Mortensen math?

[FLKL]

Has anyone tried Mortensen math? I really like the idea and think it may be what I've been searching for. It teaches addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, measurement, geometry, fractions, algebra, trigonometry and calculus to preschoolers using little blocks.

Also, has anyone tried making their own materials? We're going to see if we can make the pieces ourselves out of wood because we're not paying that much for plastic blocks when we could make it out of wood for under $30. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M76ZEyJPzEs

[oasis]

Looks interesting. I wonder how it compares to Math You See....

[ELeducation]

Sounds very interesting! I didn't get a chance to watch the video yet, but let us know how it goes with the program

[FLKL]

I ordered this and just received it today: http://www.amazon.com/ETA-hand2mind-Mathematics-Meaningful-Cuisenaire/dp/B008N1847O/?ref=pd_sbs_op_5&ie=UTF8&refRID=0TZV6BJH2C4W37MDEN05

It's a lot less work for us and much cheaper than the Mortensen blocks. I like that they come with a book and tons of idea cards. It'll make it easier for someone like me learning a new math concept.

Both of my kids loved playing with blocks and my 3-year-old really easily started solving math problems. We started today with an easy "Everybody wants to be a 10" game. He got out the ten rod and then picked another number like six. So it was 6 + x = 10 and he had to find out what x was. It was easy for him to see that four fit in the space to make the six the same size as ten. After putting the blocks back he told me he needed to try something and got the four back out and put it next to the ten and took the six back out and said "6 + 4 = 10 and 4 + 6 = 10 too!!" 

My only complaints are that the set I bought has too many of some colors and not enough of others and they have no grooves or anything to show that 10 is 10 1's and not just one long stick. I think I'll take a wood burner to them to make the grooves. I also have a plastic base ten 100 tile that I'm going to cover with maybe duct tape to be X^2. I'll need some 10 rods too to represent x.

Math-u-see looks very similar. I'll have to look into that more.

[FLKL]

About Math-u-see... I just saw on crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com in the FAQ's about how Mortensen math compares to Math-u-see... He said: "Steve Demme was a trainer with Mortensen Math they parted ways in 1990. Math U See combines traditional text book learning with the blocks, by traditional rather than emphasizing concept based teaching and math as a language they go level by level (more or less) they way traditional public schools do: addition then subtraction then multiplication then division etc...you won't see pre-schoolers doing algebra... "

Anyway here's our update,
This is such a smart way to teach math. I'm in love with it. I never thought I'd have so much fun teaching math. We are literally just playing with blocks and my 3 year old son is already remembering combinations for addition and subtracting and some pre algebra. The person who came up with it (Jerry Mortensen) was a teacher for a Montessori school and he took the idea of Montessori math and made it better. I play with the blocks with my 2 year old and she gets it too.
My son already remembers all the colors for each number and can solve math problems by himself if I give him a math problems on cards. I'm using cuisenaire  rods but I'm going to buy the actual plastic    much more expensive blocks in the future. The blocks I'm using are fine for us starting out but there is so much more we could do (Like building a math tower and knocking it down, or showing the hollow part as a negative number.) if we had the right blocks. There is also a lot of free videos to watch on how they use them.  I'm not going to bother wood burning dividers on the ones we have if we're getting the real Mortensen blocks. The Cuisenaire rods are fun too and the kit I have comes with a lot of fun game ideas. It's a good start for us. I learn better playing so I definitely teach better playing.

I was really worried about how I was going to teach my kids math because I am not good at it but now I'm not worried... I'm just overwhelmed with information 

Has anyone else tried it? It's been around since the 80's! I thought it would be more popular on here. 

[sonya_post]

This is so funny. I haven't been on the BK boards for many months, our lives became very hectic right around February this year. We have been slowly plugging away and putting things to right. I stopped by just to post about Mortensen Math via Crewton Ramones House of Math.I have been using it for a little less than a month now and would be glad to answer any questions you have - as best I can that is. The following is what I was planning to post in a new thread but since this one has already been opened I will post it here:

I just wanted to let everyone know that we finally did pick a math program for the kids and why we picked it.
 
Most of the math curricula available is good at something. Some programs obviously work better than others. Until now, I felt like we were settling. I can go through the list of stuff I like in different programs,  but I am not the kind of person to use 20 different things to get the job done. I have too many kids at home, and we are early educating them all. Most of this stuff just ends up on a shelf collecting dust. Since I prefer to operate on principles rather than on strict lesson plans, what I have been looking for is a “how to do this, and still get your kid to love math”. I am not a great teacher, so I need really good tools.

