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Anyone use MEP for math?
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I’ve heard good things about MEP and was curious if anyone here has experience with it. We use Math U See currently (and like it a lot!), but I am trying to find some more ways to incorporate math into our days. The more ways they are exposed to it the more likely we are to find what sticks for each individual child.
Here is the MEP Primary grades site: http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm
Thank you for any thoughts.
We are using it and loving it. So far we are doing Year 1 with my 6 year old, and my 4 year old just started Reception.
There is a MEP homeschoolers Yahoo group if you need more info.
Dear Tristan,
We are in Australia and are using MEP this year. We have ds 8yrs and are starting with MEP yr2 as we felt there were some things we needed to cover before moving on even if we don’t do every excercise and then move into MEP yr3.
I think we are onto a good thing here. The people I know that are using it have had great success and really like it. It appears to be way ahead of many other curriculums (especially public school curriculum in Australia). We choose it for that reason as well as the variety of excercises, use of manipulatives and it’s free so there’s nothing to loose for us. We use it four days a week for short lessons(15-20mins) and allow ds to use lots of colour. If he gets it wrong we just go over it and he gets it right the next time. The other day a week we use for maths living books and games. Friday is usually a light on day for us so we have flexibility to meet with other homeschooler/groups, do handicrafts and life skills etc.
I think you need to be creative when presenting the concepts but MEP give alot of help in the teachers notes.
I’m sure MUS is fantastic but I hesitated because of cost, and I heard some children get bored with the repetitiveness of it.
We have only been homeschooling for 6 months but I have done mountains of research and am trying to learn early the do’s and dont’s of educating at home.
I’d love to hear also other people’s opinions and experience (positive and negative) with MEP as it is new to us also, and we are trying to learn ourselves as parents what to look out for.
God bless you for the year ahead
Renelle
I use MEP for my two sons. And they completely love it. We started using it in Sept of this last year. My sons just turned 7 and 8 and I (with the suggestion of other MEP users on the Yahoo board) began them at Year 1. That was so they would get used to the program. There were also topics that they hadn’t covered yet in their previous math programs. I’ve had to adjust it somewhat to fit them. Mainly the addition/subtraction area. Year 1 starts at 0-10 numbers and my boys were well past that, into adding double digit numbers already. So some days we are able to skip past some lessons or do 4-5 lessons in a day. This will only happen in Year 1 for us though. It’s been great watching them learn the other math aspects that they didn’t know. The use of manipulatives and mental math is fantastic. I highly reccomend that you join the yahoo mep maths board. They are a great sourced of information and help.
I would agree that it is ahead of other math curriculums, and yes to being ahead of American curriculums. It is a spiral based program, which isn’t normally reccommended by CM. But it does teach in a living math style I think. You have to really think each problem through and look for sometimes multiple ways to solve it, plus the use of manipulatives. It’s a great program for energetic boys that’s for sure! lol
Hi Tristan,
If you would like to incorporate more math into your day, how about checking out Ruth Beechick’s Easy Start inArithmetic from the library? There are fantastic activity ideas (depending on your child’s age/ability). For example, 1st grade activities could be board games (counting moves, reading numbers, following rules) to building toys – Leg’s blocks (size, pattern, comparison, planning counting), Snacks (counting, sharing equally, cutting in half) craft projects (straight lnes, folding in half, following steps) collecting (sorting, comparing, classifying)
She has some 2nd grade activities as reading the calendar, thermometer, preparing a list of emergency numbers, reading household bills. I’ll stop there as I don’t know the age(s) of your child(ren).
You may already be incorporating a lot of math without realizing it!
Don’t forget, Math-U-See has some fun games in the teacher’s handbooks as well as on-line drills. I’ve also only heard good things about MEPS but we love MUS so don’t fancy a change.
Best,
Richele
Hi,
We’ve been using MEP for a bit now about 4 x / week, and we are finding it quite good takes a little getting used to. I think once you understand the abbreviations in the lesson plans it makes better sense! I find I have to go through the lesson plan the night before. I think for homeschoolers you don’t have to do every single question if you think your child knows the material already. It takes us about 15-20 mins. We also use board games, wrap ups and maths games (Peggy Kaye) on day 5 of the week as well as real life examples & hundreds chart as suggested by Ruth Beechick in The Three R’s. This mix is working really well for us. We don’t use everything on the same day of course but we draw from all those resources.
I wouldn’t add MEP to another math curriculum because it is a full stand alone curriculum in it’s own right and would just be too much, it is easy to tweak to suit your children. So far we are liking it as our choice and it’s free!
Have fun whatever you use, don’t let it be stressful!
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