MathUSee – length of daily lessons

It’s really not expensive, not for what you get.  If you have other children coming up, then all you need to do is get a student book for the youngers.  We really feel it’s been a very cost effective program for us, as we’ve had three kids use it all the way up.

Yes, you work with your child’s attention span, 15-20 minutes per day until mastery is achieved, whether this is three days  or two months.  🙂  My typical process looks like this:  (of course mine are older now, but I do remember the younger years!)  First day, watch the video together and maybe do some practice problems with the blocks; day two to however many, continue doing practice problems with the blocks until the child can teach it back to me.  Then I decide how many worksheets are necessary, and we work on those for a few days.  (I often did one to two sheets on the new topic, then moved on to the systematic review–if they didn’t miss any on the first systematic review, then I let them just do the word problems on the next two pages.)  If they need some memory work on the basic facts, sometimes we’d spend a day or however many needed on the online practice on the MUS site.  After this, then the test would just be a simple “See, I can do it!” demonstration, and time to move on to another topic.  All children move at different paces, and sometimes the same child will do a lesson very quickly and then take much longer on a later one.  It just depends.  Follow your child’s cues about when to move on.

I am using Alpha with my dd6 right now, and what Bookworm described pretty much describes how we do it. I don’t think we ever spend much more than 15-20 at a time. We watch the video the first day together and work through the first worksheet together, then in the succeeding days I gradually work with her less and less as I see that she understands and can do the problems on her own. I don’t give her the test until I am sure she can do all of the facts problems without using the blocks. I use the online drill program daily for practice too – both for the current fact family as well as reviewing all the others. We also sometimes play games if she needs some extra practice for facts mastery. We are moving through Alpha slowly, but I figure it is better to take the extra time for facts mastery now since it will make more advanced concepts easier later on (rather than a continual struggle). I was intially put off by the cost of Math U See in the beginning as well, and we started with another math curriculum that was cheaper but really wasn’t clicking for us. Math U See has been worth the investment for me – and as Bookworm pointed out, if you have other children who will use it later, the cost evens out since the only thing you have to replace is the workbook.

HTH,

Jen

Y’all are making me want to try MUS again!  We started with my ds at one point, and he got really annoyed with the blocks.  He is highly distractable, and the blocks, colors, etc, were just too much for him.  Never tried it with my daughter.  I have another ds coming down the line, though.  Maybe it will work for him!  🙂

I’m so glad to hear all of this. Thanks for everyone’s input. My 6YO (almost 7) is starting Delta next month and all of this info has been very helpful.

Pardon if I missed this being posted, but the MUS Yahoo Group has used materials come up pretty regularly.  I just bought Pre-Alg. and Alg. for a decent price, and I often see the younger years posted, too.  Student books don’t come up much, but the Teachers Manuals and Dvd’s do.  We love MUS:)  Gina