purplemama Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Can I use my own manipulatives or do you really have to buy them from MUS? I have a base ten set and snap together cubes (don't know if they have a name), cuisenaire rods and a BUNCH of other manipulatives I bought for use with my son who uses Singapore and Miquon. Jennifer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiguirre Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 I've used both Miquon and MUS. Unfortunately, you need the MUS rods so that you can follow the videos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spock Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Can I use my own manipulatives or do you really have to buy them from MUS? I have a base ten set and snap together cubes (don't know if they have a name), cuisenaire rods and a BUNCH of other manipulatives I bought for use with my son who uses Singapore and Miquon. Jennifer My children had a solid base with Cuisenaire rods before using MUS. While I did buy the MUS blocks, I don't think it was really necessary. They would have been just fine adapting the instruction to what they already knew from Cuisenaire rods, at least for Primer, Beta, and PreAlgebra and above. However, the MUS blocks work better for the way decimals and negative numbers are taught. (The hollow backs of the blocks, plus some snap-on additions are integral to the explanations.) Even subtraction requires some change in explanation when using Cuisenaire rods. It is possible to use the DVD's plus some parent explanation and use Cuisenaire/base 10 blocks for all of this, but it requires some effort. So, to sum up: If you really can't afford the blocks, and are willing to do some work in adapting the teaching, you can get by with Cuisenaire rods and the hundreds/thousands blocks from a base 10 set. However, if you can at all afford them, it is worth it to buy the blocks that go with the program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cworthy Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 I just bought both the Cuisenaire and MUS rods/blocks used. The quality and heftiness (if that makes sense) of the MUS is significantly better, in my opinion. I thought maybe we could just use Legos, since we have about 42,000 of those, but I am glad we got the MUS blocks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovedtodeath Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 I have blocks we aren't using. What do you want to pay? Give me a PM! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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