Last spring I ordered the Jump Math workbook for 1st grade, thumbed through it and realized my kids had already mastered most of the book. We got to that point by playing games, playing with numbers and making it fun. So I just decided that was how I intended to “do math” for the next few years. Play games. Games like Muggins and Mathino, which you can make very easy or very difficult.  I didn't think my wish list for a math program was possible. I don’t think it is asking THAT much:

1.   I want a program that is consistent with the principles guiding all of my homeschooling. I don’t want my children to just understand English, I want them to love it. We do not study English so my kids can get a good job. We study it because it is beautiful. And because the kids love it, they are also likely to be able to use it well. Shakespeare is infinitely more hire-able than “You want some fries with them there burgers?” So, first and foremost we study math because it is beautiful. I have yet to find a math program that displays the beauty of math. Vedic Math is beautiful, but it is not complete. And there is still no way to teach that to little children. Jump Math is closer to getting there.

2.   Ideally, I want something I can use for the next 4-13 years. I would like 13 but that is pushing it. I know.

3.   It needs to be easy to teach because I am the teacher.

4.   I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars. I have already spent tons of money over the last 13 years looking for the right math program and using a lot of them. And there are programs that cost $100-$200 a year. Or are short lived. So you spend $200 now and then in another 2 years the kids outgrow it and you have to drop another $100 on something else. That is also why I put Jump Math at the top of my “math list”.

5.   In the Vedic system of math, you get to know the numbers. After a while you understand how they behave with different operations. Arthur Benjamin uses many Vedic Math principles and had developed some of his own. That is because he has gotten to “know” the numbers and “see” how they work. I want my kids to “know numbers”.

6.   I would like the kids to be able to do “real math” not just computation. And at 3 and 4, I still want this to be like playing games and having fun. Much the same way they learned to read.

7.   We have to be able to do it without writing. This one should really be listed at the top.

This is a lot to ask of a program. I had given up thinking I would find one. And I am NOT going to mix and match programs. I don’t have enough time in the day for this. I will just drop all of it, for being overwhelmed. Then I found Mortensen Math. Not just Mortensen Math, but Mortensen Math via Crewton Ramone. He is a 24 year master trainer with Mortensen.  I don’t know how I first found the program. But I was hooked when I saw his barely graduated from toddlerhood kids factoring equations. I have spent about 30 hours on the site, I bought a password, and have completed all of the teacher training available.

You’ll notice similarities between Math-U-See and Mortensen because the guy who created Math-U-See also worked for Mortensen, and it is sort of like Mortensen, but as far as I can tell has sucked all the joy and beauty out of what Jerry Mortensen created.

I was going to wait to post this until I had some good footage of the kids and what we are doing, and then Crewton posted on his blog that the teacher training is going up and I wanted to let everyone here know about it first. The training is $15. And he is putting up 10 hours of it. For $45 you can get a 2 hour webinar with Jump Math. I am not knocking Jump, I like Jump and think their training is cheap as well. But this is a steal.

My suggestion is that if you are interested, go look around at his site.  Do a youtube search on Crewton Ramone: there is only one. And if you like it, don’t wait, get the teacher training. It is going up to $49 soon. And then $79 and then $299. This is the only way that seems feasible to teach 2-4 years olds math. Well, Ella and a few others don’t count. For the rest of us who have real kids and don’t feel comfortable teaching it, this is for you. He will teach you not just how the program works but how to teach it.

What must your kids be able to do before you start?
1. Count to 9. (Though he can help with that.)
2. Tell if things are same of different.
3. Recognize a rectangle.

The videos that got me hooked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFVnzDiYW1Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeGKmrPnenM

Word of caution: For those of you who want things neat and tidy, his website is going to make you squirm. However, if you had a bad math education, just start clicking through videos. It will clear up a ton of math in your own head. And after awhile you will get a hang of what he is doing. And I did hear through the grapevine that his plan is to make a subscription site with all the stuff organized. How soon that will be?  I have no idea. Also, he is very plain spoken and may come off as offensive to some. It would be terrible if you let that get in the way. You won’t find this anywhere else. No one is teaching like this. And it only takes a few youtube searches to see how his boys have developed. You can watch them do trig and factor equations in their heads when they are 7 and 8.

