Anyone used BA5 and AOPS Pre-algebra together?

[Miss Innocent]

My 11 year old son (grade 5/year 6 - we are in the UK) is coming to the end of Beast Academy 4. He loves Maths and really loves the style of Beast Academy. He doesn't struggle with it, even the starred questions, very much. He is happy to spend time puzzling over the questions. So, I think AOPS will probably be a good fit for him. At the moment he is saying he wants to study Maths at university, and even to do a PhD in the subject, so I am taking that to mean that he really enjoys it! 😄

 

Anyway, I have been considering doing Beast Academy 5 alongside AOPS pre-algebra (so a chapter or two of BA, followed by a chapter of PA), in order to ease the jump from lovable monsters (I read it aloud to him with voices!) to big textbook with no pictures, rather than any worry about the Maths content. Has anyone tried this? Can anyone see any drawback to this plan that I haven't spotted?

 

Emma x

[Roadrunner]

I would go with preA if you think he already knows what's in BA5. Otherwise I would finish BA first. I am not sure what would be the point of doing them together. That's like doing 5th grade and 6thbgrade math together. If he is ready 6th, why bother with 5th?

Edited March 24, 2017 by Roadrunner

[deerforest]

We are in algebra and DD still asks me to buy BA to do on the side.

[Julie of KY]

Yes, I do Beast alongside AoPS prealgebra with my daughter. She is very good at math logic, but she needs more drill on the arithmetic side of things (decimals, multiplication, percents etc). She has been doing Beast 5 this year while doing AoPS prealgebra. It has worked well. She has now completed all of the prealgebra book - finishing Beast 5C now and awaiting 5d to be published. She will do Beast 5D and then start AoPS Algebra in the fall. To further confuse her math path, she is very talented visual-spacially. She has also done the first 5 chapters of the AoPS Geometry book (and can do them very well as she has a good enough algebra base and very good geometry skills). 

 

The main reason she has done Beast out of order from Prealgebra was simply that it had not been published yet. She did SM, Derek Owens Prealgebra, did Beast as it was published, and then did AoPS Prealgebra (after DO). She is now well-founded and ready to move on to Algebra. (My oldest went straight to Algebra from SM5 and my second sped through prealgebra); my daughter has simply needed more practice to solidify the fundamentals before moving on.

 

Do what works for you child.

 

My little guy will do Beast and then Prealgebra.

[Miss Innocent]

Julie, thank you. I'm glad combining the two has worked for your daughter. My son is similar in some ways - good on the conceptual side of things, but slower with the computational part. Somehow Maths almost seems easier for him the further we go, does that makes sense? (Maybe he needs to start AOPS for that reason alone!) He doesn't have the visual-spatial talent your daughter has, though, from what I've seen so far.

 

I think, to answer Roadrunner, my main reason for doing the two together, and consequently taking longer with each, is because my son loves BA so much and he doesn't always do well with change. I think if we just come to a sudden stop with Beast, then he could end up resenting AOPS just because it wasn't BA. Whereas if he is already using, and hopefully enjoying (I think he will, but you never know!), AOPS then I hope it will make the end of Beast Academy easier to cope with. So, my reason for interweaving the two it is for emotional reasons not mathematical reasons (or not having BA5 available).

 

deerforest, my son would definitely be asking the same, if we had had to move on already!

 

Emma x