Which level CWP should I get?

[joannqn]

I'm putting together my list of curriculum I need to purchase for next year but I'm not sure which level I should get.

Both of my kids will be doing Math-U-See Epsilon level (fractions) next year. We like this program; it works very well for us. I do not want to switch to Singapore or use their basic program; I tried it with my daughter and I could not figure out the method they use well enough to teach it. However, I would like to add more difficult word problems to their curriculum to get them thinking more, so I thought of the Challenging Word Problems books.

I don't mind going back levels to get started since they haven't had exposure to either Singapore or more challenging word problems. So, which level would you start at? I was thinking I'd possibly go back to 3 and work our way up from there. Is that too far? Not far enough?

Also, the samples I've seen have all of the measurements in metric. Have you noticed this being a problem? I figure in a math problem it doesn't really matter what unit is being used as long as you don't have to convert anything, then it is a problem if you don't know how to do the conversions. We won't be covering metric conversions until the year after next.

[Jen3boys]

I'd start with the level 3 book but also get the next books. I've never used MUS though. When we started CWP, we looked at the sample problems to figure out the bar method, and then went right to the challenging problems section.
We've never had to convert from US measurement to metric--is that what you mean? Some of the problems use metric measurements, and some use US measurements.

[joannqn]

Also, are there solutions (not just answers) to go with the problems. I looked at a sample question from level 3 and just could. not. figure. it. out. It was a problem that seemed to require algebra knowledge, which I don't remember how to do.

[Jen3boys]

There are answers in the back of the books, no solutions. If you're stuck you can always ask here or on the Singapore Math forums.
The first time I looked at CWP I thought we needed to know algebra...then we went through some of the sample problems to figure out how to solve them w/o algebra, by drawing bar models. The beginning of each topic section has some sample problems, and shows how to work through them. It was an AHA moment for us. OTOH, some of the challenging ones were...challenging!