Much Ado About Nothing
...okay, maybe not nothing. I wouldn't exactly characterize Saxon Homeschool, Everyday Math, Miquon, Singapore and K12 as NOTHING, per se. But for us, that's what it ended up being (the ado part...too much of it).
Here's the story. This past January I signed up for K12 Independent in Language Arts and Math. Our state offers this program (free!) through the schools but I wanted to make sure we liked it before all the rigamarole (a word?) of signing up through the district. We hated the Math. Even my Kindergartener who says "I love Math, Mama!" and tested a full year ahead got REALLY bored. So our use of it lasted a good two weeks. Then we tried Math-U-See Primer. She sped through....I didn't get the sense that it was complete enough. Thus began my quest for the right math program(s) for us.
Enter characters: Miquon, Saxon Homeschool, Everyday, Singapore.
The plot in a nutshell: wacko me bought ALL of these curriculums for first grade (ok, I was given Everyday by my Mom, First Grade Teacher Extraordinaire whose school uses this but they just got new editions) somehow thinking that I could peruse them all and the answer would just come to me. I was ready to either decide on one or conglomerate for the just-right-program. I did this the other evening. My husband came home from a gig and found me up to my eyeballs and beyond in math curriculums, comparing and contrasting, blah, blah, blahing.
The moral: Guess what I discovered? What my gut came up with? Well, of course I realized that I just needed to stick with MUS and move to Alpha. Because, you know what? Wendy was happy when we were doing MUS. It's just that she had tested into first-grade level math and I had somehow thought I needed to get the Primer to try-it-out. But the Primer is just an overview and doesn't get too meaty.
This is not a "dis" of the other programs. They all seem great. They just seem, for us, too flashy, too busy-work intensive. The testimonials about MUS tend towards explaining how their kids just really-get-math, just really-love-math, just aren't-bored-with-math.
Sounds good to me!
Here's the story. This past January I signed up for K12 Independent in Language Arts and Math. Our state offers this program (free!) through the schools but I wanted to make sure we liked it before all the rigamarole (a word?) of signing up through the district. We hated the Math. Even my Kindergartener who says "I love Math, Mama!" and tested a full year ahead got REALLY bored. So our use of it lasted a good two weeks. Then we tried Math-U-See Primer. She sped through....I didn't get the sense that it was complete enough. Thus began my quest for the right math program(s) for us.
Enter characters: Miquon, Saxon Homeschool, Everyday, Singapore.
The plot in a nutshell: wacko me bought ALL of these curriculums for first grade (ok, I was given Everyday by my Mom, First Grade Teacher Extraordinaire whose school uses this but they just got new editions) somehow thinking that I could peruse them all and the answer would just come to me. I was ready to either decide on one or conglomerate for the just-right-program. I did this the other evening. My husband came home from a gig and found me up to my eyeballs and beyond in math curriculums, comparing and contrasting, blah, blah, blahing.
The moral: Guess what I discovered? What my gut came up with? Well, of course I realized that I just needed to stick with MUS and move to Alpha. Because, you know what? Wendy was happy when we were doing MUS. It's just that she had tested into first-grade level math and I had somehow thought I needed to get the Primer to try-it-out. But the Primer is just an overview and doesn't get too meaty.
This is not a "dis" of the other programs. They all seem great. They just seem, for us, too flashy, too busy-work intensive. The testimonials about MUS tend towards explaining how their kids just really-get-math, just really-love-math, just aren't-bored-with-math.
Sounds good to me!
Labels: Blogroll
posted by Sarah at
9:32 AM
1 Comments:
Glad to read that you still like MUS. I purchased Primer but haven't really even looked at it. (how's that for $75 wacko?) I just checked the Kindergarten content for Everyday. It all seems like material that Citcat knows but doesn't really quite understand. Your post makes me think I should just break out the Primer and see where it takes us but I am reluctant to start a "curriculum" of any sort. I look forward to your continued observations about MUS.
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