Maths Stuff

On the advice of a friend and after encountering some hiccups with our textbook I decided to invest in Conquer Maths. The boys have done a couple of lessons on it, so very early days yet. The explanations are very good, clear and easy to follow. The only reservation I have with it is that when it comes to the worksheet the student chooses from a range of answers, and so does not actually write much out themselves. I'm wondering if this could be a disadvantage. For example, you may know in theory that you must leave a small gap between groups of three digits when writing out a long number, but will you remember to do it if you haven't had to do so often? Sometimes we know things in theory but forget to put it all together.
Maybe I'm thinking of this only because we've just started the programme, but I'm still inclined to use the textbook as back up practice once the foundations have been taught by the programme.
Anyone else used Conquer Maths and have a comment?
For maths with U today I played the egg and chips game. I remember blogging this when I did it will Ia, but can't trawl for the link now.
This is what you do:
Make lots of cut out egg and chip shapes. (Mine are kept in a plastic bag in the drawer)
Get 5 plates.
Child arranges the eggs and chips in combinations so that each plate holds 6 items but so that no two plates have the same combination of eggs and chips. It is interesting to observe how each child deals with this in their own way.
This is what U did: first she put 6 eggs on a plate, next 6 chips on a plate, then 3 chips and 3 eggs on the next plate, then finally combinations of 4 eggs and 2 chips and 4 chips and 2 eggs. She did this all silently.
MaashAllah!