Thank you for your comment. I am certain if I hadn't figured out my daughter's learning style, she would have had a lifelong struggle with math as I did. I guess that is why I wanted to explain how and why MUS works for our brains in this family. It's not better, just different.

I think that is really wonderful that you are doing that on your own. I had trouble with math growing up and now I am determined to teach Morgan -- but also, when we get to pre-algebra, I'll probably be buying a workbook for me as well and take the courses along with her. I would love to get to Calculus. I really hope the program you choose works for you! And I wish you all the best!!!

Thank you for watching it. I have it in my notes now to make sure I lead with "Good curricula fails when they don't match the kid, not because they're poor curricula." I watched some of those warning videos about Teaching Textbooks, too. I don't want to ever alarm anyone by my videos

@@ThePattersonHomeschoolAcademy you do a great job! I’ve watched your videos before and have always enjoyed them. Each individual person has a responsibility to hold that barrier in our minds where we can listen to other people’s opinions about curriculum but not take it personally and also be mindful that just because we feel a “way” about a program doesn’t mean we’re qualified to say it isn’t a good curriculum 😅

That is really interesting. What drove your decision to switch after epsilon? I notice major switches from one type of curriculum to another occurs around the pre-algebra mark. It is really nice to hear someone else used two programs to fill gaps. In our case, I am so pleased it is working. It was a risk to go so far back with Morgan but I'm glad we did it. Now I see it as one of the premier perks of homeschool. Thanks so much for your comment and for sharing with others

So, we switched to the Robinson’s Curriculum which uses Saxon. In doing that we realized that my 8 year old son LOVES Nicole the Math Lady and Saxon but was too slow on his math facts. So, I wanted to start completely over. That’s when I found Math U See, which he also loved and it truly built his math confidence back up. It uses place value and the base ten method throughout all the fundamentals, starting right from Primer. This is exactly what I was taught to do while getting my teaching degree but had never found a program that actually does it. I considered staying with Math U See but countless reviews I saw showed it’s strong point was fundamentals and Saxon’s strong point was upper levels, getting ready to take AP and college entrance tests. So, my 4 year old started with Primer in September and he has already mastered place value, counting to 20 (almost counting to 100), and can skip count by 2, 5, 10, and 100 and has almost mastered his +0, +1, +10, doubles, and adding to 10 facts when he had 0 math experience prior. I can actually see him catching up to where my oldest was on quick math facts sooner than him because of using this program instead of all the things we tried with my oldest (he knew how to add multiples and fractions if he had manipulative but never could memorize facts until Math U See).

I watched a couple of rather long talks by Dr. Robinson. They are compelling. He's even one of the reasons we started with Saxon. And there definitely is less math per day with math-u-see. Right now, we are doing several pages a day. I'm wondering when that will slow down.

OMGosh, I think I had the same problem in public school when I was in elementary. Looking back, I am pretty certain my school was using a wide spiral and I was lost. Best of luck!!!

That's so interesting. I really like how MathUSee is so self-paced. I find Morgan does more math, page after page. I think it feels like less because the pages aren't cluttered. When we get to algebra, I'll be purchasing a workbook to do along with her. I'd love to use MathUSee to get ME to Calc, too!

@@ThePattersonHomeschoolAcademy yes I like the spiral concept for algebra but I haven't used math u see for it. I was planning on using Saxon from prealgebra to calculus but my oldest son got to calculus this year and it is just so much material to complete. And he is a math kid who is going to major in math next year in college. So I got him math u see calculus and he will finish the whole program in about a month . So that made me decide to switch. For some reason I really like Saxon for prealgebra and algebra. For elementary I like spiral so we have used the good and the beautiful for it. I love how many great curriculum there are so we can choose what fits for each child and each family!!

@@Well-DoingMomma have you considered doing a flip through/comparison of both calculus programs? There is so much math shown at the lower levels and hardly any in upper levels.

@@ThePattersonHomeschoolAcademy yes I actually have that recorded for the calculus and prealgebra, just have to get edited. Although now I'm kind of wanting to go back and look at math u see for prealgebra and algebra....hmmmm.... I will say we have a couple kids in co-op chemistry that have done that for math and are doing great at the chemistry math so it is solid! I'm always looking and thinking through these things.

@@Well-DoingMomma Me, too. I especially find myself thinking and rethinking literature as well as math as I plan to always create Morgan's literature programs myself. And the math because I do want her to reach the highest level she can here at home so she has all options available to her whatever she chooses to do. I'm also thinking of skipping pre-algebra... but before I do so, I'll likely buy the workbook and thumb through it. It seems to me that if MathUSee works at your own pace, Morgan can move through Algebra I carefully rather than doing a pre-algebra. I never had pre-algebra. I wonder if it's a new-ish thing...?

lol! I’m fairly certain 50% of the population thought math was torture because of this one detail.

Hi! I think it depends on what the gaps are. In our case, I knew Morgan had even some basic addition gaps so we did need to go back to Alpha. I knew that we would not use all of Alpha, but it would help her be able to add faster with a deeper understanding of ones, tens, etc. We were doing several pages a day and I was picking and choosing which pages she needed based off how she was doing. You should watch the math portion of my February Homeschool Update video. I literally show you the gaps by holding up each book she did. It's pretty amazing. Doing what I did comes with two things that can be troublesome. 1) It's a real expense. We have spent about $800 this year with Saxon 3 (the whole thing), Saxon 5/4 (we did the first 24 lessons and dropped it), MathUSee Alpha, Beta, Gamma and now Delta. 2) Without the child's positive understanding of what you are doing and why, they can feel pretty down about themselves. I drew out a plan for Morgan and showed her what we could do to fill the gaps and where they would lead her compared to standards later one. It showed her she would be way ahead even though she was at that point way behind. I got her buy-in and I checked in with her each week. Morgan has been doing over an hour of math every day. Some days she does 8 pages of math, 4 in the morning and 4 more in her quiet study workbook after lunch. For us, I think this experience has launched Morgan into a true love of mathematics and a genuine confidence in math she didn't have. Please do let me know what you chose and how it works out for you. Wishing you and your kids great success!!!

In our case because we had addition and subtraction gaps and difficulty understanding multiplication, we started at Alpha and finished at Gamma in one year. Usually each book is a year long course but we were able to use the books to find Morgan's trouble areas and focus on them and then move on. So we moved through Alpha in a few weeks and Beta in 3 months, and another 3 months for Gamma. What I did was go online to Math U See and answer their questions in their little quiz for parents. That's how I realised we needed to start at the near beginning to catch everything. You could try that quiz and see what that tells you. With mastery, you can move as fast or as slow as you want so some of the books might not take any time at all and others could take the whole school year. Let me know what ends up working for you. I would be interested! Thanks for watching me! We will be on another homeschool math journey this year for sure. It will be fun!

@@ThePattersonHomeschoolAcademy thanks for your quick reply! We took the test and says we should start in Alpha. So much great advice!! Thank you!!🙏

@@susyrodriguez185 thanks! I’m glad to be of help. The mastery works quickly. If your child has the concept, u don’t need to stay on that chapter, just go to the next. If you need more practice than is in the book, u have access to their online resource and u can generate extra questions on the trouble topic. Have fun!