The Red Book (Miquon Math Materials Series: Complete Home School) (Miquon Math Materials Ser., Level 2) Paperback – January 1, 1978

These books do not come with a key; you work through the book yourself to make a key. Using the Cuisenaire rods is necessary to get the full benefit and some pages cannot be done without them. When I first got these probably 25 years ago and worked through a set to make a complete key--I LEARNED TO DO MATH WELL FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! Work through them yourself and you will understand. When we adopted children, one of whom was 13, we required that they work through these books first for their math. The two older kids were angry that they had "little kid" math--but neither could add one half and three quarters in their heads. When the oldest was on about the fourth one, she came to me and said--"Wow, you were right, I understand math SO much better now." You actually understand what you are doing after working through these books rather than learning just to do certain formulas for problems that look a certain way. Get all five books and work through them all for whatever age or level you have. Kids that struggle with fractions, may still need another book before moving on (there are lots of good resources for this), or make up your own pages--which you will know how to do after working through the books. I've homeschooled for about 25 years now, these books are the good stuff, and the price is good as well.

This program has accelerated my son's math skills. As a first grader he already understands fraction, multiplication and starting with the red book, division.

We finished the first book (orange) and have begun the red book. I will supplement with Rocket Math, to boost speef and fluency, but these Miquon Math books teach the math thinking that is necessary to really "get" it.

This is the second book in the math series that we are using. It builds on the Orange book and will give the child more practice and take the operations a little deeper (ex. when adding they will be carrying). This program is great for a kid that needs a hands on approach with materials. My child will sometimes complete there or four pages in one sitting, he enjoys this program and we find it to be a great fit for him. There are rods and other materials that can be purchased in addition to use with the books.

I really love the concept of these books. And while I still incorporate it into my homsechool math curriculum, we don't use them as much as I'd hoped. Most of the worksheets are self-explanatory, but sometimes I have to pull out the manual. We really just use the workbooks to review concepts we've already gone through.