I have been showing LM/Shichida 65 Days program to my son and we are almost done with both programs. My son is 2.8 years old. We will complete LM/Shichida before he turns 3. He will be going to a montessori preschool this September. It’s a 5 half day/week program.
I am looking for a math program that I can use as his after school supplement. I am looking into Right Start, Math U See, and Singapore math.
I read some reviews, and it was said that Right Start is a Montessori based program. Could this be the right program for my son?
The guy who owns Math U See Steve Demme sends out free demo DVD’s of his lessons. I got one, and I really like it. You could contact them for one to explore it a little more and see how you like it.
I don’t know much about Right Start, but I hear of it a lot. I don’t know if doing Montesorri math at home will be a great idea, depending on how comfortable you are teaching math from an angle you may or may not be comfortable teaching from and how they are teaching at his school. You could talk to the teachers at the school to find out what math they use and what they’d recommend you to use.
Brilliant Minds Montessori Math is sold on Amazon and Ebay, thats the program I’m saving for.
I hear a lot of good things about Singapore also, but I have no real experience with it. I think aangles (Ella’s mom) uses it. I don’t know if you should go with it from the beginning or not. I don’t know if Earlybird would be overkill for your son or not. You could try and find some parents who have used it and try to get their feedback or troll some blogs looking for reviews of Singapore for the early years.
MEP is a free math curriculum, you just have to print it, but I’d check it out if I were you.
Have you considered Jones Genuises Math Matrix? It might be a good starting place, it will teach in a progressive way that shouldn’t conflict with much else and I don’t THINK it has too much writing in it, DomanMom (Elizabeth) uses it with her son Hunter, who did Doman when he was 2 and is not 6yo. I think he’s in Math 3 or 4 by now…you could try contacting her.
I would recommend the JG Matrix - I have it and am slowly introducing it to my son (you need to be able to count to 20 and back before you can do any actual sums, and we’re stuck on 1-2-3-4 lol)
The program is very simple compared to the more flashy and commercial curricula, but it does the job and I expect it to be very successful. It is similar to touchmath in that it introduces dots on the numbers to count the quantity of the numeral.
I have also looked at MEP, though I would say it would help a lot in the later years if I were familiar with the modern teaching techniques for the various topics. The problem is that the way they teach various things (like long multiplication/division) is not the way we were taught in school. But it has complete lesson plans for up to age 16 (I think, maybe later) and I will definitely be using it, at least partially!
Rightstart looks good, and I’ve heard great reviews - it is much more hands-on (the other two I’ve mentioned are more workbook-based). I’m seriously tempted to get it in a year or so if my early-learning budget can be stretched that far!
I just bought RightStart. I know that the program is very parent intensive but all the good reviews I have read helped me make my decision.
Plus, my son is a visual learner. He is not into workworks. I download an Ipad abacus app for him to play with, and he seems liking it a lot. He likes the abacus toy that we have at home too.
I don’t know for sure if RS math is the best for us, but I want to give it a try any way. I think I will just do it slowly, and see how it work for us.
I know that the program is very parent intensive but all the good reviews I have read helped me make my decision.