AoPS PreA: How long do lessons take your kids?

[Chrysalis Academy]

So I'm specifically curious about kids using AoPS PreA "on-level" - 6th or 7th or 8th graders using it for PreAlgebra, not young geniuses using it "early."  

 

How long does your student spend working at one sitting? And how much do they get done in one sitting?

 

Alternatively, how long does it take to finish a section?  

 

Do they do Lesson problems one day, exercises the next day?

 

And how about review and challenge problems?

 

My dd is loving the book, feels like she's learning from it, and isn't struggling.  But it seems to take her a looooooooooooong time to complete a section. Just trying to get a feel for the normal range for other kids her age.

[MistiDelaney]

I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you.  My Caboose Boy (11) is just starting this next "unit".  But it's fun to hear that you are using it, too.  I'm happy to hear that your daughter is enjoying it! 

 

My thought is that as long as she makes progress, you shouldn't press for speed.  In the end, I think enjoyment means more learning.

[wapiti]

The lessons in the first half of the book vary in length much more than the lessons in the second half.  I would probably expect that the longer lessons might get split, with lesson problems one day and exercises the next.  In the second half of the book, I'd be willing to bet that, for many lessons, she'll be able to do the lesson problems and the exercises all in one day.  What does she think so far about this?  Does she have an opinion about when/where to stop for the day?

 

As annoying as it is to be unable to schedule it, ultimately, it doesn't really matter.  I'd shoot for a timeframe that feels comfortable.  I would ballpark about an hour for a middle school student, maybe more - the same amount of time a middle schooler would be spending in any math program, through school, etc. 

Edited September 15, 2016 by wapiti

[Chrysalis Academy]

Sometimes you have to start a topic just so you can tag it and find other good stuff!  I found this thread (which I obviously read at the time) that has an excellent discussion of this question:

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/516481-doing-all-the-aops-prea-problems/

[Chrysalis Academy]

The lessons in the first half of the book vary in length much more than the lessons in the second half.  I would probably expect that the longer lessons might get split, with lesson problems one day and exercises the next.  In the second half of the book, I'd be willing to bet that, for many lessons, she'll be able to do the lesson problems and the exercises all in one day.  What does she think so far about this?  Does she have an opinion about when/where to stop for the day?

 

As annoying as it is to be unable to schedule it, ultimately, it doesn't really matter.  I'd shoot for a timeframe that feels comfortable.  I would ballpark about an hour for a middle school student, maybe more - the same amount of time a middle schooler would be spending in any math program, through school, etc. (so, for example, last year my dd had a 45 minute daily class for algebra plus 30 minutes of homework - the students were supposed to stop after 30 minutes even if they couldn't get through it - so that would be 75 min. total.  Not that dd didn't keep going anyway if necessary to finish the homework...)

 

She likes doing the lesson problems on one day, and the exercises the next day.  I've also had her doing an Alcumus section each day.  That - Alcumus plus half a lesson - takes a good 90 min.  She's fine with working that long, but it does have an impact on the rest of our day and what we're able to get done.  This experience is with Ch. 2 and Ch. 9 so far.

 

I'm not sure how much she's super focused, and how much she's daydreaming, because she works in the office with the door closed (she can't tolerate noise/distraction while she's working on math).  Which is fine with me - I have to work with her sister at the same time, so I can't make it silent in the house and have her working at the table with me.  But because I don't know how focused she is and how much she's daydreaming, I was curious how long other kids were taking to do a similar amount of work.  

 

I'm not really worrying about scheduling it, it's more that I'm wondering if she's using the time efficiently or not.  Hard to know when I'm not in the same room with her.

[wapiti]

.

 

Edited September 15, 2016 by wapiti

[Julie of KY]

My basic goal is to do a section a day and do the review problems over 3-5 days. Sometimes the reality looks just like this with one section a day being done. Other times a few review problems will get done with the beginning of a section one day and the next will have more review problems with the exercise from the first section. I don't worry about spreading it out longer if math is getting done even if it is a lot of time on alcumus rather than the textbook.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yep!  Dd13 started AoPS geometry yesterday, the first day of school.  She is supposed to work in the library, but then there was some sort of mixup, with a class in there, so she ended up having to sit at a computer desk without enough room for the books.  Naturally she was distracted.  We'll see if she seeks out a quieter place today.  Then she wanted me to sit with her while she worked some more late last night ("I don't know why, but math turns my brain on, even late at night!" she said quite happily; I made her go to bed so that I could too).

 

eta, adding Alcumus every day would make it really long - we tend to use Alcumus on different days from the books.

