Review: Math-U-See Primer

Math was always my favorite subject in cool; well until I took chemistry. I use Timberdoodle curriculum and they had a placement test for math. Even though our daughter placed for Alpha, in their 1st grade kit, I choose to stick with Math-U-See Primer. My reason for this is because I wanted to give her the extra confidence of know things and getting answers right. What I love is that this curriculum comes with the student booklet, teacher manual, instructional DVD and block manipulatives. A really nice thing is in the blocks there is a huge poster for teaching place values and how to read a clock.

The booklet is in black and white but offers a lot of coloring for the student. The book says to color the squares the same color as the blocks; eg: 5 is light blue so then when they show 5 squares together you’re supposed to color them light blue. Now I don’t have my daughter do this. I let her color the squares whatever color she wants because I don’t want her thinking if she sees light blue it means there are 5. So much is covered in Math-U-See Primer from numbers to writing to adding to place values and time. The booklet is mastery done which I like. Incase you don’t know what mastery is it means that they focus on a certain thing and once you master it then you move on. So there is a lot of repetition which I like. You can move on once you’re student has mastered the skill or give extra lessons until they have the skill down.

Yes, those are swimming goggles. She wanted to wear them to school.

The blocks and poster provided in this curriculum are phenomenal! It gets our daughter engaged and excited to learn math. I wanted to laminate the poster but then I wouldn’t be able to put it in the container I use for storing curriculum so instead one of the games that the book suggests has little cards with numbers on them. I laminated the numbers and we use that. I use the poster for games about place values and clockwork. I also use the blocks throughout the booklet. I let our daughter pick the blocks and make sure the numbers add up to what she says the answers are. It is great to have that extra reinforcement and then she can visually see the math. I definitely recommend Math-U-See to others because it’s such a wonderful curriculum and has amazing learning tools that go with it.

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