Switching from Rightstart to MUS?

We switched my oldest from Saxon to MUS in 3rd. We started her in Alpha. She’s in 6th now and it has made a world of difference for her. We school year round so she’s nearly caught up to where she would have been beginning MUS in 1st. I say go with Alpha. Better to get grounded in MUS’s method than to skip ahead.

Oh, and my 1st grader and 2nd grader are in the same level on the same lesson. They have just always done math together and will keep doing so until one needds to slow down for mastery.

I switched dd11 (6th) and ds8 (3rd) to MUS this year. Both began in alpha doing only tests until there was a new idea or way of thinking. Dd11 is 1/2 way through Delta and will finish this year somewhere in Epsilon. Ds8 just finished Beta and is starting gamma which he should finish at the end of this year or beginning of next. It has been extremely beneficial for both to start and the beginning and move through. I can see us sticking with muS for the long haul.

Eta – we did not come from RS, but a variety of other tried options.

As far as the cost factor, I purchased my lesson books used. I know I’ll get most of my money back when it is time to sell them. The best deals I got were from the RS yahoo group that suzukimom mentioned. I bought the teacher’s lesson books level D and E for $25 each shipped for used. I have also purchased from ebay and homeschoolclassifieds. For the worksheets, I purchased the computer disk that contains levels A to E and Worksheets for the AL Abacus, so I can print all I need for all of my children. I have a laser printer, so it is low cost. Once the manipulatives are purchased, they are re-usable for all children and then can be sold when finished.

I would hesitate to switch them if they are not struggling with the program. I like that RS uses many different manipulatives and ways of explaining concepts, but with MUS they use only the MUS blocks. In RS they are learning subtraction also with the part-whole circles. There are a few lessons on subtraction near the end of level B, but they basically already know addition and subtraction if they know the number bonds that make up the part-whole circles. Then they just look for the part instead of the whole for subtraction. Example: 8 and 2 are the parts in the small circles that come together for 10 in the large circle. So if they know this, they also know that 10(the whole) – 8(the part) = 2(the other part). Wish I could draw the circles to illustrate. It could be that if your youngest is familiar with the part-whole circles that he would easily understand subtraction now, too. However, MUS is very reliant on the MUS blocks and the colors to represent numbers. They would spend a great deal of time learning the blocks at first, just as students in RS spend a great deal of time learning the AL abacus at first and seeing that five blue beads and two yellow beads is 7, without having to count.

RS starts adding verticle in the last half of level B. In fact, they are doing 4 digit vertical addition at the end of level B and get more practice with it in level C, when multiplication is introduced. They learn their multiplication facts with skip counting on the abacus and math card games. My ds has been very successful with the RS program, who had struggled with MUS and Saxon. So if you do switch, please consider at least still keeping an AL abacus and math games around to supplement if needed. RS recommends VideoText for pre-algebra after level G, geometry. But SCM recommends MUS after RS, and I have not decided yet which we’ll use.

You don’t already have the RS math games!? They are not hard to understand and some are on video at youtube or the dvd with the kit. This is foundational to the RS program. The author says that games are for learning math what books are to learning reading. You could try playing some of the level b math games with a regular deck of numbered cards. The instrucions should be in your lesson book. We try to play a math game daily but it is usually 3 days that we actually fit it in. Thay are very important. It doesn’t have to be only RSgames. Any math game would help.