First Grade Diary

While not meant to be an actual curriculum in itself, the First Grade Diary is a very helpful tool to use along with the Miquon Math Lab Materials: Orange Book Level 1 and the Lab Sheet Annotations and Mathematics for the Primary Teacher (Miquon Math Lab Series:) and of course, CUISENAIRE RODS SMALL GROUP 155/PK. I don't use the First Grade Diary every time but it is a great way to expand and enrich the program and understand the larger Miquon math philosophy...which has been helpful to me, as I am a certified mathophobe.

I am not a homeschooler but bought the Miquon books to give my children a a good start in math with some extra home learning activities and also so that I can understand how to help them with school homework (They use "Everyday Math" at school.) I'm a smart person in a very technical, logical career field who did horribly in grade school and high school math and the math section of standardized tests. I used to think I just wasn't good at math but I don't buy that anymore as I find that as an adult that I can take university Math (Calc 1, 2, 3) and other Science classes and do quite well in them. The "traditional" childhood math rote memorization and pages of homework problems teaching methods didn't help me to understand what I was learning, why I was learning it, and how to use that knowledge to solve new problems. I do not want my children to go through those years of math confusion & failure also. Unless you are a math teacher with years of experience in teaching new/Chicago/hands-on math, you'll want to purchase this "First Grade Diary" book along with the other Miquon books. The Lab sheet annotations book is necessary to understand what to do with the worksheet books (there are no instructions in the student's worksheet books!) but the lab sheet annotations book doesn't really go into how to "teach" Miquon. The First grade diary is well worth the money if you'll be teaching or homeschooling using Miquon. It really gave me valuable insights into what you do with your child interactively BEFORE you give them the worksheets. It shows that with the Miquon program, the worksheets really are meant to be a minor part at the beginning of the program and that there is a lot of student/teacher interaction using questions and manipulatives that helps children understand and explore math concepts first. I feel that many of the exercises/teaching methods discussed in the First Grade Diary can be used with any age child. It was also enlightening how they evaluated a "trouble" child in the classroom and realized that he was acting out because he didn't truly understand a basic math concept that the other children had grasped. I've seen other reviews for the First Grade Diary Miquon book that list it as a "nice-to-have" item but personally I'd say that it's unlikely you'll truly understand how to teach the full Miquon method without reading it.