Math-U-See
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Math-U-See is a multi-level math curriculum that all our own kids use and we moms love. We didn’t start with Math-U-See, but I am so glad I switched to it two years ago! Check it out here.
Listen to our review or watch it here.
What is it?
It’s a mastery-based curriculum - which just means that your child will learn a skill or task, and must “master” it before moving on to the next skill or lesson. So it provides a lot of practice for each new skill in each new lesson. For example, in the first book, the alpha book, it is almost all only single-digit addition and substraction, starting with 0’s, then 1’s, etc. Other appropriate skills are sprinkled in, like shapes, word problems, and solving for x, but mostly, it’s just a small leveling up within a skill with each new lesson.
Spans entire school career. This curriculum starts with TK/Kindergarten age and takes you through high school graduation. The levels are each their own workbook. Elementary aged workbook levels are each are named after Greek letters, primer, alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta. Then, the levels take on typical high school names such as pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, algebra 2, pre-calculus, and, lastly, calculus. This keeps the program based upon skill mastery instead of grade-level. Some workbooks might take 4-5 months and some could take 1-2 years depending on your child’s mastery of the skills.
Manipulatives are helpful. Manipulatives are a big cornerstone of this curriculum - which just means that there are specific blocks used to teach and practice every lesson.
A teacher is provided! A man named Steve Demme teaches through a DVD/online with login - each workbook chapter has it’s own lesson and each workbook has 30 lessons/chapters.
You can teach! The teacher manual also teaches the lesson through you if you choose that route. The teacher book includes the answers to the workbook and test problems as well as the steps to reach those answers.
Comes in a kit per level - This curriculum goes from number counting to calculus, but you only have to buy just one level at a time. You can buy the student workbook and test booklet, teacher manual and DVD/Digital pack, and manipulatives as one kit
You can buy what you need - The website sells each item separately as needed for siblings or replacements.
3 Reasons Its Our Favorite:
The Teacher - Steve Demme feels like a dad or grandpa, and teaches clearly, concisely, with a little humor thrown in. He’s endearing and professional. He keeps the lesson short and to the point! They are about 3-6 minutes! I love that this is something my older two can do completely on their own without me, and could go through a few lessons without ever needing me at all. With multiple children of different levels, it’s helpful to have some curriculum taught by someone else.
Simplicity in Look and Layout - The curriculum is not full of distracting artwork or busywork. It is clean, clear, and easy to read and follow. The instructions are clear. It’s broken up into 7 worksheets per lesson, that you can choose from. The first 3 just practice the skill, and the second 3 review current and previous skills, and the 7th is application. It’s a simple layout so you can easily choose or assign what your child needs.
Move at Your Own Pace - If your child needs a lot of practice, do all 7 worksheets and the extra ones available on the website - where you have an entire digital toolbox. If your child understands a lesson really well, just assign one sheet and move on to the next lesson.
How We Use It:
We work on it 4-5 times per week - That’s the goal, but some weeks we only get in 2-3 times.
One lesson chapter takes 1-3 times - depending on mastery, a lesson can take up to the entire week for us. Lesson is 3-6 minutes, then work for 20-30 minutes on practice sheets independently. Sometimes a few sheets take just 5-10 minutes, but will take longer for more complicated skills.
Autonomous for older kids - My older kids are in charge of watching a new lesson if that’s needed or if they feel ready for a new lesson. Then they do their work on their own, from 1-3 pages in a sitting. We keep a DVD laptop plugged in that they can put the DVD in and bring to their room or quiet place to listen and work as needed.
Dependent learning for my youngest - My youngest child wants to learn from me. So I watch the lesson video and then teach her the exact same lesson. It’s actually faster for me to watch the lesson rather than read the lesson in the teacher manual because Steve Demme shares some fun math story telling that helps kids remember the concepts. Like, for regrouping, the units say to the tens, “I need help! Come help me!” and you bring a ten over to the units. I want to teach those things too, so the video lesson helps a lot (and is so short!).
Car-school - Our kids usually work on their math books in the car, as long as they have watched their lesson prior to leaving the house. My son will read the word problems to my youngest who still needs help with reading. They help each other and work quietly while I have my own time.
Grading - I just check their work once every few weeks, and I might just check one sheet per lesson. When I see that it’s something they are struggling with, I might check once a week and help them with problems they missed. But I don’t grade anything. The unit tests in the test booklet are helpful to see if they retained and really learned the skill. If they miss more than 3-4 questions on the unit test, then I go over it to see if there is a good understanding or a lack of comprehension.
Other Math-U-See Products We Love
The Digital Tool Box is really helpful for the online lessons, worksheet generator, and fact sheets. You don’t need to buy it, but it’s helpful to have (instead of the DVD’s) in that it gives you access to all the lessons at the level you purchased plus the earlier lessons too.
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