I am thinking of switching from Horizons to Singapore.
As the kids get older, the teaching-time is becoming more intensive and I’m not thrilled with Horizons TM. However, my (will be) 3rd grader does great with the program and doesn’t really have any problems. I am thinking of switching because I like how the Singapore lessons are laid out, there will be less time involved and I like their methods.
My 8 year old catches on to math rather quickly, so I think she’d be fine with any curriculum. However, she does not want to switch. I explained to her that she hasn’t read all I have about teaching math to little girls so she’ll need to trust whatever we do. She accepted this and we laughed and discussed how many homeschooling books she has (not) read. LOL
All this being said, has anyone used Singapore for 3rd grade and up, having used something else prior to that? I hear the transition can be hard. Any thoughts on Singapore Math in general that I may not have considered?
I will be doing singapore math for Kinder this fall 2012/13, never used it before but I know a few other moms that LOVE it! It explains things really well.
We’ve used Singapore K, 1A/1B, and now in 2A. My daughter is finishing up 2nd grade right now and we’ll do 2B into the start of 3rd grade. You probably know already that the numbers designated on the books do not corrrespond to grades. 🙂
We used Singapore K with Miquon, Singapore 1A/1B with MFW First Grade, and then we tried Math Mammoth Grade 1 last summer to keep things fresh, which was drudgery compared to Singapore, then she started Math Lessons for a Living Education Book 2 at the start of 2nd grade. We got half way through the book and both realized that she needs Singapore. She’s just that Singapore math brain sort of girl.
We will finish up 2A and use the summer to review with MLFLE2, but then back to Singapore and only Singapore with 2B/3A come August and 3rd grade.
I cannot sing the praises of Singapore enough. It teaches mental math in amazing ways and there are not pages and pages of practice, ad nauseum, but that is again preference and may not work for all kids, obviously. 😉 My daughters think mathematically differently with Singapore (and Miquon) than they do after using other programs. The only thing that I do teach above Singapore is vertical addition/subtraction earlier, which just means creating a few practice problems on the art easel/chalkboard here and there.
It is also affordable and simply presented for me and I do appreciate that the workbook is in black and white versus color.