SCM Elementary Math vs Math U See

I have a daughter with whom I was working through the first SCM math book. She does well with numbers and was also wanting to have the math papers like her older siblings ( who are using MUS), so I purchased Beta for her. She is doing well with it and enjoys it more than SCM. But, like you mentioned, I wanted to make sure she was getting the practice with money as well. While she probably would catch on as she got older and works with money in everyday life, I still wanted her working with it a little bit each week now, so we I have her do three days of MUS and two days of SCM math. So far it is working out well. MUS does have them working with money but I would say in a different way. It’s not as involved as far as solving problems using the coins. They learn the value of each coin and how to add and subtract money and count it. As for calendar, they learn the months and days and ordinal numbers along with them (i.e. third month of the year, first day of the week, etc.) I also struggled the first handful of years figuring out which math would work best for our kids, but MUS has worked well for us, so that’s what we’re sticking with. I really appreciate it because Steve Demme explains things in a way I never learned and I’ve had many “Now I get it!” moments myself. Ha ha! Hope this will help you.

We have always used MUS, started HSing before SCM had their program which looks amazing if it is the right fit for your family.

I really like MUS because it is independent for them to work on once they understand the new lesson. The scope and sequence is different than other elementary math programs with the mastery approach, but the lessons include reviews and build on each other so there is constant practice. I can’t remember which level but it does cover money values. I never thought too hard about money and calendar work, often seen in early elementary, because we were always doing it casually on the side. Picking up and counting coins, and always checking the calendar for what was happenig each day.

In our state we did yearly testing starting at 3rd grade, and yes some concepts were not covered yet because the different S&S, but the ones that they had learned they knew very well. It was never an issue and I just told the kids to make a guess for the things they had not learned yet. By the time they reached pre algebra they had a very solid foundation in math. We have used all the levels and currently in pre-calculus/trig.