 

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.  She's kind of "catching up" with alcumus still - just about to start on the Ratios/Ch. 7 part.  Eventually she'll be caught up to where she is on the book and I'll have her do Alcumus as a review once a week or something.  Maybe I should just start that now, and figure that staggered review once a week is a good reinforcement.

 

I just had a conversation with her about how it's going/how long it's taking, and she admitted that she gets distracted and daydreamy.  We just made a plan: she's going to set a timer for 30 min and focus intensely till it goes off, then take a 10 min break, go outside, play with the dog or whatever, then go back and do another focused 30 min.  We'll see if that picks up the pace a little.

 

I don't mind her taking as long as it takes, I'm not in a rush.  But I can't see that she can possibly be working efficiently and focused for a full 90 min - and she says she isn't.  I'd rather have her put in 60 solid focused min, and not feel like math is taking up the whole day.  I think it's a good lesson for her, too - try different things to figure out how you work most efficiently, don't just throw more time at it.

[Embassy]

It has taken us awhile.  Sometimes my son does all the problems in one setting and all the exercises at once, but not always.  The end of chapter review and challenging problems take several days to get through.  We usually aim for an hour.  I was having my son do Alcumus, but cut it out.  He loves the videos so he is doing the problems, watching the videos, and then he does the exercises.  It will take us about 1.5 years to finish the book :p

[Chrysalis Academy]

We tried the technique today - 30 minutes focused work with a timer, 10 minute break, then 30 more minutes with a timer, and voila! She did one Alcumus section and the 9.1 Exercises in 45 min.  So, I think the pace I originally had in mind was doable, she'd just been daydreaming and doodling too much.  

 

I got this technique from the Coursera Learning How To Learn course, which we've both been doing.  I highly recommend it! And it was neat to take something she'd just learned about and apply it immediately to improving her study habits - I love connections like that!

[lewelma]

I know my older son does not fit the criteria but his experience might still be helpful.  For him with the Intro Algebra book, he did the problems one day and the exercises on a separate day.  Review exercises took typically 3-4 days, and challengers 3-4 days. He did not get to the point of problems and exercises on the same day until he had been doing AoPS for 2 years.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

ETA: just saw that you found a method that works.  :hurray:

[Chrysalis Academy]

Well, it worked today! Tomorrow is another day.  Well, tomorrow is Saturday, but you know what I mean! :D 

 

It's still super helpful to hear how other kids are doing it.  If your super mathy son took two days to do a lesson, I will not assume Shannon is slacking if it takes her two days! For which she will no doubt be grateful! ;)  :D

[lewelma]

 

It's still super helpful to hear how other kids are doing it.  If your super mathy son took two days to do a lesson, I will not assume Shannon is slacking if it takes her two days! For which she will no doubt be grateful! ;)  :D

 

That's why I told you!  It took my son quite some time to build up speed. 

 

You are making me rethink AoPS for my younger.  We tried it 6 months ago and it was definitely a no go.  He just did not have the maturity, problem solving, persistence, or math skill to do it.  But I just love hearing how you built Shannon up to it, definitely inspiring.  I might just get it out again.  You have given me a lot of ideas about how to prepare ds the younger to handle it.

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Thank you for saying that.  It definitely was something we've built up to, worked up to gradually.  We worked hard on problem solving skills, persistence, and attitude before jumping in to it, but I always had this goal in mind - not that she had to use AoPS, but that she would be *able* to use it, would be equipped with the problem solving skills and the approach to math, and to learning in general, that would make it possible.  I think it was the right way to go!  Although now, she likes it so much she says I should have let her use it sooner . . . but I still think we did the right thing.  She enjoyed JA so much, and I really feel like it was the right bridge for her, that and the Zaccaro books which she didn't like at all in 4th & 5th grades, but really grew into last year.  

 

When I think back to the girl I brought home from ps 3 years ago, she is a whole different math student now! It makes me so happy.  Looking back on 3 years of posts, I've definitely agonized about math more than anything else, but I've gotten so much great advice from posters here, and that has definitely helped me chart our course.

 

So thank you all!!!  :001_wub:

[texasmama]

I am an amazing scheduler, and I completely failed at scheduling AoPS.  I spent overly long combining Dolciani and AoPS pre-A into a beautiful schedule and ended up ditching it all.  Oh well, live and learn.

 

Our year of AoPS pre-A (which we shall refer to as "the year of living dangerously"  :D ), was the bridge for my sons between our comfortable elementary SM and upper level math.  They worked as long as they could on a lesson, until they were self-described as "brain dead".  This stretched longer and longer as the year went on.   I gave up on knowing how much of the book we would complete or when we would finish.  We took a six week detour into other programs as a result of Chapter 5.  (Two and Five are killers.)   We did very few of the challenge problems, but we did the reviews.

