We started Algebra 1 with the AoPS books at home. We did Chapters 1, 5 and 8 at home together. I had Foerster’s for backup and used the word problems from it for additional systems of equations practice. Then I decided to just have him do self paced with AoPS. I chose self paced in case the online class went too quickly. Since it is mostly review, we have done some chapters at home, and the alcumus has already been completed through chapter 5, he is already on Chapter 4 after starting on January 10. I expect him to slow down when Alcumus must also be completed. I counted over 80 practice problems in chapter one of the book and that chapter didn’t even have the ton of review problems and Challenge problems like most chapters in the book have! He didn’t do that sheer amount of problems in self paced… He gave up on 1 challenge problem in chapter 1, 2 challenge problems in chapter 2 at which point I told him to NEVER hit give up and ask a question of me or post his questions on their forum instead of answering at that moment. Then he gave up on one challenge problem in chapter 3!! So he has a small amount of orange, some green and mostly blue in all 3 completed chapters. I have not made him do the actual reading because well, they say you don’t have to and it has been review so far. Questions are: Am I right about not ever hitting “give up”? He can’t seem to fix the orange at this point… Alcumus is mostly green, should I insist he turn them blue? Honestly much of this so far feels like it is no more difficult than Beast Academy. Have you found the self paced to be easier for the student to complete than doing it with just you at home? Are the “lessons” on self paced pretty much the same discovery they use in the book in the Problem sets? Do you have your student go through the problems in the book for initial work before the “lesson”, videos and challenge problems on the self paced? In other words, do you make them read through the section first? Do you have them go through the review and challenge problems in the book before going to the next chapter in self paced? Or is that only if they struggled with a specific concept?

I officially consider Jan 1 to be the start of a new year and promote at that time. Latin- still working on FFL Math-AoPS self paced Algebra 1 then AoPS C&P Spanish- HSA -2 times a week (goals: learn some Spanish and learn study skills) History- The Good and the Beautiful Constitution Unit Study along with MP Story of the 13 colonies; then go back to Human Odyssey book 1 ancients/ History Detective Geography- mapping the world with Art, finish MP geography 1. Science- interest led mini units English/LA- Moving Beyond the Page (Animal Farm) Grammar- finish R&S 7 then MCT Magic Lens MCT Caesar’s English 2 then WWW Windows to the World- slowly- focusing on annotations and WTM or TtC questions until ready to move onto lit essay section. Taking breaks to do Movies as Literature. Read aloud of classic books/Shakespeare’s as you like it with lots of free reading. Grammar of Poetry- 1 lesson per week Spelling- I used a curriculum in the past and he did great, but it never spilled over into practical applications. So finding/correcting mistakes of his own. One independent day per week which ends up a little light, but I hope to ramp it up. Extras about once per week and mostly for exposure and fun together are: Philosophy for kids Art of Argument Art Appreciation Art (trying clay and painting) Music Appreciation and piano classical/ Christian studies- MP- Christian book 1/ Horatius at the Bridge and Famous Men of the Middle Ages

I like most of my 11 year olds work to do double duty. I laughed out loud at some of WTM’s recommendations regarding time spent per grade per week on certain subjects. But really when you think about it, the double duty action adds a lot of practical application of core skills. We just finished Fallacy Detective. We spent about 15-20 minutes one time a week with FD. I just realized that we do a lot of the “extras” other posters mentioned. Most of our board game days are triple duty logic/fun/family time. We are starting LToW in January; one could view that as another logic application. We don’t do grammar for as long as suggested either. I think I am going to do 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off for formal grammar starting next year completing one chapter of R&S 7 in that 3 weeks on. Many things do double duty. I count Killgallon exercises as both grammar and writing. Latin, Spanish and editing his own writing is grammar in action (his nickname is Captain Comma Splice). Science and history written and oral narrations/memory recitations do double duty as writing/presenting practice and it is all using grammar orally correctly. Spelling is always on my (and hence his) mind with all the writing so all of the above is spelling. I still scatter Spelling Power in as well as dictation. It is just not set in stone as 48 min per day, 4 days a week for grammar alone. Foreign language study- we are way under doing that although I should put Latin as higher priority because Latin does all the things (multi purpose as grammar/foreign language/root word/vocab study/handwriting/maybe even logic/requires attention to details). Math- I do use suggested times and try to do real life math one day a week Art? Has my child even done art in the last two months? Only if you count a couple of maps with Mapping the World with Art and his little coding games where he custom pixelates all the animations. We will try some painting with Bob Ross for fun over winter vacation, if he likes it, we could do one a month. I am planning 7th grade (starts in January). I always think we aren’t doing enough based on a friend’s classical university model school and this forum. But looking at what I *think serves more than one purpose in education, maybe we are doing okay. Possibly even too much considering I am wanting to add WttW for my kid, who all here would say a boy who just literally turns 12 before starting, is far too young/ immature to work on.

