Singapore 6 or AoPS Pre-Algebra

[imagine.more]

My accelerated 9.5 year old is about to finish up Singapore 5B. He's done 1-5 all along and enjoys it. Math comes pretty intuitively for him (several engineers in the family). 

 

I've heard that Singapore 6 includes a decent amount of review work and also overlaps somewhat with Pre-Algebra concepts. My question is, did you do Singapore 6, Pre-Algebra, Algebra   or  skip 6 and do Pre-Algebra, Algebra   or   Singapore 6, Algebra? 

 

I'd especially love to hear from people who used Art of Problem Solving but I'd like to hear from anyone who has gone through Algebra in any program with their accelerated kids too!

[Arcadia]

DS13 did SM5 & SM6 over summer before starting AoPS prealgebra and then continued with AoPS until he finished AoPS Calculus. DS12 skip SM6 because he was bored with SM and went on to AoPS prealgebra and is now at AoPS Precalculus.

 

DS13 took the SAT and ACT as a 6th grader without prep and he did very well in the probability and statistics questions due to SM6 standards edition. When he tried a sample SAT and ACT practice test before the actual thing, he didn’t need to think. He didn’t need to think about those in the SAT Math 2 subject test either. It was just second nature already. Those sections are covered in public school prealgebra and algebra 1 textbooks. You can look at page 13 & 14 of link to scope and sequence of SM US and Standards edition https://www.singaporemath.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/SSUSandSTD2009.pdf

 

DS12 had to specifically do test prep for those when he took the ACT and SAT in 6th grade as he didn’t know how to do a single question. He has forgotten everything. He had to revise before taking the SAT Math 2 subject test last year because he had to think when doing the practice tests so time was wasted/used up.

[Lucy the Valiant]

SM6 is shorter (I think?) than the other levels; I have 2 kids who finished SM6 and then moved easily to Dolciani pre-algebra / then algebra. Third kid is also doing SM6. An additional benefit (for us) is that since it IS mostly review, all 3 of mine so far have really taken ownership of their own math through the course of that year. 

[wendyroo]

We use Math Mammoth as our main spine instead of Singapore, but I will share our experience.

 

Peter probably could have tackled AOPS prealgebra after MM5, but we continued through MM6 so that all the concepts would be very solid.  I was already a little nervous about how he would cope with AOPS-level challenge and intensity, so I wanted to err on the side of being too prepared rather than not prepared thoroughly enough.

 

Peter started AOPS Pre-A about 2 months ago and has been making good progress since then.  It certainly did him no harm to breeze through MM6 first - AOPS is still PLENTY challenging.

 

Wendy

[Gil]

Re: Finishing PM6.

Unless you've run into the problem of the series not working any more, I'd vote to finish it.

 

We used Math Mammoth, not Singapore PM, however I had both my kids do the 6th grade level. The older version of MM that we used was 1-6, and hadn't been revised to include 7. Being the last book in the series, its the level where they will get to learn new topics that hadn't been introduced yet and more importantly, got to practice problem solving on problems that synthesize and bring together all the skills that they've learned in the last couple of levels. They are AL, so it's not like we're racing the clock.

 

The way that I viewed it, the 6th level of a 1-6 series isn't extra it is the end.  I think we did MM6 in a few months and I think that Singapore/Primary Mathematics is similar to, or possibly shorter than MM6.

 

Re: Algebra with young ALs.

It's been a while and my memories not perfect, but we did a lot of elementary algebra using a mish-mash of resources that I already owned along side MM5 and MM6. They didn't have any real problems, I think maybe with setting up word problems in the middle and then quadratics, towards the end?

 

After they finished MM6, we used a real text and did a "fast-pass" over view/run through of an Official Algebra course. I wanted to see what they knew well and what needed more work and over all they did great with the material, but they still weren't ready for a BIG textbook at 7ish years old.