One more issue:  Crewton Ramone does not work with Mortensen anymore. And if you get the Mortensen blocks new you may have to wait awhile to get them - like 6-8 weeks. You can use Math-U-See; I have a set. You can pick some up on ebay cheap. We have both sets of blocks. Math-U-See and Mortensen. I bought the Mortensen on ebay. It took about 2 weeks to get what I wanted. Anyway, the Mortensen blocks are much better blocks. They feel like Legos in your hand. The Math-U-See ones are made of a softer plastic. You will notice, in the last video, his boys building stuff out of the blocks.  That won’t happen with the Math-U-See blocks. Or at least it doesn’t happen with ours. The blocks warp, don’t stick together well and the towers fall down. This is very frustrating to 3 and 4 year olds. But if that is what you have, by all means use them. Don’t wait to start just because you don’t have the right blocks.  You can even use Cuisenaire rods. And I have a template I made for paper ones to use before we got our blocks. If you want it, I will gladly give it to you.

http://www.crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com/

teacher training http://www.crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com/parents-teachers.html

How is it working for us? The little girl that I care for who has Down Syndrome understands and is working on squares and square roots. She is still 5.  Today, we were working on some simple algebra. She factored very quickly x2 + 4x+3,  but she had a bit of trouble making a rectangle and needed help. My four year old still has difficulty sitting, so he builds towers and knocks them over. What is he doing while playing smash the cars? Addends. He is getting pretty good at them.


EDIT: that is supposed to be x squared, but the superscript didn't come through.

[sonya_post]

Just a note about the cost of the "plastic blocks" for you to think about. If you are convinced that you can use this program and it works for your kids, the cost of those plastic blocks really isn't that much. They are high quality blocks. I picked up two partial sets, one with the tray an one without. They are close to 30 years old. I know because I have the flesh colored negative 10 blocks which aren't made anymore. You will be using these blocks for years to come.  And if you can either come up with a stop gap till you can purchase or find a real set (like paper or used cuisenaire rods, which aren't perfect, but doable) as you really do want the tray with it, you will not regret the purchase.

While I would love to tell you that this is for just my kids, it is not. It is for me. I sat down with the videos and learned the math I should have learned in high school.  He has a quote on the homepage that reads "I cried when I watched your video...." that was me. And not only did I cry because I finally got it, I cried because I didn't get it when my first child was young.  And it is too late to take those years back. You can do a search as I have been very frank on here about my oldest son's homeschooling and math. And the scars that left in our relationship. And this experience is not unique to my family. So I think $90 is cheap. But, I didn't pay $90. I paid $40 and have a lot more blocks. And I suspect these will last long enough for me to hand the down to my grandkids.


EDIT: That quote isn't really from me. Just that I did cry when I went through the site.

[sonya_post]

Posted on his facebook page that there are about a dozen training passwords left at  $15. Just thought I'd pass it along.

https://www.facebook.com/Crewton.Ramone?fref=nf

EDIT: Found this on ebay today:

 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mortensen-Math-More-than-Math-Multiplication-Fact-Tray-Fraction-Kit-and-more-/321543150521?pt=Educational_Toys_US&hash=item4add771bb9

That is a ton of stuff. If someone here wants it let me know, I won't bid against you. But otherwise I am going to bid on it. I have 4 kids who will be using this. I want to build my collection.

BTW- you don't need the workbooks. But they aren't bad to have around.

[Drjuliadc]

I would like it, but I don't want to bid on it if you want it either.

Julia

[FLKL]

Thank you for taking the time to type all that. I've learned so much too in the short amount of time that I've known about this math. I wish I was taught math this way when I was little. I did buy a combo kit when it was on sale for $80. We love it! Cuisenaire Rods are fun but you really need Mortensen blocks for this math.  Today my 2 and almost 4 year old did multiplication towers, building tens and doing percentages. They thought they were just playing with blocks. It's funny when they ask to do math.  The best part is how proud they are of themselves.

I really want the workbooks. They just look fun to do. The once had all smiley face books for $50 on ebay. I should have bought them then.  Do you have a password at Crewton Ramones House Of Math? Did you learn a lot from it? I would love a video for the kids to watch and work along with.

[sonya_post]

Julia,

If you want it, go ahead and get it. I won't bid against you. I have enough blocks for now and it seems every week or two they show up on ebay cheap. But I do plan to get more. That set is probably worth $500-$600, maybe more I don't know. Remember that when bidding. If it is out of your price range at the end of the week let me know so I can decide if I want it.

FLKL,

I am very interested in how your kids are doing. One of the things that happened and really cemented this in my own mind was my 4 year old. He had out a tens block and was placing ones on top of it. I asked how many ones he needed to make a 10. He didn't know. I was shocked. He can work with addends in his head. He knows addition and subtraction up to ten without an problem. He knows that 6 is 5 and 1, 4 and 2, 3 and 3 and 10 minus 4, etc. Still, it wasn't obvious to him. And as I've gone through the training and watched a ton of video, it becomes painfully clear how much I missed. I've watched many videos and said, "Oh, that is what we are doing!!!! Now I get it!" In math, if you miss a step or it gets confused, it may not make a difference now, but it is going to show up at some point and you will get stuck. I have spent a month getting unstuck and having a ton of fun doing it.

