Saturday, May 17, 2008

math program decision

Well, this morning while the older kids were putting on the final touches of their piano recital pieces, I took the little ones to The Homeschool Gathering Place in Raleigh. I sat down with Math-U-See, Saxon 3, Singapore Math 2A and compared the textbooks, the teaching manuals, and the time of each lesson and decided to put Mary in Singapore 2A for this summer and next fall. There are 5 books including a teachers manual, a textbook, a workbook, and two extra problem books. The books are colorful and full of solid explanations of concepts that MCP seemed to gloss over. There are fewer problems per lesson, but they are spread out so we don't have to copy them over onto scratch paper. I also picked up a used set of Math-U-See manipulatives, they seem just like Cuisenaire rods, but with markings to distinguish the units.
I am not a curriculum jumper, preferring to stick with the same program, but it was apparent that MCP just was making Mary miserable and not helping her grasp the big picture.

After looking at the material she wanted to jump in right away, but luckily I had the excuse of needing to leave for their piano recital. It is going to take some time to get the gist of how the program works. Likely next year math will be more time consuming than, "Do two pages of math," but I expect it will be far more productive and enjoyable for both of us.

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