I was not alerted to any replies on this thread, so I apologize for not realizing you answered. That chart is helpful 😀 thanks! The RIT scores for math and reading were 266 and 240 respectively. According to the chart that puts this “6th” grader having mastered 6th grade spring (so about grade level) in reading and spring 11th grade material in math. The math score doesn’t sound accurate. Looking at what they said he was “ready to learn” looks like mostly Algebra topics to me and that is where we are anyway. According to the “ready to learn” for reading, we have covered those literary terms, but not practiced finding and identifying them on his own. I looked over his shoulder last year and could see what he was missing. I didn’t do that this year.

Do high percentile scores mean anything other than telling what the student is ready to learn for math and finding reading material in that lexile range? In other words just an academic growth check?

11 year old boy working on developing paragraphs with good support and using a revision process that includes the given feedback.

I also gave him an outline to start. He chose the abstract noun from a brainstormed list. What does pride mean to you? I. Intro A. Denotation B. “Hook” or quote C. How I feel about pride II. My definition of pride III. A good example/s description of my definition of good III. A good example/s description of my definition of bad V. Conclusion compare/contrast your definition to that of the dictionary

The Definition of Pride Pride is defined as a satisfaction from your own achievements. You can say pride is good or bad. A good pride would mean that you are satisfied of your achievements. A bad pride would mean that you are proud that you are better than everyone else. You can be proud of yourself for something you did. You can be proud that you scored high on a test. You can be proud that you did 10 pull-ups without stopping. With too much pride, a person would ridicule the people who he did better than on the test. The person would have to tell everyone he met that he got an A+ on his test. The person who had done many pullups would ask everyone how many pullups they can do and then, if the number was less than theirs they would tell them how many they did. No one would want to be friends with a person like this because everyday they would have to brag about their test score or amount of pull-ups. You can also be proud of someone else. You can be proud of another’s accomplishments just as well as you could your own. You can be proud of your friend for doing well on a test. But you can also be dissappointed in yourself for something you did. You can dissapointed that you scored low on a test or you can be dissappointed that you can’t do a pull-up. Just as you can also be disappointed in yourself, you can also be dissappointed in someone elses. My definition of pride only slightly differs from the dictionary definition of pride. My definition includes that it can be good or bad. Still rough draft written by an 11 year old boy working on developing paragraphs with good support and using a revision process that includes the feedback that I give him. We did a lot of discussion, but this took all of 10 minutes for him to write. This is my own feedback for him so far. Paragraph 1) Thesis: Pride can be good or bad. Definitely he needs to use better descriptive words than good and bad. He needs a connecting sentence that is more of a broad statement leading to his more specific thesis. paragraph 2) this needs some revision to make it clear and a couple of transition words paragraph 3) states pride in others as part of his personal definition and gives one underdeveloped (maybe?) example. Either give a couple more short examples or develop that one better. A short personal narrative would be fine. paragraph 4) I am not sure I see how disappointment ties in with pride. Maybe clearing up the connection could pull it off? Something along the lines of “One can also feel pride in accomplishments that appear to be failures. For example, when you lose the marathon despite trying your best and training for months, you can be proud to have finished even if you didn’t place.” His reasoning is that you can show the opposite of pride, which to him is disappointment. paragraph 5) does at least have the thesis restated

