just recently with Faith who was trying to do the third level, but only lasted about 30 pages before the tears began because "it was too confusing." Both liked the colorful aspect, but the directions were sometimes not very clear/easy to follow.

 

The books themselves, while relatively expensive, are not bound well. After only doing a few lessons, Faith's book started to pull away from the binding and the pages began to loosen. I remember the same thing happening to Joy's book, although not quite so soon.

 

It turned out to be an expensive mistake for us, both times.

[Momto6inIN]

It worked well for us for K as a fun introduction to "doing math" for my DD who already knew the math concepts involved. It didn't "teach" her anything, just gave us a fun and colorful way for her to get used to a math workbook before starting MM in 1st. I don't know anything beyond the 1st book in the series, but I imagine it would make a fun supplement for a more cut and dried main curriculum.

[Vida Winter]

We tried it for a while in 3rd grade. Around mid-way it was either tedious and hard OR very easy -- nothing in between. So that got to be a huge struggle and wasn't worth the effort & we dropped it. In retrospect I could have (should have) mixed it up, had her skip some problems, or some other creative thing. I think we switched to BJU instead.