Math U See Beta Program – A Schoolhouse Review
We were able to review another great math product, this one by Math-U-See, with the schoolhouse review crew this past month. It's called the Beta Module of Math-U-See. Math is one of those classes I don't think we can get too much of so I was very interested to see what this company had to offer.
“Math-U-See is a comprehensive K-12 math curriculum that uses manipulatives to illustrate and teach math concepts.” Says the home page of Math U See. The curriculum is not divided by grade but by Greek letters depending upon where your child is at in their mathematical education.
For homeschoolers Math-U-See has a page that lists how this particular program can work for most any style of homeschooling.
How to Use
To get started your child takes a placement test to find out which Greek letter is right for them.
Then depending upon what level your child is that your purchase the Instruction Pack, Students' Pack, and any manipulatives needed. There are also extras like items for storing the blocks and music CDs to help with learning.
For us Sweet Peanut landed in the Beta pack. Beta is for going from single digit addition and subtraction to multiple digit addition and subtraction.
These are the skills covered in the Beta Pack
- Understanding place value and using it to add or subtract
- Fluently adding any combination of whole numbers
- Solving for an unknown addend
- Fluently subtracting any combination of whole numbers
- Solving abstract and real-world problems involving addition and subtraction
Some Facts about Math U See
- Math U See covers common core mathematics content for grades K-6
- Math U See is taught by concept not memorization of facts and figures
- Math U See is a complete math curriculum
The Cost
Beta Math U
See Pack Costs:
- Beta Instruction Pack which is the teacher's manual and DVD – $43.00
- Beta Student Pack which is worksheets and tests – $30.00
- Manipulative Block Set – $38.00
- There is also a Math-U-See™ Manipulatives iPad app
The program is very simple to use.
- MathUSee is a mastery program.
- First you watch the lesson to understand the new concept and be able to present it to your child with the manipulatives.
- Then you present the concept to your child and work it through.
- Then your student works through the workbook section they've just studied. Your student should be able to tell you how to solve the problem.
- Finally after they can teach it back to you they take the test for that chapter.
How did we use Math U See?
To use the program Sweet Peanut and I would watch the video lesson together and then work through a lesson practice worksheet or two on day 1. Since we're also using another math program I didn't want to overwhelm her. On day 2 we evaluate how well she did on the lesson practice. If I felt she needed a bit more practice she would do one or two more lesson practice worksheets. Usually by day 3 she's ready for Review Pages. After one or two of those she felt ready to take the test the next day.
What did we like?
Sweet Peanut loved the manipulatives. Even though we have blocks from another math program the format of these was not something we had seen and she loved them. She played with them for two days before we started. She also liked the videos. We're already pretty familiar with DVD homeschool so she jumped right in. Hearing the other children in the background encouraged her to answer out loud.
Some things I loved. The drill sheets on the website. I think drills are a great way to get your brain ramped to think quickly and we've been enjoying these. I also loved the results. After a couple of weeks with this program we've noticed Sweet Peanut has really upped her game in math. She's doing a lot of 3 digit addition with carry over in her head now. That was not happening before. It has also made the transition into multiplication a breeze.
What didn't we like?
I do wish the worksheets were separated about a bit. Even if they were removable from the book. It is hard to work in that big book. But that's a small, very small issue.
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