He passed the AoPS “are you ready for Intro to Algebra?” test before we started Pre-A. I just worried about him not being solid. This is the same kid who in 5th grade “forgot” how to do simple division. I read on here that you don’t really want to skip the pre-A if you have the time to spend on it. I do have to do a placement test. I actually had him take one in last June because we thought about him returning for 6th so for them, he has passed 6th grade math. He can go into 7th with no test, but I would want him to test to grade skip 7th this time around to place into their 8th grade algebra as a 7th grader next fall. I actually like him to be a little ahead because of the differences in scope and sequence with every course. I do see some slope questions on the 7th grade state testing practice tests, so I know they touch upon that earlier than he would with AoPS pre-Algebra alone. He has gone way further in other topics but he already knows topics they have thought about teaching such as Pythagorean theorem and a lot of exponent and radical work.

Specifically doing a second year of algebra 1 with public school because he may be bored? Algebra 1 in 7th is already a year advanced in this district, testing him out of Algebra 1 would put him into Geometry as a 7th grader, if they would even agree to let him test 2 grades advanced. That would be a disaster with his current work ethic, it would be too demanding. You think we should go more sideways instead? I know the scope and sequence of whatever we use may be slightly different than any public school, so he can still learn new things. I could be mistaken, but wouldn’t it make a middle school transition easier for at least some of the material to be easy and the focus can be on meeting different demands? I would love to homeschool him through high school, but he doesn’t do his best for me and my husband feels the high school experience is beneficial in other ways besides academics.

This is for a highly motivated student who says he loves math and has a high interest in challenging problems. He has done BA 3-5 and chapters 1-9 of AoPS pre-A. He also always chooses Algebra topics on Alcumus, because he likes to struggle through those problems. I am thinking of letting him officially move on to Algebra 1 and mingling the geometry/counting/problem solving chapters back in here and there as a break. I have AoPS and Foerster’s (because I have solutions manuals for both) and planned on AoPS as the spine with Foerster’s as backup (if needed) explanation. I have read so much about it that I don’t believe it would work as well the other way around. Also if the spine choice doesn’t work out, I can easily switch them out as I know I can work with Foerster’s. I like that I see “Think this” and “first write this” in Foerster’s. He will likely do public school next year and will likely do Algebra 1 again with them as 7th grader. Goals for this year have been just adding (not all math but just more than before) independently working through the pre-A (as in working through the problems, checking the answers and either realizing he solved them the same way or a different way and practice with following the logic of the explanations) and SHOWING his work is required! He is doing neither of these well. I thought seriously about a self paced course such as DO or AoPS, but I doubt either of those two would fix these issues, I don’t really want to shell out more $$ and this is something I prefer to keep total control of. He just isn’t meeting the goals. How can I move him toward these goals and keep him learning and enjoying math? Does it make sense to add in at least tests from relevant parts of Foerster’s? Does this sound like a good Algebra 1 plan?

I love it 😀 I love Socratic questions. I love logic discussions on the couch, poetry teas (which I may have dropped the ball on some weeks), and the “lightbulb” moments. I love choosing the start time, choosing the curriculum and doing grammar orally and having fun playing with sentences. I love game days, weeks off, year round schooling and vacations while other kids are in school. I love feeling like I have an important job to do. I love taking his official school picture for the year using our home in the background. I love doing math problems together and finding that he solves difficult problems and can explain how he did it. I am not fond of days when he insists there is no reason to include planning, revising or editing when writing. When I notice that he still can’t pop off the answers to simple math facts as fast as I think he should so I need to bring back the fact drills. Every day that he has no stamina for the boring work and slacks off, goofs around, accomplishes very little, says he is done reading after 10 minutes of time or seems like he hasn’t mastered topics that I previously was certain that he has mastered. I have watched my son grow so much over the last 2 years. I could see myself going through high school, but my husband isn’t really on board with that. I also wish I had the ability to do it the way I always envisioned. Writing across the curriculum in amazing, fun, creative and meaningful ways. Somehow magically getting math, history, science and literature tied together in ways that helps him to make connections and enjoy learning. More field trips, more unconventional learning, more fun discussions… sometimes I feel I am severely falling short on taking advantage of all homeschooling has to offer. And of course I have many days when I feel I may be doing him a disservice by homeschooling.

