Planning ahead: Math

[Jenny in Florida]

Yes, I know it's silly, but I got to thinking about this last night and realized I don't have even a hazy idea of where we will go with math after next year.

My son is currently doing the UCCP Algebra course, which is going really well. I admit to a certain amount of pleasant surprise about this, since I got really freaked out about the whole thing at the beginning of the year. I looked at just the titles of the lessons and panicked, thinking there was no way he was actually going to be able to handle it. But he's doing just fine.

But I digress.

So, the plan all along has been for him to get back on the FLVS math track after this year. My daughter took the FLVS Geometry course a few years ago and had a good experience. I think my son will do well with it, too.

However, I am unimpressed with the FLVS Algebra II course. It is very, very dry and tedious. And, when it comes right down to it, my son will still be pretty young (12), and I hate to dump him into a class he'll hate.

So, who wants to help me brainstorm? What would be a good Algebra II course/curriculum for a young, bright but still-a-kid kid? And, ideally, I'd love it to be something he can stick with for Pre-calc and Calc.

[Northernmom]

What about the Art of Problem Solving Intermediate Algebra course? AoPS courses are challenging and are not tedious whatsoever. They are very fastpaced and involve very little repetition. I think Algebra II is included in the Intro to Algebra class, though so you'd probably have to have your son take the pretests to see which class would be a better fit.

[Hoggirl]

My ds did Chalkdust Algebra I as a 10-year-old 5th grader. He is doing Chalkdust Geometry this year for Grade 6. I will keep on keepin' on with Professor Mosely. It goes through Calculus.

 

HTH

[Catherine]

Used Singapore before this and I'm going to need to make a decision very soon as ds#2 is finishing 6B probably by January. It's a conventional textbook, but it is thorough and covers the material well. It's arranged in a way to make it easy to get as much drill as needed for each topic. Reviews of all previous material are at the end of each chapter so we use these as tests.

[nmoira]

I'm in much the same boat as you (though a few years behind), so have no direct experienece. Two of the distance programs I'm looking at are AofPS and Thinkwell.

[Storm Bay]

My dd's favourite Algebra programs are Gelfand's and the 1965 Dolciani. She's still doing I as a review (because she's now doing proofs, whereas with Lial's she wasn't). The biggest things I'd look for are proofs and theory; it's not enough to know how to do the mechanics of Algebra, kids need to know why. My brother teaches post secondary Physics and told me that the two things he sees lacking in ps graduates are logic and thinking skills. We looked at Chalkdust, and while dd liked the instructor, it was not only very expensive, I didn't think it was as good for what we were looking for as Gelfand's & Dolciani. You may wish to check the algebra tag I'll add to this if it's not already there, because there are some great discussions on math.