MEP users advice?

[Jewel]

I have been looking at MEP for a little bit now however I am a big fan of Singapore. Is it possible to do both? How would I do this without math being an hour long? My 5yr has begun PM 2A which she enjoys at the moment. I noticed that their levels are different from Singapore but MEP contains more practice of skills in a rather fun engaging way. Math is protrayed as easy which makes sense to me. I think my kids would think this was like some kind of brain menders unit rather than math.

[Jen3boys]

We tried Singapore w/MEP last year. We did Singapore 4 days a week and MEP one day.

[Jewel]

I am wondering if I should have dd do 1B to get some of the new math concepts such as various volumes, measurements, roman numerals, etc. which Singapore has not covered. MEP 2A looks good but I can see she would have missed some lessons in these new math concepts. I am begining to like the program more and more...maybe time to ditch Singapore for a bit and try something new at least a few days of the week.

[WendyK]

I love Singapore and I have no desire to find something to replace it. However, I lit up (and so did my son) when I saw MEP. So I start off with 1 worksheet page from MEP each morning and then we continue with our regular amount of Singapore work. If that takes you to long, you could just pick 2 problems from MEP (or whatever). We are in Singapore 3a, I started on MEP 2b page 80 in the workbooks. It has slightly increased the amount of time we spend on math, but not by that much. And my son doesn't complain about that. He enjoys the uniqueness and challenge of the problems.

[Jewel]

The kids are enjoying MEP and we have finished 6 lessons of 2A. I decided to catch them up on new concepts, as we move along, not covered in Singapore rather than taking a whole step back. I am not sure how to incorporate Singapore in without overloading the kids but will play with the idea a bit. MEP really makes sense to me, even more than Singapore. The only draw back to MEP is that it is not colored!

[Spy Car]

Isn't it fun? I kind of like that is not colored. And my son (who's doing level 1 of MEP and Singapore likes MEP the best.

Like father, like son? :D

[Amber in AUS]

My DD is doing level 1 of MEP and LOVING it. She is asking to do it first thing now and 'Numbers' as we call it wasn't so high on the list previously.

[Mommy22alyns]

We're adding in a little MEP with our Right Start - Becca really enjoys both.

[westcoastmom]

Isn't it fun? I kind of like that is not colored.


That's one of the things that I like best about it. Also the worksheets/instructions are easy to follow. Books where I have to try and figure out what they are getting at drive me crazy.

[Corraleno]

For those of you combining Singapore with MEP, do you just pick and choose MEP worksheets that correlate to the Singapore lesson? Or just work through the books sequentially and not worry about whether they line up (e.g. 3 days Singapore 1B and 2 days MEP 1B each week)?

Has anyone used MEP with Miquon?

Jackie

[Spy Car]

For those of you combining Singapore with MEP, do you just pick and choose MEP worksheets that correlate to the Singapore lesson? Or just work through the books sequentially and not worry about whether they line up (e.g. 3 days Singapore 1B and 2 days MEP 1B each week)?

Has anyone used MEP with Miquon?

Jackie

We started with Cuisenaire Rods and Miquon just after my son turned 4. Then added Earlybird Singapore and Japanese Math and then MEP.

When we started out I made up a lot of activities myself, including a great deal of inequalities work with rods, and with values represent different ways on cards. I didn't know then that I'd discover MEP and that inequalities were the big thing he'd encounter there, but it was "dumb luck".

I do think a Miquon combo with MEP is a good one. The modes are different but the promotion of thinking stills when it comes to math is very similar. So they each give you another angle of attack, as does Singapore.

I also feel the exposure to Miquon prepared him to start doing MEP at a much younger age than if he'd not become very math confident via Miquon.

Bill

[Karin]

In my experience, Singapore in the early stages really doesn't take very long. Is my perspective warped ;)? 10 or 15 minutes for a lesson, tops, most days. That does depend on the level you're doing, though, and whether or not you need to teach a new concept and how long it takes for your dc to understand that (long division was challenging for my 11 yo and is challenging for my ds). It takes longer as the levels go up, depending on what's being covered. MEP is taking us longer only because I insist that we do virtually everything in the teacher's guide. We don't really have to, but some of it is getting ds to think outside of his math box.

I think at that age you could alternate. We do easily take an hour a day for math now, but ds is 8. However, we spend less time on certain other subjects, such as history, than many do at 8; I only shoot for twice through instead of 3 times through in history. Since I think that good mathematical thinking is important, I invest more time in it than I probably "should".

Miquon was a poor fit for ds, who is very verbal with math, although he apparently thinks in pictures and does have some indications of that in other areas of his life. I think Miquon would have been great for my dd's who like to do math their own ways, but not always the books' ways.