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Math Strategy Question


SeaConquest
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We are still waiting for our Beast Academy 4 practice books to arrive from our charter. So, in a fit of desperation, I started showing Sacha the RR ( :001_tt1:) Pre-Algebra videos from AOPS. In my best Julia Roberts circa Pretty Woman voice: Big Mistake. Huge.

 

Now, he is all about RR (as is mama -- damn, that man makes math sexy :drool5: ), and wants to start on Pre-A. I'm like, but...but... what about BA 4? 5? Slow down there, little buddy!

 

I know that some people have moved onto Pre-A after BA4, and worked the BA5 books in as they were published. What do you think of this strategy vs. my original plan (ha!!) to spend two years on BA4/5? Is there stuff in BA5 that you wish your DC had seen before pre-A? Could I alternate BA with PA?

 

I was originally going to slow him down with a class by Cleo Borac from her Gifted Math series, but that class was cancelled for low enrollment. I am not sure if I can do the Borac stuff on my own. It looks hard!!

 

After watching all of the Chapter 1 PA videos, I can tell that he is just doing fine, so far. I know that the beginning of PA is supposed to be review, but not all of it was for him (since he hasn't yet done BA 4 and 5). He seems to have pretty much intuited negative numbers and fractions on his own. And he loved learning about reciprocals, the new (to him) definitions of subtraction and division, and how to use the distributive property to do long division.

 

Plus, he just loves RR's presentation of it all, and thinks RR is "epic" and "so cool." He even said something about him being cooler than Stampy. :svengo:

 

So, do I appease him by moving into PA sooner (interspersed with BA and scary Borac) or do I keep the slow and steady path I had planned (not that BA is slow, but you get my drift)?

Edited by SeaConquest
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Random thoughts:  what age/grade is he?  Of course it'll depend on the individual, but there don't seem to be many kids who do well with it before 4th gr around these forums - maybe only a couple, IIRC.  One of mine did it in 4th and the others in 5th.  (FWIW, Just last night I started the Prealgebra text with my current 5th grader who recently skipped fractions/decimals/all of prealgebra at school when they put him into alg 1; my young 3rd grader was listening in and welcome to join though that's not in my plans).

 

The other question to consider is about the videos, whether you are using them for direct instruction or as a review after the lesson problems; which is better will depend on the kid.  Working through the lesson problems rather than direct instruction is a little more work for the brain and might help retention (? just thinking out loud as we've never really used the videos).  

 

I vote for striking while the iron is hot.  Also keep in mind that chapter 2 can be a bear - keep it silly and light and go slow.  There's no reason you can't start and then back off if he's biting off more than he can chew.  The challenge problems and Alcumus are also available for later review.

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My dd is one of those kids that started AOPS PA after starting but not finishing BA, as they only had half of 4 done before she begged to move forward. I guess you could take a look at chapter 2, and see how that goes. It is a definite jump up in challenge. If he does fine with that, then I would press on.

 

 

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I vote for wapiti's silly and light and slow.

 

We haven't looked at AoPS PA at all (came out too late for kiddo) but this is the beauty of homeschooling! Try it, indulge him. If he hits a huge wall, then in whatever voice works for you and him :laugh: , make it sound really positive and cool and then whip out the BA books again. Don't make it sound like it is a step back. Make it sound like it's a step sideways. Sideways works really well for helping kids love math. (I totally agree about RR BTW!)

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Random thoughts:  what age/grade is he?  Of course it'll depend on the individual, but there don't seem to be many kids who do well with it before 4th gr around these forums - maybe only a couple, IIRC.  One of mine did it in 4th and the others in 5th.  (FWIW, Just last night I started the Prealgebra text with my current 5th grader who recently skipped fractions/decimals/all of prealgebra at school when they put him into alg 1; my young 3rd grader was listening in and welcome to join though that's not in my plans).

 

The other question to consider is about the videos, whether you are using them for direct instruction or as a review after the lesson problems; which is better will depend on the kid.  Working through the lesson problems rather than direct instruction is a little more work for the brain and might help retention (? just thinking out loud as we've never really used the videos).  

 

I vote for striking while the iron is hot.  Also keep in mind that chapter 2 can be a bear - keep it silly and light and go slow.  There's no reason you can't start and then back off if he's biting off more than he can chew.  The challenge problems and Alcumus are also available for later review.

