? for those who use MUS and SM

[nitascool]

Some background:

This year ds 8 did all the problems in 30 min. daily SM 1A-2B WB, TB, EP for the second time, and CWP 1-3 with about 85% correct in 5 months (even still he was not ready for 3A). It was not a writing struggle for him but he had a really hard time remembering the facts and made careless mistakes often... it wasn't concrete enough for ds.

He also did MUS Alpha 1 hour daily (the only school they were doing at the time) in 30 days. He got it (you could almost see the light bulb come on) and was able to do any of the addition/subtraction problems in the SM books without effort afterward.

Ds 6 did SM EB 1A-2B in a month, SM PM 1A-1B in 3 1/2 months and MUS Alpha in 35 days. He breezed through the math concepts but struggles to do the writing aspect.

So for my questions...

How long did it take your child to go through a level in SM?
How many problems would he/she miss on average?
How did you handle missed Problems?
How long did it take for your child to go through MUS Alpha, Beta & Gamma?
Did he/she slow down when in Delta?
Is math his/her strong area?
Did you require him/her to write all the problems or did you act as scribe?
How did you use both curriculum together?
Should I wait until they finish Delta before going on to SM 3A/B or just do the multiplication problems and go back to the division problems later?


I'm looking for a bit of comparison here... I don't want to be caught with extra year at the end of our math, but also don't want to buy more then I really need. I already have SM 1A-3B.

But how many levels of MUS should I buy? This will be for 180 days. This year my 8yo averaged 6 pages in a 30 minute session in SM with 85% accuracy and in MUS with 99% accuracy. My 6yo averages about 4 1/2 pages in a 30 minute session with 99% in SM and 98% in MUS.

[CleoQc]

My son, the math accelerated one, did MUS pre-algebra in less than 3 months, as a young 10yo. He could have done it a year sooner though. And he could have done it faster, but I limited his time - we had other stuff to get to.
I'm not even bothering with MUS for him this year. He's going right into algebra.

[chai]

So for my questions...

How long did it take your child to go through a level in SM?
How many problems would he/she miss on average?
How did you handle missed Problems?
...
Is math his/her strong area?
Did you require him/her to write all the problems or did you act as scribe?


I can only speak for Singapore, but I have always supplemented with another program--first Miquon and then Horizons and finally Life of Fred.

Math is not my dd's strongest area. She will say that she doesn't like math, but she is still about two years ahead of her age-grade. Concepts come very easily for her, but the fact memorization has dragged her down a bit. She rarely misses problems in the workbooks--when I check percentages, it is usually 95% to 100%. We go over the missed problems together--if it is a conceptual issue, I do a lesson with manipulatives.

She went through SM1A and B in about 3 months with Miquon filling in the rest of the school year. Level 2 was about the same. When we hit level 3, we needed to slow down quite a bit. That was when I added in Horizons--which didn't work well for us. The first year of math (dd was 4), I wrote most of her answers for her. The next year I did a bit less and by the end of level 3, I phased out the writing completely.

Level 4 also took an entire school year. This year, we will be doing level 5--I plan to add in CWP and IP this year so that it will take the entire school year. If she liked math better, I think that we would be going faster. I'm still holding out hope that she will start liking math when she gets to algebra, where her conceptual skills will really shine.

Hope this helps.

[Cadam]

Some background:

So for my questions...

How long did it take your child to go through a level in SM?
How many problems would he/she miss on average?
How did you handle missed Problems?
How long did it take for your child to go through MUS Alpha, Beta & Gamma?
Did he/she slow down when in Delta?
Is math his/her strong area?
Did you require him/her to write all the problems or did you act as scribe?
How did you use both curriculum together?
Should I wait until they finish Delta before going on to SM 3A/B or just do the multiplication problems and go back to the division problems later?



First let me say that my dd is bright and advanced but not at the gifted level of many of the children here.

She went from Alpha - half way through Gamma and Singapore 1A - 2B in 20 months. During this time she was never required to do anything so we would go for long stretches never touching math. I expect her to be done with Gamma by Christmas but she hasn't touched her math books in months.

She likes me to sit with her when she does math and I often act as scribe or "assistant" (handing her blocks that she asks for). If she gets something wrong I just indicate it verbally "Almost, slow down and think about this one again".

I use both curriculums but not in any co-ordinated fashion and yes, math is a very good area for her.