 

None of that added anything to what has already been stated, but I was cured of my need to schedule.  We did, in fact, finish the program approximately one year from the point of beginning it.

[daijobu]

One section per day, but I go over the problems with her and then she does the exercises on her own.  If I'm careful, I might spot a particularly short section and add it to the next one, but usually I forget.  

 

They typically spend 2-3 days on review and challenge problems.  

[Pen]

I'm rethinking the whole approach in the light of reading the book on Numbers learning that goes with that Coursera course.   

 

Ds used to do an hour of math in a block. That still often seems to be his preference, and is what he did today (though not on AoPS), but I am thinking that, if I can get him to change, your idea of 2 30 minute sessions with a break would be more effective.

 

He also has the option of doing a number of pages per day that would get it all done in a year or so.

 

A set time per day has been useful in allowing plans for other things to be more easy... we know when the basics will be done. And some days a lot gets done, some days not so much, but it sort of evens out over all.  The pages per day seems more appealing to ds lately because some days that is done in only 15 minutes, though other days it might take 2 hours.  In general, the pages per day seems to take less time and give an incentive for focussing and getting it done instead of daydreaming. But maybe the daydreaming is a part of learning and having the brain consolidate what it learns or problem solve in diffuse state. ???

 

If he would do the math without being "made" to do it, then it might be more effective yet if he were to work when he feels the ability to "focus," and walk away and do something else when he needs the "diffuse" time to problem solve and then go back to it later, without an exact schedule, but I am not sure we can do that-- or rather not sure he will do that. But it sounds like it might be best for learning effectively.

[Meriwether]

Forever. It takes forever. We are alternating chapters of AOPS with chapters of Dolciani. Dolciani chapters fly by. AOPS chapters take forever.

[JenneinCA]

My son gets about half an hour of hard thinking before his brain is done. Sometimes that is three problems and sometimes more.

[JoJosMom]

OP:  Are you doing pre-algebra or algebra with your DD?  I am curious, because our DDs seem to be on a very similar math path and we started the AoPS Algebra book a couple of weeks ago.  The reason that I am asking is because the pace seems to be slow here, too, and I am wondering if it's an "AoPS thing."

[Chrysalis Academy]

I think it is an "AoPS thing," from all the posts I've read.

 

We did kind of a hodge-podge of PreAlgebra, which did not end up including the AoPS book, though Alcumus has been a big part.  Basically, Shannon accelerated through MM6 as needed, then did Jousting Armadillos and Zaccaro's Real World Algebra.  She uses Alcumus for challenging problem solving on topics she's already learned, and I use her use of Alcumus to be sure she's mastered topics and can apply what she's learned to different problem-solving situations.

 

We did try the PreA book, and it was ok but not actually a great fit for her learning style.  We both have come to realize that she learns much better with a kind of guided discovery approach, such as is found in JA and Jacobs.  She's starting Alg 1 using Jacobs as her spine, and I expect we'll continue using Alcumus and problems from AoPS Intro to Algebra for going deeper/problem solving, but after the basic concepts have been learned.

 

That's where we're at at this moment - but I've learned that the Math path is the most meandering, so I reserve the right to take it all back in the future as needed!!

[lewelma]

OP:  Are you doing pre-algebra or algebra with your DD?  I am curious, because our DDs seem to be on a very similar math path and we started the AoPS Algebra book a couple of weeks ago.  The reason that I am asking is because the pace seems to be slow here, too, and I am wondering if it's an "AoPS thing."

 

My ds took 7 months to do the first 5 chapters of AoPS intro algebra. AoPS intro algebra teaches 2 things 1) algebra content and 2) mathematical thinking.  Most kids have not seen the mathematical thinking aspect ever before.  So it slows them waaaay down until they get it and then can begin moving through the content at a typical pace but with higher-ordered mathematical thinking skills that grow with the curriculum.

 

Ruth in NZ

[JoJosMom]

Thank you, ladies!  Your perspective really helps. Boy, I feel like we jumped into the deep end of the lake. This just doesn't flow like other curricula. And I am a very linear, non-AoPS kind of thinker so staying ahead is killing me.  I really wish that we could do the class (so she'd have access to a smart teacher :glare: ), but I fear the pace.  

[The Governess]

This is what the first couple chapters are looking like for us:

 

1 hour to work problems from and read one section - she also updates her binder with new rules/definitions/properties

 

30 min to do exercises from one section

30 min to do related Alcumus problems and watch videos for a section.

 

So, about 2 hours per section.

 

Then at the end of a chapter:

1-2 hours on review problems

1-2 hours on selected challenging problems

 

If she has mastered the topic in Alcumus, is able to get most of the review problems right, and has puzzled through several of the challenging problems, we move on.