Using Ray's Arithmetic, considering RightStart

I started using MEP with my 3 girls this year and we LOVE it!!!  I can tell it will be a great program for helping them actually understand math, and even my math knowledge has gotten better in the 3 weeks we’ve been doing it.  Thanks to suzukimom for posting those links for me previously.  They were such a help.  Def join the yahoo group. 

I printed a month’s worth of practice book pages and lesson plans.  Then I went through and scanned the lesson plans and used colored felt tipped pens to make note of things, like if I needed to print a copymaster page, or if I needed to gather materials.  This took about 20 minutes total. I tend to print any extra needed pages (copy masters) each day.  I’d like to plan better than this but so far have not.

I started my almost 13 year old in Year 2, because she was just learning multiplication but I felt that she did not have a good foundation.  My 10 year old is also in Year 2, and my 8 year old is in Year 1. 

For my oldest daughter the lessons are 30 minutes, for my 2 younger girls the lessons are 20 minutes.  I set a timer and when it goes off we stop.  It that means we do 2 lessons, great!  If that means only half a lesson is done, we pick it up the next day.  If I realize in the middle of a lesson that I do not have a Copy Master printed that I need, I note it and we do it the next day.

Some Moms use stuffed animals whenever “pupil” activities are called for.  I don’t.  I either skip those activities, or draw something on the white board to demonstrate the main idea.