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fractalgal

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Everything posted by fractalgal

  1. My daughter signed up for the AMC 8 this year. She did not have any problems signing up, nor did we have to wait 4 to 6 weeks for approval. You could also call the AMC and ask them if you have concerns. You would need to find a proctor. Check with your school district to see if a math teacher would proctor the test for you, or you could contact your library to see if they have anyone who would be willing. Some librarians will proctor exams for a small fee.
  2. These are our math minutes/day. My 4 yo spends about 20. My 7 yo about 45. The 5th grader about an hour. The 7th grader has spent at most 2 hours in one day (on a Challenge section in the second half of Art of Problem Solving Algebra book.) Some children are able to handle more math time than others. But, if you think the amount of time is too much, you could break up the math into a morning and afternoon session, or even a weekend session. Some of mine also do a 15 minute 'afternoon math' which is basically the time we use to fix any mistakes from the morning math. I don't like to start the next day spending lots of time fixing mistakes from the previous day.
  3. :iagree:Trust your instincts. You know her the best. In our experience, my daughter is gifted in languages (as in she quickly learns Latin, etc.) and mathematics. I noticed things in her an early age (around 9 months) and then when she was about 3 or 4, she was putting together 100-piece jigsaw puzzles. I also remember a time (early elementary or so) when she was shown a wooden brain teaser 3D puzzle and she solved it in minutes while some of the adults around her never did figure out how to solve it. She also shows a strong sensitivity to light and noise. For your situation, I would look for books on giftedness to be prepared and for help in choosing curriculum and games down the road. Your daughter is still very young. ;)
  4. I'm thinking of switching my 2nd grader out of R&S2 Grammar and into GWG. The overload of religious references in R&S is bothering me. ;)
  5. I do not think it would be wrong to focus only on those in first grade. I see those as the priority at that age. This would give him more time to explore and learn on his own. I would have lots of Legos or Knex on hand for him to build with. :)
  6. :iagree:with Rivka. My son has used Beast Academy 3A, 3B, and now is in 3C. He uses it as enrichment, but he would need the next books sooner than they are planned to be published. You are welcome to read this more detailed review I recently wrote about BA. I also want to add that the Singapore CWP books are worth keeping no matter which curriculum path you choose.
  7. My daughter, 7th grade, really likes Writing Strands. :) She has used books 3,4,5, and now beginning 6 (this year alternating with WWS1). She has written some amusing stories many pages long that I think are quite entertaining, and she prefers WS to other programs we've tried.
  8. With my daughter, who completed R&S English 6 last year, we did the 'Class Practice' exercises orally (except for a few of the diagramming - which you said you don't do), and then for most of the 'Written Practice' lessons I assigned her the odds only. In our experience, it seemed like there were too many problems much of the time. I was a little more strict with the Chapter Reviews, where I made her do all the problems (although still only orally on the 'Class Practice', but all of the 'Written') to prepare her for the test.
  9. Singapore's supplementary materials, CWP and IP, are pretty advanced compared to the average problems I've seen in other curricula. Beast Academy has some more advanced problems, and I look forward to seeing the entire series when it is done. Here are some of the things I like about BA. Russian Math books are good as far as well explained concepts and more difficult word problems. Also, MEP has some more challenging material as far as really checking to see if concepts are understood (rather than just memorized). I'm sure there are others out there, but the above are some of the better I've seen.
  10. We chose the ACT this year for my daughter for 7th grade. We purchased this to help her prepare. I don't think it matters at this point which you choose, but I do plan to have my daughter take the SAT next year in 8th. That way she will have experience with both.
  11. Here is a recent Review of MEP that I wrote that you are welcome to view.
  12. We just finished our first week using K12 Human Odyssey, and I've heard many positive comments from my children. For my older two I purchased the student pages, and we did use selected pages this week. Other times I plan to have them write summaries and the WTM recommended level outlines. It will depend on the section. I take it one week at a time. We are combining it with Mapping the World with Art - which we love. By drawing the maps rather than labeling maps, they seem to understand it better.
