silver Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 My daughter is in 2nd grade. She was doing MM exclusively, but I added BA as a one day a week supplement when she started MM3, so we were going through BA slowly. About 2-3 months ago, I dropped MM and we do BA exclusively. She's almost done with book 3C and is on track to finish level 3 by the end of 2nd grade. The last few weeks, she been complaining that math is "boring". I'm not sure I can accelerate BA for her without skipping problems. I have Borac. Would supplementing BA with that help math be "less boring" or would it just cause problems by slowing down BA (we'd likely replace BA with Borac o/nce a week)? Is there a way to accelerate BA so she can get to math that challenges her? Is there another option I'm not thinking of here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Boring can be both "too easy" and "too hard", especially for a young child. It may well be that she would be happier with the more straightforward MM now as opposed to the puzzles and detailed problem solving of BA, particularly since she's doing it on the younger side, and to use the BA activity book a level behind as an extension, not as the core. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silver Posted February 20, 2017 Author Share Posted February 20, 2017 (edited) Boring can be both "too easy" and "too hard", especially for a young child. It may well be that she would be happier with the more straightforward MM now as opposed to the puzzles and detailed problem solving of BA, particularly since she's doing it on the younger side, and to use the BA activity book a level behind as an extension, not as the core. I think it's more a problem of being too easy. She easily handles the standard problems with no errors, and often doesn't need help or hints with the starred problems. The reason I switched from MM 3 to BA 3 was that, even with skipping problems, MM was more practice than she needed. Edited February 20, 2017 by silver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zarabellesmom Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Often the problems at the beginning of the chapter are easier. Maybe have her do a few to show mastery and then move on to the harder ones? Then she could move through it more quickly and find the place where she is actually challenged. Just an idea. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackie Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Out of all the BA3 books, 3C is the most straightforward, non-puzzly math. Is it possible that she generally likes BA but this particular book was too simple? We use a zillion math resources, so DD only does BA 2x weekly, even though it's our "main" program. It has taken her an average of around 20 hours to finish each of A and B. However, she's currently on track to finish C in under 10 hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silver Posted February 21, 2017 Author Share Posted February 21, 2017 Out of all the BA3 books, 3C is the most straightforward, non-puzzly math. Is it possible that she generally likes BA but this particular book was too simple? We use a zillion math resources, so DD only does BA 2x weekly, even though it's our "main" program. It has taken her an average of around 20 hours to finish each of A and B. However, she's currently on track to finish C in under 10 hours. So if this is the issue, we can just stay the course and things will work themselves out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cake and Pi Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 Maybe you could have her just do all the starred problems? That would speed things up quite a bit until she gets into some more challenging material. IMO, BA 4 is a step up from BA 3, and BA 5 is another several degrees increase in difficult over BA 4. My DS#1 breezed through BA 3 doing most chapters in 4-8 30-minute days. Now in BA 5 he is adequately challenged and mostly takes the recommended 12-15 days per chapter (except for this one time he got stuck on a single page for two weeks... yeah). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deerforest Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 Why not just add some fun living math to it? Tons of books, games, videos out there. I still do loads of living math with my 7th grader. She's in algebra so not nearly as accelerated as others here with math but we did nothing except living math until BA finally came out March of 2nd grade ( can't believe it's been 5 years now!) and then she just took off from there. But she still loves it when we just play math games or other things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackie Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 So if this is the issue, we can just stay the course and things will work themselves out? That would be my first option. If she still doesn't like it after another book, I'd re-evaluate then. For my own kid, who always needs to know why, I'd tell her flat out that C was the most procedural book of the level, and to go into D with an open mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4KookieKids Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 That would be my first option. If she still doesn't like it after another book, I'd re-evaluate then. For my own kid, who always needs to know why, I'd tell her flat out that C was the most procedural book of the level, and to go into D with an open mind. This is good to know. My kiddo took a while on each of 3A and 3B but has been flying through 3C. I thought maybe he just got the hang of things, but maybe not so much! lol. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silver Posted February 23, 2017 Author Share Posted February 23, 2017 Thanks, everyone. I'm going to try just sticking with it for now and see if the next book perks her back up. She really likes when BA has more puzzle like problems, so I'm hoping she'll be happy about it again in 3D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinewarbler Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 I agree that you should stick to BA for awhile longer. With both kids, I've had to compact chapters in math for most, but not all, topics. Every new topic meant my figuring that out again... do we do every 2nd question, every 10th question, or every question? We've also skipped entire topics after the first page. I also agree that boring means too hard or too easy. It can also mean that they don't agree with the author's approach to learning the topic. My DD would say "too boring" when she already understood the unit somewhat, but the method being used to teach it was one she didn't relate to. I guess it was meant as a critique of the method. I would also use the board games/puzzles idea to break it up a bit BTW - we're in high school now, and guess what this year's main complaint is? Math is too boring. Arrrgh! I am sending her to a university math circle now. This week she came home saying she didn't understand half of the lecture, and it was awesome! :huh: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momto4inSoCal Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 (edited) My DD says the same thing and we are using the same curriculum. We currently use both MM and BA. In BA we skip problems. At the most half of the page sometimes just one problem a page and we go through about 8 pages a day. I think it's a great curriculum though and it's written in a language that dd understands. We are zooming through it just for my peace of mind so that I know we cover every topic but I think once math gets challenging it will be a little more fun. Then again maybe not. Math was always easy for me but I never loved it. It was just an easy A class. My goal with DD is to push her to her full potential without burning her out. I would push your DD through the easy parts skipping questions and when you get to a section where she doesn't easily answer the questions let her do more problems. My rule for BA is as long as she can answer the questions without my help we will continue skipping problems but if she needs help we go back and add the problems we skipped. Edited March 14, 2017 by Momto4inSoCal 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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