# Math U See



## BigHenTinyBrain (Apr 4, 2013)

Getting great feedback from a friend who uses Math U See. Going to check it out. Anybody else familiar with it?


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Loved it for K, but then it turned into Lego's for my kids. Son used it for 2 years and learned how to do everything fine....but didn't know a single fact. Comes down to your kids' personality and learning style. I know people that have great success with is, and some don't. We found a more traditional textbook style was perfect for son when he was young. Now we use Life of Fred.


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## BigHenTinyBrain (Apr 4, 2013)

Wow, I like the look of Life of Fred!


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## Canning Girl (Jan 13, 2010)

This is our second year with Math-U-See. For the most part I like it. It takes more of a mastery approach rather than a spiral approach. I don't like how Mr. Demme does some of the multiplication problems when it comes to multiplying multiple digits, so I have taught my kids the way I was taught. I think we'll continue using it through elementary school and then decide what to do next.


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## BigHenTinyBrain (Apr 4, 2013)

Looks like for now we have started using Math Mammoth (price can't really be beat) for the basics and we're going to give Life of Fred a shot, too. That way we can get math work in almost every day without _feeling_ like we are doing math every day. 
Since one of my reasons for taking my kids out of public school was that one of them is having a lot of trouble reading I think Life of Fred will support his efforts in multiple subjects. On the other hand, one of the boys is certain that he'll want to go back to public school next year, so I want to be sure that he is following a pretty routine math curriculum and keeping up with his former classmates.

I opted against Math U See because I suspect that the blocks used would become projectiles very quickly.


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## Vernitta (Jan 14, 2009)

I see you decided to not use MUS, but I thought I would post my experience in case someone else came along.

I bought Primer and Alpha for my son and daughter. What I didn't like about MUS and why we switched is because they gave some numbers new names. I believe the point is to give the child a better understanding of the number, but I found that it confused my children instead. They began using those terms for the numbers and teaching them the proper terms became more difficult. I didn't like that there was a whole section dedicated to them memorizing what blocks/numbers were what color. I didn't like that I had to mark wrong and correct something that isn't important. Using the blocks became too much of a game for my son. They were a distraction to him. You would think that they would help them learn place value, but it did not. I understand they want the children to gain an understanding of why, for example, 2+5= 7, but my children always had to figure it out when asked. I felt they did not get enough review and never memorized the fact. Also, I don't think there were enough problems given with each lesson. I've read great reviews of MUS and that's actually why I bought it, but it just did not work for my family.


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## Michele of MI (Jul 8, 2009)

We really love Math-U-See. We use it for all four of our children, from second grade up to ninth, and think it's great. The multiplication of double and triple digits was different from the way most programs teach it, but we found that our younger children are far better at multiplication because they learned this method. I actually have a copy of a math book from 1861 (Davies Arithmetic), and this is the same method that was used way back then for teaching multiplication, probably because it worked. Our older children started with Saxon and we really didn't like it at all. For some families other methods may be a better fit, but we have been very happy with MUS and will continue using it.


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