  13. It can be difficult (and expensive) to figure this out at first. :grouphug: I can share what I ended up doing for this. I have used SWR since 2008, at which time I took the SWR Training class - which happened to be taught to me by the author of LoE. She did (what I think was) a good job explaining SWR, so I have not felt the need to jump to LoE. ;) So since I have had a training course and now four years of experience with it, SWR is 'open and go' for me. But I adapt it and teach it how it is more convenient for us. For example, for my fifth-grade son, I 'refresh' teach all the rules at the beginning of the year. I wait to begin the spelling lists until I have taught all the rules. It (for me) is too much pressure on both he and I to try to force all of it at once. Next we begin the spelling lists. Then as we come to words throughout the spelling lists that follow rules we have learned, I have him add those in the particular rules section in the black learning log as a rule reminder. Finally, at the end after we have finished the spelling list I have chosen, I give him a quiz on all the rules. I think it is easier to teach and adapt it if you have the big picture of what is going on, which I think I have now from taking the training and the last four year of experience using it. It was a lot of work at first, but I think the work at the beginning helped me learn the material better. So that is my experience with it. Good luck in your search. :)
  14. For specific questions about the Teacher's Manuals you could ask at the Singapore Math Forum. They are very good about answering questions.
  15. No it was a gradual thing; she did the other CWP books first. It would be difficult (for most) to start out in CWP 6. For an older student starting CWP, I strongly recommend starting out with CWP3 and working through the books more quickly, rather than jumping in at CWP6. The methods are explained in simpler forms in Level 3 and then get more difficult.
  16. Yes, overall the problems get more difficult as the chapters increase, and they will likely take longer. I think the fact that your son has done the IP and CWP from Singapore will be helpful to him. My daughter has told me that she has used the bar diagram method she learned in Singapore to help her solve some of the Challenge problems.
  17. My favorite for conceptual understanding for elementary is Singapore Math. The word problems are outstanding, and they really test to see if the underlying concepts are understood. They also encourage visual problem solving by encouraging the drawing of bar diagrams which is one of the things I like best. We are also adding in MEP this fall (mostly for a change), but also because it includes topics not covered in Singapore. From what I have seen so far it is very good at covering concepts. I don't have much experience with it yet, but I'll know more in a few months. I can share what I used for my daughter for Pre-Algebra - a combination of: 1) Russian Math - This book's strengths were its excellent math explanations, and 'not-so-pretty' word problems. What I mean by that is that the word problems often involved many steps, and the answers were not always integers - often the answer was a rational numbers (fractions). But this is a good thing, because often when you are calculating areas or distances in real life situations, you don't always get nice neat integers for answers. ;) 2) Singapore Primary Math Standards CWP 6 This book's strength was again a problem solving aspect, but it really made her draw pictures and analyze and parallel think the problems. There were problems that could have been solved using Algebra, but she would draw bars and compare them to try to reach the solution without Algebra. It really encouraged creative thinking from her. :) 3) Saxon Algebra 1/2 What I liked about this book was that it gave a cumulative review of PreAlgebra. Saxon uses what I believe is a referred to as a distributive learning approach, which slowly introduces concepts and eventually gets more complex in steps. It is very effective for some, and for her it provided an helpful review. You may also want to consider the Art of Problem Solving's Pre-Algebra book. It was not out yet when my daughter would have needed it, but I'm planning to use it for my son after the Singapore 5/MEP 5 combination I am having him do this year. Good luck. :)
  18. In my daughter's experience, the earlier chapters went more quickly. She daughter did at most two sections per day, but it was usually only one section once we got past Chapter 6. She spent one day on the Review Sections, and one day on the Challenge sections immediately after the Review sections at the end of a chapter. As for a range of how much time for one day, I remember one time she was done with a lesson in less than 20 minutes (just a basic non-Review section), and another day she spent about 90 minutes (a Challenge section). So it can vary greatly with the Challenge sections taking the longest amount of time - especially Chapter 7 and later. I did not supplement anything, but she reads Life of Fred books on her own for enrichment. If you wanted to supplement, I see nothing wrong with that. Sometimes its helpful for a student to see that you can approach a math concept/problem from a different perspective and still get the correct answer - one of the beauties of Mathematics. For the Algebra I (first 13 chapters) it took her approximately five months, but I made her take tests (and an extra review day) every six chapters. She did not like to review for the tests, though I still made her do it.
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