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MUS end of alpha and still using blocks?
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Just curious how long you let your kiddos use the blocks to solve problems? My daughter is almost through with Alpha, and she is doing so well using the blocks, hardly misses any problems. If you give her problems to do without the blocks, 16-7, 13-6, etc. she can’t do them at all. I can get her to do them if we think about the blocks in her head, but not without. She really struggles with math so I don’t want to make it miserable for her. I really don’t think flash cards would help her either, it’s not the way she learns.
Has anyone else had this, and do you keep going through the levels, or do I have her stay in Alpha until she can do all the addition/subtraction facts without the blocks?
Thanks!
The idea in MUS is of mastery, not moving into the next lesson before the child masters the facts or skills in the current one. With that said, many people don’t hang out on one lesson until the child truly masters it (including me sometimes!). I will say that the goal of mastery is good because as math becomes more complicated things take longer if the child is still needing to pull out blocks to figure out each basic fact. A simple example: When they are adding 576 miles and 293 miles with mastery they quickly see and remember 6+3=9, 7+9=16, carry the one, 1+5+2=8. Ta da, they’re done. If the child has not yet mastered basic addition facts they will have to dig through blocks to build each smaller problem and it simply takes longer. A whole page of these problems then takes much longer than it would if they had mastered those basic facts.
And when you move up a level or two, say, to Delta, suddenly they are trying to do multiple processes on a single problem. 144 divided by 12 has a child multiplying (12x?=14 or less, 1. 12×1=12.) Then subtracting (14-12=2, bring down the other 4, so now I have 24.) Then back to multiplying (12x?=24 or less. 2. 12×2=24.) Then subtracting again (24-24=0). That was all just one problem and if they had to pull out the blocks for each step it takes a while and they’ve only finished one problem. Not to mention that they’ll reach the point where things don’t divide so neatly and they’ll be left with remainders.
So what would I do? Or what am I doing might be a better question – I’m trying to have a short (1 minute) fact drill each day for things we’ve already passed and working on relaxing into letting math take more days to truly master a concept when it is needed.
I have children all along the MUS range right now from Primer to PreAlgebra. The oldest started math over in 3rd grade right at the begining with Alpha. Prior to that she had used Saxon and remembered or understood almost nothing. She still struggles with math concepts, it is like a foreign language to her brain. That’s ok, we keep working. I have others who follow the sequence and ‘get it’ predictably well in a week of work on one lesson. I have one who ‘gets it’ without a single lesson, he thinks in math. My role is to balance them all and stay sane…LOL! I try to offer enough practice for those who need it and enough freedom to go at their own pace. We’ll be diving deeper in that this year.
One other thing – we don’t take off from math in the summer. We do some form year round, even if that means we’re just reviewing all summer. Or we may be doing new lessons. So maybe you spend a bit of focused time on mastering things this summer in fun ways before moving ahead this fall into Beta.
And a final thought. If it takes an entire week to learn a single fact (literally practicing it out loud daily over and over similar to scripture memory) and takes 100 weeks to master a set of facts, SO WHAT?! You have the time. Start where you are and don’t try to master it all in a single week. If all she can master in a week is one of the facts she should have learned previously then go with it. At the end of the week it is one more than she knew. At the end of the year it is 52 more facts than she knew at the beginning of the year. Teach the child! You have the freedom to make the curriculum work for your child.
We’re no longer using MUS, but I used it with my two eldest boys from Alpha through Gamma and I can tell you that Mr. Demme mentions SEVERAL times as you’re starting Beta that you should not start Beta at all until the child has all the facts down. Not only knowing the facts without blocks, but knowing them with total ease, from memory. Whether all families follow this, I’m not sure, but this is something Demme stresses – a lot. I did allow my second son to begin Beta when he had merely MOST of the facts down. Probably the wrong decision because, where his experience in Alpha had been fairly okay, he really began to struggle when we were in Beta, to the point where math became extremely unpleasant and he thought he was just always going to be a “terrible-at-math” person.
If you don’t think flashcards are the thing for your DD, you can do facts practise on the MUS website. My kids found it fun doing it on the computer. Extramath.org is another option.
Calculadder is a paper/pencil option for math facts practise it’s kind of fun because the child is competing only against himself, each day, for a better time score (whereas with the online programs, the program is timing you and you get a time-out or X if you take too long).
Games like Math Dice by Thinkfun, Math Bingo, and Shuffle Into Math Volume I, by Currah, Felling and MacDonald were other resources I leaned on during this stage of needing to seal in the facts.
My second son, now age 9.5, is halfway through Teaching Textbooks 5 (yay!), still has his facts down solid (and loves math now!)….so there is hope. Keep up the patience and find ways to change up the way she practises. Even though we left MUS, I thought the blocks were great for conceptual understanding. I’m glad my kids learned that way first. Having said this, my kids really only sealed in the facts when we added other methods and forced their brains to think in ways that included the blocks thinking but added other ways of thinking, as well. I tend to think variety is good.
HTH, Angie
We are taking the time to cement all math facts by going through the Rapid Recall subtraction and addition courses with dd before moving her on to Beta. She knows it all but still doesn’t have the facts all MASTERED, in my opinion. We will most likely be doing this in between each level up to division facts.
Having to not take time to think about the basic facts while doing longer problems will smooth the way in their math experiences so much. I would encourage you to make sure to not go on until mastery is accomplished.
-Miranda
I just ordered rapid recall a few days ago and am waiting for it to come in. I am really hopeful this will help us master the facts. We did Right start, got half way through level B, then switched to math u see alpha. we continued through the summer. We also use dreambox. I can see a lot of improvement, but I am beginning to realize she must have the facts mastered or she will always dislike math b/c its hard.
And, really, the point isn’t at all to use the blocks to solve the problems. The blocks are a conceptual tool. They should be used until the child understands and can teach back to you the CONCEPT. Then you quit using them and do paper and oral practice until the child knows the facts. You do NOT move on to the next lesson until this occurs. So, ideally, you would not even go on to lesson 2 until the child can with ease do everything in lesson 1.
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