MUS vs Abeka

[mommaduck]

We started with Abeka Arithmetic, but switched to MUS this past year due to burnout. However, I noticed there was no teaching of measurements, reading temperature, or fractions. We used Primer, Alpha, and Gamma. Are these things taught in other books or not? Are they taught for mastery of these things or just given an overview?

[Cadam]

Yes, they are taught to mastery. I am sure you noticed that when MUS taught counting by 5's they applied it to money and suggested counting nickels. Measurements are gone over when learning perimeter and area.

The Epsilon book is all about fractions. Were you not aware of the unusual teaching order before getting MUS? It can throw you if you are not prepared for it but it's all in there, just in a different order. We are nearly finished with the lower levels (ds will start Zeta by Christmas) and now I can look back and see how logical the placement was of these extra things. They really related to the lessons around them.

If MUS is working for you kids keep at it. Since it is so different from other math books I don't suggest switching in and out of it but it is a great program.

A small brag.... My ds who is half way through Epsilon didn't miss a single math problem on his CAT test this year!!

[mommaduck]

No, I wasn't aware until after I bought the program, but wasn't against it as it was perfect this past year. The only thing that I'm thinking of is a situation that I had with my oldest son. He started Algebra in 5th grade. He already mastered what he needed through Abeka. If he had been using MUS, he would not have learned fractions yet or would have just been learning it??

[Cadam]

A lot of people skip the introduction section of the video. Did you skip it? It talks about how to make sure the child can teach you the lesson and then moving on. This means that for an advanced or gifted child you wouldn't do all 6 practice pages. You might only do one or two. In this way a good math student could get through more than one book a year. In fact since MUS books only have 30 lessons if you completed one lesson a week in a 35 week school year you would start the next book before the end of the year.

If you had a child ready for algebra in the 5th grade then he would have gotten through the MUS books quickly and moved on to Algebra. I like MUS for my advanced student because it is easy to speed up. At one point she was required to only do one page per lesson. So yes, he would have learned it because he would have gotten all of the information at his own pace. The concept of fractions isn't directly taught until the last lesson of Delta.

I have one child who struggles with math and spent 18 months in Delta. I thought Long division was going to kill us both! He is now halfway through Epsilon and fractions are coming easy for him because of a strong base in division.

Around here most kids do Algebra in 8th or 9th grade so he is on track for going into 6th grade. I think he will breeze through the rest of Epsilon and Zeta to start Pre-Algebra Fall or winter of 7th grade.

My dd that loves math is already working her way through Gamma and she won't be 7yo until August so they may start pre-Algebra together, when she is in 4th grade, but that remains to be seen.

[Sue G in PA]

Hi JC. I was just concurring w/ Christina about your oldest and how he would have most likely "breezed" through MUS and gotten to Alg. at around the same point as he did w/ Abeka. We started MUS a few months ago w/ ds10 and he has been doing well but my concerns where much the same as yours. Is it as thorough as other programs? Will he cover all the same material? The answers I've gotten from many on this board as well as from the MUS Yahoo group is that YES, he will cover the same material...just not in the same sequence. I'm still not convinced that MUS is "the" program for us (for me!), but it is working for him. I do plan to supplement (if not switch entirely) to Singapore for the mental math challenge. Ah, decisions, decisions.