My son was in public through 3rd grade and his math facts were not fast. They used gaming to work on facts in school. May work great for some kids but I felt my son was slow and was not drilled enough in public school. I bought some Rod and Staff drill books (grades 4-6) as well as blackline masters (maybe that is what it was called.) 100 facts, either addition, subtraction, multiplication or division that are to be timed. I timed him though from zero instead of just giving him 2 minutes to complete it and challenged him to beat his last time. Some we did orally, some he had to write out but I still get those out periodically and he is in 6th now.

I am thinking I will have my son ask about it or ask about it with his presence. Just to encourage him to be involved. He despises talking to people.

This could be it. I thought it was “due” by the next class as nobody looks at it until the next class anyway.

Anyone who can tell me if their students ever got C’s on completed homework with them? This has happened 3 times out of maybe 15 homework assignments (each time with a different teacher). Homework was completed and turned in (before the next class) so the only reason I can think of (for this time anyway) is that he conjugated irregular verbs incorrectly and I do not believe they have covered most irregular verbs yet except tener. I thought I read somewhere that homework was always an A as long as it was completed and turned in…. Honestly the grade doesn’t matter in our case. Just wondering if I should direct my student to ask why he received a c and maybe ask which lesson covered the material if that is why.

Aha got it! and it took reading all the answers to my question multiple times to get it through my thick head, the kid is crystal clear now also thanks all 😀

so the way my kid did it is incorrect since they have defined it as non negative (which my kid explained to me is not the same as positive) and my kid did not see that -10 won’t be the answer to any sq root because you can’t multiply any number by itself to get a negative answer. Unless imaginary/complex which he has not learned yet (but like I said they teased him with that little bit of extra info).

I do not think I am typing the sq rt correctly into my phone. The original photo shows the original problem handwritten. just b) is the solutions manual answer

The solutions manual showed multiplying both sides by (-1) to get: the square root of (z+1)= (-3) By definition of square root, the square root of (z+1) must be non negative so there are no solutions. but if you square the entire expression including the negative, like you suggest, (which makes sense to me) then both sides of the equation are positive but filling in 8 for z in the original equation will not be true, so still there are no solutions? Does it matter which way you square that side—including the negative sign vs leaving it out if no solutions is the result? And since the authors teased him with imaginary number information, can he just argue that it is imaginary and be technically correct?

I think he didn’t come to the conclusion sooner because he chose to wait on the multiplying both sides by -1…

That is a z; not a number 2. I do not know how to rotate the pic. a) I told him that substituting -10 for z would mean there are no solutions because the square root of a number has to be non negative… b) the solution didn’t show the squaring of both sides (just that one should see that the answer cannot be negative) but I think that is the next step. He still came up with a negative number and still no solutions is the final answer. c) he said it really would be an imaginary number. Yes the text book did tease him with this extra info that he will get into in higher mathematics later on (that I cannot remember much about at this moment), but I doubt we need to go there in pre-algebra.

I went semi- formal this year. We transitioned to “6th” grade on Jan 1, but this week I made a schedule. Similar to what he would see on a public middle school “schedule of classes” listing his “courses” and electives. I also printed out a list of goals I would like to achieve (work neatly and diligently, good attitude, show math work) and a list of expectations.

Or if you school year round, anything special planned for the local public school first day? We school year round, but I have a writing prompt in mind along the lines of “Describe the perfect day.” If I am impressed (must be more descriptive and detailed than one sentence describing getting up at 5 am and playing video games all day until he conks out from exhaustion), then I will try to make the perfect day happen on the public school first day.