LOL the 24 game, so simple yet so brutal!

I have a blog and books 3a and 3b. What exactly are you looking for though? If you list out your specific questions and what you want pics of I can try to post. I won't want to post too many photos though, to respect BA's copyright

I agree, BA is SO different than SM. Looking through the BA books, "conceptual geometry" comes to mind, if that means anything lol. I think Dd is really lucky to be able to see math from both sides with a combo of BA and SM. I am jealous of her and wish we had this when I was a kid :tongue_smilie: I guess I'll have to settle for working through AoPS as an adult. I am determined to see the beauty in math this time around.

I cannot agree enough with buying the HIG. I just order 2A for my dd (after working through 1b quickly). She is in public school and does not struggle but they teach Everyday Math which does not give the deep understanding of numbers that Singapore does. However, without the HIG we would not be getting that understanding either. I flipped through the 2A textbook when it arrived this week and thought: oh no, she knows ALL of this already. I should return it! But then I read some of the HIG and realized there is a ton of mental math practice in here that dd really needs. Yes, she could pencil and paper every problem in the textbook with little effort but she cannot mentally break down the numbers up to the hundredths place and put them back together again. So, really glad I bought the HIG otherwise I would have completely missed the point.

My Dd is the same way. I think that when the problems are boring, repetitive, and not challenging, she just allows her brain to shut off. Vs a more difficult problem will fully engage her and get her brain firing on all cylinders. Maybe challenging him with something fresh will get him off and running again?

Our books arrived a couple hours ago. Flipping through them, I think they are awesome and such fun. Unfortunately, Dd is in PS so I'll have to wait until she gets home to get her review. I am very surprised to hear so many say that 3A and 3B will have a significant amount of review in them for a 7 year old. Do many 7yo know what polyminoes are or know how to calculate the perimeter of a rectilinear figure? That's just book A. From what I've seen so far in the books, each chapter starts out with the concepts a late 2nd or 3rd grader will be familiar with. Such as, right angles, skip counting by 2s-5s-10s, figuring out the perimeter of a rectangle, etc. But after that brief intro each chapter accelerates quickly into a more complicated, deeper version of the topic. For ex. the chapter in 3A that talks about the 100 chart. I thought, 100 chart! Who cares about that, dd used those in the 1rst grade! But no.... BA takes the standard 100 chart further than dd has ever thought of it. Showing different ways to use it and different patterns within the chart. And then, that idea of seeing the pattern within this 100 chart shape is built on in book B with the multiplication table and square numbers. I think the key is, as I've heard the AoPS Pres. say, it's about teaching children to use simple mathematical tools in whole new ways to solve very difficult problems. Even if the entire text book is review for a kid I think they could still have a lot of fun with the workbook. It's less of a "workbook" and more of a math puzzles book really. Also, I love Sgt Rote! "This is my times table. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My times table, without me, is useless. Without my times table, I am useless" :lol:

I just got my shipping confirmation 2 secs ago. I was order #10 from the BA website

First, I am sorry you had a bad experience with lit analysis. It always makes me sad to hear that someone's love of reading has been even a little bit soured. Second, sorry if my first post did not address your actually question. I tend to get my rant on when I feel like someone questions the value of lit lol :tongue_smilie: So imo, the purpose of lit analysis would be to teach the student how to see beyond the surface. Just like math, well taught math anyway, every book is a puzzle and can be understood at a conceptual level. There is no "right" answer to what the book is about. Just as there is no right way to see the color blue. We each see it differently depending on our point of view. Lit interpretation from the reader's point of view is called reader response and it is just as valid as any other school of lit theory. We can also strive to find in the book the author's intent. But I don't think we can ever find the author's intent untainted by our own response. Anyway, before I go off on a tangent here lol, a good lit teacher should help the student see below the surface of the story. The student should be encouraged to form their own opinion and, most importantly imo, feel confident in their interpretation because they can articulate WHY that is their opinion. Many grown adults find it almost impossible to form an independent opinion, explain it to others, and back it up with evidence. (Backing it up does not mean proving that it is the only opinion mind.) Lit analysis teaches these skills. If you really want to put your dd above and beyond what many people are capable of, and prep her for college, have her eventually write her lit analysis in an essay. If you are worried about dampening her love of reading stick to essays on non-fiction. Being able to write one's opinions in a well structured, interesting, and convincing way is sadly a rare skill today and will put her ahead of the pack.