 

Re: AoPS with younger kids

I'd caution you give it a try if you want too, but for us, AoPS has ranged between being "meh" and being a "flop". We tried 3 different books and they can do the work, but they just don't like the books. Some kind of way mine are the kids who love math, are good at math but just don't like AoPS.

 

 

[Crimson Wife]

Both my kids did SM 6.

 

My oldest (bright but not "mathy") continued on to Discovering Math 7-8 before we realized she wasn't actually retaining any algebra from DM. I switched her to Lial's Beginning Algebra and then she did Dual Enrollment at the community college taking a sequence that integrated Algebra 2 and college-level statistics.

 

My "mathy" kid I started in AoPS Pre-Algebra but after a couple of chapters he had a "meh" reaction. I then had him do the pre-algebra Elements of Mathematics courses, which he LOVED. The virtual charter that he is currently enrolled in requires passing an algebra readiness test prior to starting algebra so I had him do a few chapters out of AoPS pre-algebra that he needed more work on (square roots and the geometry ones). He again found them "meh". Currently he is working through selected lessons in Horizons Pre-Algebra while waiting for the charter to administer the algebra readiness test (we meet with the teacher next week so hopefully she'll have an update). He really wants to go back to EoM as soon as we get the go-ahead from the charter to begin algebra.

[Rush]

DS9.5 on the first chapter of AoPS Pre-alg after spending a few years on MEP. So far we are fully satisfy with it. It explains everything very well. 

 

 

[idnib]

We did Singapore K-5 with DS and skipped 6 and went to AOPS. We found AOPS too wordy (despite having loved BA) and switched to Dolciani thanks to great advice from Jane in NC. Even though we didn't stick with AOPS, I don't believe doing another year of Singapore would have changed that or been a good use of time. All these programs have a fair amount of overlap built into them and I think whether one does Singapore 6 depends on how solid the student's number sense and arithmetic are, and not because it has topics the student won't encounter elsewhere. When DD9 gets to Singapore 6 we will definitely be skipping it for her as well.

[SoCal_Bear]

We are doing Jousting Armadillos over here before AOPS as a way to ease in to things. AOPS text is very dense to jump into straight away. We are meandering through...as time is not an issue.

[seaben]

What I found worked well with a younger kid starting AoPS pre-algebra was to take it slowly but consistently.  We did 10-15 minutes max in the beginning and finished the book over 18 months. The videos also were a big hit which can supplant a lot of the text/exercises. You just have to be careful about checking what's covered if you go that way. I also treated it like a tutoring session, where I asked questions and framed things when necessary. Most importantly, a healthy amount of math diversions via games/math videos etc. was useful. My feeling is that if you're accelerated there's no reason to skip any fun/interesting diversions.

[SeaConquest]

We are doing Jousting Armadillos over here before AOPS as a way to ease in to things. AOPS text is very dense to jump into straight away. We are meandering through...as time is not an issue.

How have you liked it?

[SoCal_Bear]

Forgot to add as you can see in my siggy that we are completing BA 5 as we poke along in pre-A. We are one of those whose use BA a level after SM. It's useful to tandem it for us and makes things not so heavy all the time since BA. He's plugging along but the workload is not overwhelming.

[visitor]

@ Calbear how much math do you spend daily. Ds8 begged me to do more math. I looked at you signature and saw many math options :)

 

I like the idea that you do BA5 with AoPs.

[daijobu]

We finished SM 5 and then went to AoPS prealgebra.  No problems.  

[SoCal_Bear]

Maybe average 45 minutes daily. We school pretty much year round though. Math happens almost every day over here. I haven't used AOPS yet. I have JA on deck right now. 

I rotate through the various other math resources based on whatever is going on.

Edited January 29, 2018 by calbear

[MamaSprout]

We skipped 6, and sort of mashed together some other resources. If I had it to redo, we'd do 6. I feel like preA and algebra took longer than needed. We also didn't use AoPS for preA. We were warned off of it by other families who like usually liked AoPS, but found that book made things more difficult than necessary. That is something my dd would not have tolerated.

Edited January 30, 2018 by MamaSprout