That is a wonderful story about your student! Thanks for sharing. The flowchart I've attached shows the possible courses that students can take in high school in my province. Calculus is needed if you are going to be going into a science major in university. I don't know what my son will be taking in the future, but I want to keep all his doors open. As you can see, they don't separate the courses into Algebra 1, Algebra 2 etc. So I am having difficulty knowing how to make the BJU math progression work for us.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I, too, was thinking about the issue of brain development and whether taking Algebra 1 in 8th is a good idea.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that Fundamentals of Math is also from BJU Press. He has been using BJU Press since 3rd grade. So he's done 3rd-6th grade with BJU, and now he's done their Fundamentals of Math for 7th grade. The 8th grade math is scheduled as Pre-algebra, but I hear that people tend to have their child take algebra in 8th grade instead. Is this common?

Has anyone skipped BJU Pre-Algebra, and gone straight to BJU Algebra 1? My son is in 7th grade and is finishing up BJU Fundamentals of Math. His grade in that class right now is a 94. I was looking at the table of contents for Pre-Algebra and I feel that the topics are super similar to what he covered this year in Fundamentals. I don't want to skip if there is important material to cover in Pre-Algebra. Thoughts?

I love that BJU Press has Science textbooks and workbooks that go along with online video lessons. They demonstrate labs in the videos. There are also tests and quizzes. Is there something similar available for 8th grade that is secular? I am looking for an Old Earth viewpoint. So it doesn't necessarily have to be secular.