Hi, I will start homeschooling my oldest child in August, and I have no idea what I am doing! She will start kindergarten and choosing her math curriculum is a terribly hard choice. After researching this I am leaning between Saxon and MUS, and I had some questions for anyone who has used these.
Will MUS make my child appear behind in math if she takes any test in a couple of years?
Do you think Saxon does a good job of explaining how math works?
We are looking for something that is not advanced or accelerated, we just want something that will teach useful math skills and give a little challenge at times but overall reinforce needed skills.
I used Saxon in high school and enjoyed it but I understand the lower levels are not as well liked.
If we use MUS over the long term will it show her behind on a standardized test? I know they don’t teach to tests.
We want something that will not be too fast paced but do a great job in educating math and make a good foundation for when they are adults. We just don’t want a challenging program that would lead to burnout or too much at once.
Thank you for your input!
We are using MUS and really like it. We started last year combining the 10, 9, and 8 year old. You can go as fast or as slow as you need. The three children all seem to like it.
We used MUS for all three of my older kids up until high school. We switched to Shormann Math for high school because I felt like it was a bit better for college prep. MUS teaches to mastery, so there are certain skills that they may not cover that are on the annual tests. Our kids still scored great on math, but we were prepared for a lower score just in case. As long as they did good on the sections they had covered I am happy, so I wasn’t worried about it. But their scores were still fine.
You can go at your own pace and they even have more worksheets you can download if you need more help in a certain area. I really love the mastery concept and my older kids did great with MUS.
That said, my youngest wasn’t doing as well with MUS. She needed more guidance on certain skills and so we switched to Teaching Textbooks for her. It’s a bit of a change because TT is a spiral curriculum so a bit different than MUS. But she’s doing great with TT, and her test scores are awesome as well. I think it just depends on what fits your family/child best
I’ve used Saxon with my kids from grades K to 7 and I love it. I find Saxon to be a very comprehensive curriculum that does an excellent job of explaining math concepts for kids. They use a lot of manipulatives such as coins, linking cubes, pattern blocks, etc. to help kids really understand the math concepts. There’s a lot of review and repetition. For many years in a row, I’ve been teaching multiple levels of Saxon (for example this year I have kids doing Grade 4, 3 and K Saxon) and it’s easy to see how concepts in the younger grades lead up to more complex concepts taught in older grades.
A friend of mine uses MUS with her younger kids and then switches to Saxon around grade 4, I believe. So that’s another option. You don’t have to commit to a curriculum for the rest of your child’s schooling!!!
I now have two children who have transitioned from homeschooling in grade 7 to our local high school in grade 8. Both of them were well ahead in math. My oldest daughter went from hating math and finding it hard to telling me that her friends at school thought she was really good at math. I’m actually regretting that I didn’t have my second daughter write the math placement test, because she could have skipped a grade of math (and had more time in her grade 12 year for other interests), as Saxon is ahead of the local curriculum.
