Maybe Watership Down, Anne of Green Gables, and Twelfth Night?

Medium. She can do it fairly quickly and she can clearly explain why it works, but it’s likely not to the ‘without thinking’ stage.

For this question, she got to it after a bit and working out some other examples, including some with numbers she could readily simplify, but it wasn’t automatic. She said she’d multiply 3 by itself 9 times, and then the solution to how many per group if she made 3^4 groups was the remaining 3s once she separated the first four our with brackets, which was 3^5. She can easily explain addition and powers of exponents using similar explanations from the definition. We need to work on division of numbers with exponents, but I don’t think it’s a big stretch from this point, and this is also covered in the next chapter of her book, so she’ll also get some practice there.

She’s very comfortable with the definition. When it comes to the power laws, I’m not sure, but I will go find out.

It’s possible that the exposure isn’t building a mental model, but I think generally it is so far. I’ll think about it with this in mind. My daughter is certainly much more comfortable than when she first saw them, and gives sensible explanations when asked about exponents. I don’t think she has done negative exponents yet though, that is in the next chapter.

I think the opportunity is there, because they are introduced in a whole chapter in 4A, used frequently in at least one of the two chapters on factors and in the square roots chapter, and then have another whole chapter in 5D. If you’re seeing lots of BA kids who don’t have a good mental model, then that would be a concern, but there is more than a year of periodic exposure planned in.

Do you mean a continuous year of predominately exponents? Or periodic exposure over the year?

Yes, and I think some things are introduced in a fairly thoughtful, methodical way- especially topics with multiple chapters like fractions, factors, and exponents. That probably does leave the single chapter topics with less than complete coverage. But maybe they’re intended to be an introduction only, that will be built upon in AOPS?

I find the books after level 2 are better. Second half of level 3 and up has some really good material that my kids (and I) have learned interesting things from. I thought about this too, since they seemed to struggle a bit with Level 2, but it now says they are working on Level 1, so they are trying to bridge that gap.

Their website says they are working on Level 1 now.

BA recommends MEP, I believe, as a program to get you to Gr. 2, but when I looked at it is seemed quite complicated and a lot of printing, so I didn’t actually do it. Possibly should have, because the place value section in BA is not enough to stand on its own, but I’m working on that on the side now. I wonder why BA only goes from Gr. 2 onwards?

Yes, we sort of are for the most part, and much of the time that works well. We realistically need some kind of road map. My two youngest have heard of some things before they get there, so then they aren’t new (fractions, negative numbers). My oldest did a different curriculum prior, so she had some exposure to others before switching. I’ve been having a lot more conversations with my kids about math topics, so that is also contributing to some things coming up earlier. Where it starts in Gr. 2, I don’t think it’s supposed to be a kid’s first exposure to place value, in reality.

I had never heard about his life. I absolutely love the Frog and Toad books, and it’s not the morality lessons, it’s the beguiling way they are told. Margaret Atwood has some good (though very different in style) children’s books that I also quite enjoy.

We’ve used BA only (mostly) for my oldest for books 3C to 5D, my middle (2A to currently in 3D), and youngest is in 2B. I really like the puzzle approach, the comic books for explanations, as well as the wide variety of ways to practice and the way topics are tired together & come back around for practice even though it is mainly a block curriculum. It is a complete curriculum, however, there are a few topics that in my opinion don’t get enough time or are put in an odd order, especially in level 2 and early level 3. We found we had to do extra work on these to develop a good understanding. Place value isn’t as strong as it could be, and the distributive property chapter took a long time to work through. The logic chapter in 4B is the highlight so far. I found it got better as it went.

Good points, thanks for posting this. It is quite situation-specific, which would tend to point away from a clear boundary line between “good” and “bad” edits to books. It’s an interesting contrast to the false distinction between modern and old education in the tweet shown by @Ordinary Shoes, where it all sounds so clear-cut and simple, and then actually is so much more complicated, even to the point of making the statement meaningless.

I’m pretty sure I would not seek out the un-edited version to read to my kids, even as an opportunity to discuss racism with them, and to have them identify it themselves. I don’t know what kind of literary or cultural value Mary Poppins or Dr. Doolittle have, since I haven’t read these two, but it does seem to make the books much more accessible especially for kids who do experience racism frequently in their day to day lives. This makes me wonder where the boundary is between beneficial and counterproductive publisher or on-the-fly editing of ideas, phrases & chapters that have not stood the test of time. Is it an age-appropriate issue? Is it often misguided and just trying to stick our heads in the sand? Or is it a small doses for inoculation approach, in order to teach kids at a young age to recognize hurtful ideas when they see them? Especially as @lewelma noted that fiction was key to work through these ideas with kids.

Yes, I think this could well be the case, that people have more racist/misogynistic attitudes than they realize or would care to admit. But perhaps open acknowledgment and discussion can counter these hidden tendencies as well. At least I hope so.

I expect there is an element of this, in some circles (probably the Elsie Dinsmore-loving circles) but the attitude I hear more often is that the antiquated attitudes don’t hurt/didn’t make me a racist/misogynist etc. That is, they don’t support the misogyny, but the frame it as something not that problematic, and therefore it can be ignored.

Maybe remedial isn’t the right word, but I was thinking that the parent is trying to actively contradict the portrayals & attitudes in the books, in some cases. If the child is already largely in agreement, and observing the same types of issues, then they would be just discussions.

Agreed in moderation, but if every book on your booklist has elements of offensiveness, the book choices may be less than ideal, or at the least, a lot of “remedial” discussion is needed. This is quite relevant to whether curricula have held up over time: some parts of them simply haven’t, and new or modified elements may need to be mixed in, even where the person who developed it was ahead of their time and very perceptive of the situation at that time. It’s a good point, though, about our own blind spots which are inevitably there.

I am concerned about this too, so I’m glad to hear that the discussions were more powerful than the negative portrayals in the books.

I am intrigued by the wild & long term popularity of this one, so I may read it myself. This could be right up her alley...anything with misadventures has potential. But maybe not as the first book.

Thanks for the guidance on this! Sounds like moderation is key. I’m okay with this, since I don’t want to go overboard with short stories either.

There was an interesting article in National Geographic about King Tut’s family which analyzed fragments of DNA to see how closely he was related to his wife (spoiler alert: very) and that this may have caused his children to have genetic abnormalities and die very young.

Now we have the Roman one, and it’s just as popular. Especially Cleopatra’s family tree! 😳