I thought you made a pretty strong case for Math-U-See, first off. I’m horrible at describing things like curriculum, so I have a hard time explaining why I like what I like. I thought you did really well, just wanted to mention.
I wanted to say, however, that I was glad you pointed out about what studies have shown because it is exactly what I believe has been beneficial to my children. We have different kinds of approaches to math, we don’t use one way nor one curriculum only when we do math. I find it that it becomes more enjoyable to my children and I and we tend to want to do math if we do it like this.
I don’t use everything we know or have everyday, not even every week, but I go with the flow, based on when I think it’s needed to add or change things.
Some of the things we use are Miquon Math, Cuisinaire Rods, Practical Arithmetics by Strayer-Upton, Math-U-See manipulative, video lessons for Ray’s Arithmetic, many other homemade manipulatives.
It sounds like a lot but with each child I may only use two or three things, just different things depending on what helps them more.
I love how Miquon Math is very visual and kinesthetic. It makes hard math seem so easy, because you look at it from a different perspective. Very outside the box.
I love how Practical Arithmetics is very mental and practical too. It gives real life problems for children to work out. It teaches a very easy way to solve problems and it just makes sense, it’s easy, and fun!
The Ray’s Arithmetic free video lessons are so cool for littler ones. My 4 year old son loves them and he has not had to sit at workbooks to learn. Then he applies what he has learned to real life by counting and adding pieces of wood to the porch, etc. All on his own.
All of the manipulatives are fun of course, and they help cement everything and my children love building things with those mainly.
My PT was telling me she could not help her granddaughter with her math because she couldn’t understand it either. I’m wondering if this will help them, but I kind of have a guess that, just with any subject and children that don’t get a one on one time to learn things and get overlooked because they must keep up with the overall speed, those students may still continue to do poorly, unfortunately. And for those whose parents are more involved after school and want to help, is it going to impact them now too?
2 Likes