Homeschool World Forum

mamaholly · User Joined: 22 May 2008 Posts: 37 Location: Tennesee

I'm going to get MUS for my third grader. He doesn't have his facts cold so I was going to start with alpha. Is that what you would recommend? I'm guessing it'll go faster than normal as we catch up to his actual skill level. How much time would you recommend devoting to it during catching up and then at his level of understanding? Do you do yours based on how much you complete in a setting or how much time? I'm thinking four days a week...
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Mom to John (8yo) and Hanna (19mo)

Kitty-Cat · User Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 62 Location: Australia

Did you have him take the placement test? I know a lot of older kids do start back in Alpha and just zip through it. Or you could use something else like games to help with mastery and start in Beta or gamma.
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Jo from Australia

Lily · User Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 427

We use this method for determining the pace - 1 page done correctly, 1 review page, he can explain the method sufficiently and teach me, test.

We've done 3 lessons in one week before, and we've skipped some completely because I knew he had mastery so we just talked about it and tested throught it.

I don't really set a schedule for him, he does that with my guidance. The first day of the lesson is always the longest, getting shorter and shorter as he feels better about the work, so we go anywhere from an hour on math down to 10 minutes.
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"The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."
- M. Montessori
Proud non-member of the HSLDA

2bighogs · User Joined: 01 Aug 2007 Posts: 6

Hi! I've been using MUS for my daughter for a year now. We love it! She was in public school from K-4th grade. She has struggled in math for most of those years. She excelled in multiplication in 3rd grade and she understood a lot of the algebraic concepts in 4th grade, but she could barely subtract. When I pulled her out of public school after 4th grade, we started all the way back at Beta. My recommendation as far as pace to you is, follow his lead. It took my daughter just a few months to finish Beta, then she zipped through Gamma (remember, she was great at multiplication already! I probably could have skipped this book but I'm glad I didn't) and took about 6 months to finish Delta, then we slowed way down and took our time with Epsilon since most of it was new material to her. We have just finished our 5th grade year and she has about a month left in Epsilon (we'll pick back up in August), then she will be "caught up" to her public schooled counterparts.