Literature itself, like any art, is not a skill to be used in everyday life. Aspects of are. By reading well written works a child can learn grammar, how to comprehend complex ideas, and how to communicate their ideas to others. On a deeper level literature teaches our children that no matter age, sex, social status, country, no matter even what century one lives in, we are all apart of one family, humanity. We all have the same emotions and similar challenges to meet. Literature connects us all together. Life is richer when viewed as a whole rather than each of us wandering through the chaos alone.

We found our complete stories and poems of pooh in storage over the weekend and dd picked it up to read yesterday. She reads at a 3rd grade level and only stumbled on the narration. It was tricky in some spots to figure out who was talking, I just told her to look for the quotes. If it was in quotes it was a character speaking. If not, it was the narrator. Plus I had to point out to her that the narrator was speaking to Christopher Robin directly. I don't know that I ever read it aloud, since it was buried in storage. So I hope I gave her good advice lol!

I was #10 :D

We will be starting right away as well but moving through the books very slowly. I bought A and B but don't expect to dip into B until maybe Jan? Dd is 8 and we afterschool with Singapore. She is not accelerated in math but she picks up new info very quickly and loved the comic book characters of BA. I won't be pushing the workbook and probably won't even crack into it until school lets out. But we will be reading the textbook together for fun.

I feel like we are getting two different lists in this thread. Lists to be read aloud to children and lists for children to read to self. Or are we expecting all these to be read by children? I can't see a 5th grader reading Les Mis. A 7th grader reading Paradise Lost is also quite a challenge, no? I don't mean to point the finger at individual replies and I don't intend my tone to be snooty. I am genuinely curious if many children are reading at such an advanced level that they can truly appreciate these books so young. Or are we talking abridged classics? I also wonder if the parents recommending them have read all the books on their list? Really hope that doesn't sound rude, I don't mean it to! I just feel some of these titles are definitely must reads, at some point, but I'm not sure that point is 10-13 years old. I do think it is important to expose children to the classics. I am in the process of reading 200 classics myself and love to talk the stories over with my dd. Spycar- Loved your post about reading aloud parts of Mody Dick. I will have to start bookmarking pages for dd while I read.

I don't know anything about Miquon but I don't think you need to buy a whole new curriculum to practice math facts. My Dd sounds similar to your Ds. She picks up new concepts very quickly, multiplication, division, etc. But she does not yet have all her subtraction facts memorized. The past few weeks we have been working on it with online games, timed drills with a small prize when she halves her time, and presenting different ways to break apart the problem. For ex in the Singapore HIG, it outlines different ways to solve double digit subtraction. By breaking the number apart and subtracting the ones, then adding back the 10s. Or subtract from 10 and then add back the ones, etc. I'm not sure that each strategy is included in the textbook, so for me the HIG is worth the cost. I think memorizing can be difficult for those kids who learn very quick. After a few weeks my Dd told me she was really just burnt out on it all. So now we are taking a break. Letting what we've worked on stew in her brain and see if it clicks. Sometimes I think they just need time. I plan to go back to introducing new concepts, which she finds fun, and then if she still is struggling with instant recall of facts in 3 or 4 months, we will revisit memorization.

That's a good one. I think of the double negative symbols in terms of language with the equation telling me to literally 'negate the negative'

For K I would just keep it fun and creative. The main goal, IMO, would be just to instill a love for learning in the kids. With the octopus as example, maybe get some craft paper and make a life size octopus, with suction cups on the tentacles maybe lol. Go to the grocery store, buy an octopus and cook it. For more traditional teaching maybe look into a phonics program and practice counting objects

I really wish they would show something besides geometry. What does the multiplication look like?? How have they made skip counting deeper or more interesting?? The books look very unique and intriguing. I'm trying not to be too excited though because we need something more than just shapes