amitymamaThe Attachment Parenting Community

momadance · 11-09-2007, 09:14 PM

We are using Saxxon math. It's okay. Ds is in first grade. I'm not over joyed with it. Do you love your math program? If so what is it? and/or does saxxon get better? It just seems pretty slow. On the one hand I think that's great for building confidence, but on the other I feel like it might not be a great challenge. He loves the worksheets though....

I guess I'm just wondering what other options are. Nothing TOO pricey!

Dannielle · 11-09-2007, 09:21 PM

I really like Horizons. The early grades (up through 2nd) have no religious references, if that's not your thing. The higher grades do.

I find it to be quite inexpensive as I just buy the workbooks on their own. The first year I used it I bought the whole shebang and never used the teacher's guides.

TeriMomOf4 · 11-09-2007, 09:33 PM

We LOOOOOVE RightStart Math!

xt · 11-09-2007, 09:41 PM

Saxon is boring for a lot of kids (and parents). Umm... I like Singapore, which we use. I also like Math U See, but that's more if you don't want to teach math. It's DVD-based.

brayg · 11-09-2007, 10:54 PM

Both Jacob (my ds) and I love Math U See. We both love the DVD lessons (they are short--generally just a couple of minutes each). Jacob gained a ton of confidence in math this year because of MUS. It went from being his least-liked subject to his second favorite (he likes his SOS Bible lessons the best) subject. Go figure.

EarthRain · 11-09-2007, 10:55 PM

We love Singapore.
Saxon is great for Algebra and up but IMHO it is too dry and repetitive for the earlier years

gretchen · 11-10-2007, 11:24 AM

Another vote for Math-U-See here...we just started it this year and Katie and I both love it.

Way2Cross · 11-10-2007, 05:53 PM

We like Singapore math. Looked and tried some others ,but found we rolled with it the best. It changes up so much, and it's not boring. We added Intensive Practice workbooks to add some more work in.

Victoria · 11-11-2007, 04:36 PM

We use MUS and Singapore. I use Singapore as a supplement in between MUS books, as my kids finish them really fast. This gives them a little bit of review and time for the math to really sink in. I love, love, love MUS and I like Singapore, especially their word problems.

IrishMama · 11-12-2007, 03:30 AM

We are on our third math program. We tried Saxon and Right Start Math and neither worked for us. We are now using Math U See and we love it. I am going to disagree with MamaXT about using it if you don't like to teach math. My kids do watch the video with me, but I do the teaching. I see the video teaching me how to teach my kids. I like the fact that the program shows me how to teach my kids instead of just giving me a page or two of instruction that I read, and I like that they only use the blocks and not a huge box of manipulatives. We plan on staying with it for a long while.

RFamHere · 11-12-2007, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IrishMama

I am going to disagree with MamaXT about using it if you don't like to teach math. My kids do watch the video with me, but I do the teaching. I see the video teaching me how to teach my kids.

I watched the demo disk and that's what he said on that - the DVD is for the parents to show them how to teach their child. However many parents have switched that over to having the DVD do the teaching for them. If we got the program I could see letting my child watch with me, but I wouldn't just send my child into the livingroom to watch it alone.

lassie · 11-12-2007, 12:22 PM

We also use MUS. We started this year (1st grade) and my dd has gained so much confidence! It sinks in with her now. We watch the DVD together and I help her as much as she needs it, but usually after the 1st worksheet, she is ready to do the other days' work by herself. I've been amazed at how quickly she catches on to the concepts now and her work is almost always 100%. Math is not her strong point, nor is it mine.

brayg · 11-12-2007, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RFamHere

I watched the demo disk and that's what he said on that - the DVD is for the parents to show them how to teach their child. However many parents have switched that over to having the DVD do the teaching for them. If we got the program I could see letting my child watch with me, but I wouldn't just send my child into the livingroom to watch it alone.

Maybe this depends on the age of the student. I started off watching the DVD and then "teaching" Jacob. Then we started watching it together. By the end (we finished this year's math last week, lol), he was choosing to watch it himself and be a self starter. This didn't bother me at all because he was mastering the material.

I'm going to order the next math (pre-algebra) in the next couple of weeks. Perhaps that will be a bit more challenging for him and I'll need to be right there watching it as well so I know how to teach the material.

xt · 11-12-2007, 02:48 PM

I think in reality, a lot of people use the DVDs to do the teaching. I assumed that was the intent, because that's how all my friends did it. Shows what I know. Doh! I really do like Mr Demme's methods and his teaching ideas. It's a great program, but my kids thought it was too slow-moving, at least at the level where we tried it in co-op. We dropped out of doing the MUS. But, now that I think about it, most of us were right there on top of the kids when we did it, reinforcing what Demme said on the DVD and helping the kids understand.

cemommy · 11-13-2007, 01:14 AM

We also use Saxon and really like it.

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