? for those using MUS

[MelissaD]

I'm curious how many pages you have your kids do each day. Right now my kids do 2 pages/day but I'm wondering if life would be smoother if they only had to do one.

[daisychics]

Ds only does one page. Today we did the review page orally.

[MelissaD]

Today we did the review page orally.


Well, duh!! Orally would make things go much smoother. Sometimes I really struggle to get rid of my "school" mentality. Thanks!!

[strider]

Both kids do two pages a day. They also do some sort of math drill every day (games like multiplication war or math wrap-ups or some such).

If a page takes longer than 15 minutes then I would not make them do the second page. (Sh--don't tell them!) It's a matter of how well they understand the material. If they understand it well, then two pages is no big deal.

Ds ends up spending maybe 15-20 minutes on his math total (including drill time). He's a math whiz.

Dd spends 30 minutes, possibly 40 on a rough day, including math drill. However, there are some units that have been easy for her and she is done with the whole kit and caboodle in 20 minutes.

I would advise you to ask yourself WHY math is an area of hardship in your homeschool. If they struggle to learn the concepts, then slowing down to a page a day would certainly be appropriate. If they have a poor attitude but handle the math itself just fine, then it's the attitude that needs to be addressed, not the workload.

I will also say that doing math became waaaaaay easier on both kids when I started supplementing with math facts drills. Just 5-10 minutes a day really reinforces their memory for those facts, which makes more advanced operations go much more smoothly. It doesn't have to be painful or drill-and-kill; much of the time for us it's playing games with cards or dominoes or other things.

[Scuff]

We've just started MUS this year, so we're still feeling it out. DD6 does one page a day. She's more hands on and needs to practice with the blocks. I don't want to push her ahead if she hasn't had enough time with it. With DS, he's done one page, but he's a math wiz and that's just not enough. He'd be done in 3 minutes if that was all he did. So I just upped him to 2 pages. They both do have the freedom to do more as they want to, but this is their required minimum. They also spend a little time on the MUS website using the online drill, which has really helped my children get the facts down.

[Sue in St Pete]

I've never had the luxury of a 5 day school week. Ds does 2 pages a day M/W. Usually 1 lesson practice and 1 review. Friday is the last lesson practice and the test.

Sue

[mom2mea]

Dd6 does one page a day. I admit it does make our days smoother!

[Cadam]

one - Occasionally 2 if the problems take up a large area like the clocks in Beta.

[tvaleri]

I've used MUS for many years. My dc only work through one page per day. That way I know they remember the concept the following day. However, I think there should be more practice, so I picked up a workbook at the hs consignment store and have them work through one page as a means of keeping up skills not covered in that week's lesson :)

Smiles,
Teresa

[Once]

One page here for the most part but Dd has been wanting to do more. I know that you can skip them if the child has it mastered it but dd has a habit of forgetting things that were once mastered so she does every. single. one. Like it or not. She just started Delta and has been whizzing through it very fast. So, I require one but she does more when she feels like it.
Gotta love that MUS!

[Stacia]

Often 2 a day, but sometimes 1. It depends on the concept, how long it's taking the dc to complete their pages, etc....

We don't always do all the pages for a lesson. If they know/understand it well enough, I move on to the next section.

W/ my older child, we're supplementing w/ Life of Fred Fractions. About once a week, we'll take a break from MUS & work on a chapter in LoF.

[NevadaRabbit]

I'm curious how many pages you have your kids do each day. Right now my kids do 2 pages/day but I'm wondering if life would be smoother if they only had to do one.

Depends on how long it is taking them, and how well they understand the concept. When dd was weeping over subtraction with regrouping to the ten thousands place, I required one row of problems, done accurately, per day. When ds was zooming through single digit addition, he often did 2-3 pages per day.

Lately, though, it's been 0! We have been doing Evan-Moor's Skill Sharpeners, oral and written drills, flash cards, games like Snap It Up, hopscotch adding and subtracting, etc. I still consider MUS our main curriculum, but last year we did 1-2 pages of MUS every day and we got ... well ... sick of it. I'd really recommend throwing in some variety. It's been good for my kids to see math problems that look different than MUS pages, to see concepts worded slightly differently, etc.