I have a password for the teacher training and the site. Here is my current thoughts on it:  You don't need a password, but it is worth the price and it is so cheap it is embarrassing for what you get. However, Crewton states that you should go through the free stuff first. And that is probably true to some degree. If you've watched a ton of video and are ready to take the plunge into more stuff, I'd at least do the parent/teacher training. I have watched all the available ones twice. Some more than that. It really does help you get what you should be doing.

I am going to cheat, since you are already using the program and tell you some of it. If you haven't looked up the five principles behind Mortensen, then do a google search for Crewton Ramone 5 principles. They should guide you as you work with your kids. And the other thing that is HUGE is getting the NO out of the lesson. That has helped me a lot. And at this age, you are teaching them to count. And you are using Algebra and multiplication as a means to teach counting. We want them to count and count quickly. I can't do this justice at all. I am tempted to ask if he would do a webinar for us. But, I'm not sure it is necessary if you do the teacher training. Really.

The Crewton Ramone's Curious Counters Kindergarten Compendium is worth $2.99. But then if you do that you might as well buy a password for the site. I read it to the kids a couple times and then pulled out the blocks and we went through it.  It is less than 60 pages and in that space, you really do go from the introduction of the blocks and through nearly all of elementary math with some Algebra to boot. Any 4 year old can do it. We are still reading it. 

As far as video, you can let your kids watch them, but from what I gather so far, this is not something that Jerry Mortensen nor Crewton Ramone recommend. It takes the "Aha!" moments away from them. That is why the video is geared for parents. So, if you are looking for it, you aren't going to find it. I did find some basic Mortensen videos on youtube. They are older and the kids can watch those.  https://www.youtube.com/user/RealLoveSong/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0  not all of them are for kids. There are some others besides these but this is a good place to start.

[sonya_post]

]We just uploaded this last night. We are working on block identification. As you can see he knows what they are, but we want to keep working on it till he doesn't have to think about it anymore. He likes counting and has no trouble with one to one correspondence but he still enjoys counting the blocks to make sure.  The thing I like about Mortensen is that the kids work with the numbers so much, in play and touch and you are covering basically all elementary math and first year algebra at the same time for several years. It becomes clear as you spend time working with the kids how this works.  The math isn't something they have memorized, but something they internalize.  I am going to try to get video today as he is skip counting and making squares and factoring equations with the help of Hunkey Monkey,  who really has a hard time with counting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2B8aXsJFrs&list=UUFx6wePKA5GUm1637fUpKTw

[FLKL]

What a cutie pie! Thank you for sharing that with us. I love the toys finding the answers. You can tell he had fun.

We bought that e-book. It's really good for the price! I bought a password and the parent/teacher training. You get the book for free with a password. I wish I would've known that even though it was just a few dollars 

One of the things we liked a lot was the free game he had on his site. We played it a lot while we waited for the blocks to come  http://www.crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com/free-addition-game.html

[FLKL]

Playing with math My four year old and I made this.

We weren't supposed to make the wall and the fence touching but he knew we were adding just the fence.

[sonya_post]

That is great! What a better way to do addends instead of worksheets. Walls are way cooler mom. And if you get a matchbox car they are great fun to knock down! And then you have to rebuild it and practice them all over again.

You know, I was talking to a couple other moms, one from Africa and one from Romania, it would be a ton of fun if we did math occasionally together. We can do it by gmail video chat or by skype. How cool would that be? Because this is not workbook oriented but mostly oral work, it can be done with kids of all ages. I am just tossing that out into the wind.....    If you got the password, somewhere on the PDF page is a book of mortensen games to play. It is worth finding and reading. The kids really do like playing what's under the cup. This morning we played what's under the cup and Philip's equations was    x + 2 = (squareroot) 25. I had the 3 under the cup.  He will work and it and think or try to steal the cup and peek but that is half the fun. I wish I would have gotten it on video because it was cute. He was skip counting and having a blast. He had to work through the difference between the square and square root. Which is which? I would have never even considered doing this with my toddler, who has the attention span of a knat. He can barely sit still,  it is an huge effort for him. You can see in the video he went from what is under the cup to he needed a peg leg because a crocodile ate his leg and it was bleeding. It wasn't even two seconds......

How are you using the book? We read it a couple times and then did what is on each page. That took us s few days.

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