 

He is only in 2nd (7, turning 8 in January), which is why I planned for him not to start PA until 4th. I really do think that PA is going to be too hard for him now. I wasn't planning to scrap BA now. I was wondering if we could do BA4 now, and then perhaps intersperse PA with BA5 in 3rd -- whether there would be a real downside to that approach?

 

Maybe, I will ask my EF to pull PA from our resource center, so I can take a gander at it. Thus far, we have only been watching the videos, and doing some sample problems that we made up on scratch paper.

Edited by SeaConquest
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One idea:  stick with BA, maybe have a special day of the week (Fridays?) where you watch a video followed by the Alcumus section on that topic.

 

That's what I was going to recommend. The videos make it appear very playful, but the textbook itself has more of a "grown up" feel, so he may get frustrated with it if you switch completely. But working on it once a week might keep his interest peaked.

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Maybe, I will ask my EF to pull PA from our resource center, so I can take a gander at it. Thus far, we have only been watching the videos, and doing some sample problems that we made up on scratch paper.

 

My oldest was 7/8 (3rd grade December kid) when he started AoPS prealgebra and he has survived so far :lol: I find it less stressful if I just let my kids set their pace as long as they hit the minimum on "boring" subjects.

 

While waiting for your EF to pull PA from your resource center, you can sign up for Alcumus and print some questions from the PA book category.  You can restrict Alcumus questions to the PA book.

 

You could keep BA as spine and do the PA book as enrichment daily.

 

ETA:

Both my boys prefer print with lots of words and paragraphs to graphic novels.

Edited by Arcadia
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How good is he at reading books that are text heavy? That could be the deciding factor - the concepts and the pace are not out of reach for a 2nd grader with high mathematical aptitude - but, the PA book is purely black and white text and diagrams and requires focus and higher levels of comprehension. If those things match up, then, you can go for PA earlier than you scheduled.

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You could also start him on the MathCounts Minis by RR while continuing BA. There's a pretty big archive on the MathCounts website.

 

FWIW, DD started PA at 8. We spent a year on LOF PA first because I wasn't sure she was ready for AOPS PA at 7. Having said that, she's a kid who really likes cute and a little silly (which is why we alternate AOPS and LOF, and why she's read/worked through every BA book that she can get her hands on, despite being on Algebra before they started coming out). She could handle AOPS math-wise and reading wise, but still wanted cute.

Edited by dmmetler
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You could also start him on the MathCounts Minis by RR while continuing BA. There's a pretty big archive on the MathCounts website.

 

FWIW, DD started PA at 8. We spent a year on LOF PA first because I wasn't sure she was ready for AOPS PA at 7. Having said that, she's a kid who really likes cute and a little silly (which is why we alternate AOPS and LOF, and why she's read/worked through every BA book that she can get her hands on, despite being on Algebra before they started coming out). She could handle AOPS math-wise and reading wise, but still wanted cute.

This is definitely him. He loves all that kid stuff. When I mentioned Alcumus to him, he wondered whether it had wizards, like in Prodigy.

 

Thank you for the suggestions and feedback on PA. I don't think he is ready for something textbooky. He really enjoys things with a narrative -- History of US is a big hit on audio vs. reading the textbook. So, BA is definitely better for him stylistically. I will look into the other RR videos as well.

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We started the pre-algebra towards the end of 3rd after finishing Singapore, and we finished it at the end of 4th. We didn't use the videos - we worked at our own pace. The biggest problem that my child had was attention to detail - I'm not sure if it was a maturity issue or a personality issue, since it got much better for a while and now we seem to be in some sort of flaky tween zone where he'll set up his systems of equations beautifully and then miss them because he added 2 and 2 and got 5. :-) Anyway, it's something to think about. Our biggest struggle was exponents, which he completely understood in the abstract but when we had to do a lot of problems he'd get frustrated with small mistakes that were made because he 'missed' seeing something or 'forgot about' one of the terms in the equation.

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We started in third and ended halfway thru fourth. I was glad he had gotten all the operations down, as well as percents, ratios and rate problems. But you could always start and then when you get to new information stop and do a first pass with something more straightforward and then do the Aops version. I just know with the rate problems especially my ds would have been lost if he hadn't already had plenty of exposure thru Singapore.

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