I think you're smart to switch away from Henle. My daughter switched to PS, and her vocabulary was significantly behind because Henle teaches about 25% of the quantity of vocabulary that it should. In addition, the layout is crowded and not the easy on the eyes.

We also liked Ellen McHenry. She speaks to kids without dumbing the material down.

I'm starting a weekly math club this coming year that will, in part, prepare for the Elementary MOEMs tests. I want it to be fun but challenging. I'd love to know what resources you all would recommend.

Seaben, My math club prep is taking shape, and I am revisiting your blog. It's amazing!!!! I am blown away by the wealth of knowledge you have shared.

Definitely switch. There are much better curricula out there to challenge a gifted math student. Beast Academy is the curriculum you will hear the most about. It’s not for the faint of heart though. My kids have thrived with BA, but there was a good deal of hand holding in the beginning. Also the meat of BA is entirely in the practice books. The guides are fun, but the advanced learning happens when you tackle the starred practice problems.

This is our first time with a winner. What did they do in previous years?

I could read this post over and over again from 2013. For me this is the essence of homeschooling. I want it to be a sticky. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The link was for the whole talk for me. Do you have a guess of roughly where the slide is? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I tried to pm Kathy, but the computer gave me an error :-/ Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you, Daijobu, for your insight. I was beginning to feel like maybe it was all a lost cause. I start researching and then feel like all is lost.

Also if you embraced the BA AOPS rigor from early on would processing speed still be a significant factor in success?

Hmmmm... processing speed. This is excellent and new information for me. We do not have fast processing speeds in our family, though we love challenging math. Should I abandon the pursuit of competition success? My 9th grade daughter loves math and enjoys hard problem solving problems, but left a significant portion of the AMC10 blank because of time constraints. Granted she was going in blind; however, with focused effort how much can she improve with a slower than average processing speed? She hopes to major in math at a “mathy†school. From reading literature of some test prep centers, I was under the impression that a good AMC score is all but required to get into MIT and the likes. She was planning on dedicating serious time this summer to test prep, but I’m wondering if there might be more worthwhile goals to make her (with her slower than average processing speed) an attractive candidate for a competitive math college. How can you demonstrate excellence in math in high school with a slowish processing speed?

Daijobu, did you start a math club? Do you have a pointers? Should I advertise it as fun primarily or challenging?

Ruth and daijobu, thank you so much for “biting.†This is super, super helpful. I’m trying to figure out how to start a math team, but once homeschooling expands beyond the instruction in my home, I get intimidated. Ruth, I have a couple of questions. Has your son surpassed your math abilities? If so, when did that happen? When he is stumped, to whom does he turn? Also did he embrace the two hours a day of work even at the youngest age? Did you split the time up within the day or work a solid block? Was he determined to finish the problems on his own or did you just force the point? Also did you do pre-algebra with AOPS? Thanks for all your help, moms!

The test prep books from AOPS say to wait until after algebra. We are purposely trying to go slow with subject advancement because I fell into the calculus trap with my oldest, but I don’t want to hold off test prep at all. Have any of you tried to AOPS test prep earlier? Pretty much I want someone to spell out a sequence from 4th-12th grade that tells me where to put all of the non traditional math and the test prep. Any takers? I currently have a 9th header in honors precalc (with the highest grade in her class), with great SAT scores, but an abysmal AMC 10 score. I’m realizing that I didn’t go about it correctly with her (not enough test prep and discreet math) and I don’t want to make the same mistakes twice. So does anyone have a long term plan, you’d recommend for the 3rd grader?