Question about Singapore's Challenging Word Problems

[Surfside Academy]

I've used MUS for about 3 years now. My ds is about 2/3 of the way through Beta. I've been very pleased with MUS but I wanted to add some variety so I purchased Singapore's Challenging Word Problems. I have the Primary 1 book and he's up to Topical Problems 5 (Graphs).

I see that the book also includes multiplication and division. We're not there yet with MUS so I'm going to skip those sections. My question is about subsequent books. Do they follow the same pattern of variety; a little addition, subtraction, multiplication & division? I'd like to continue using CWP but the sequence is so different than MUS. I'm just not that familiar with Singapore's curriculum. I'd appreciate any input.

[Sue in St Pete]

I really wish I had discovered them earlier. So, I encourage you to stick with them. They are a great supplement to MUS.

There is a variety of topics each year. But, the variety changes. Sometimes, I would skip a section that we hadn't covered yet and come back to it the following year after MUS had covered it. If the section was easy enough, I might go ahead and cover it early. Some of the sections, for example tessellations, I have no idea if/when MUS will cover. So, I went ahead and covered it.

To me, the important thing is to expose my son to a totally different way of thinking and reasoning mathematically. It also helps clear up things for him that MUS doesn't force. I'm thinking of sections that he had to work through on perimeter and area. Because MUS has a number of problems together on area and a number of problems together on perimeter, he hadn't really made the distinction that well. Singapore changed that because he had to use both in the same problem frequently. It's wonderful.