Thank you so much for your responses! It is good to know that the Key to series would likely be too young/boring. Looking over the samples again, I can see that. I also appreciate your perspectives on the online versus print book. In spite of that, I still can't decide! It is also helpful to hear that MEP could be used without the lessons. We may try that while trying to decide on whether to order the AOPS print book/waiting for it to arrive. Thanks!

Hi everyone, I have learned a lot lurking here, and now I feel rather audacious posting a rather long message as my first topic. But I do hope to pick your brains about math. My youngest daughter is in grade 6. This is her first year in a gifted program. She was just tested at the end of last year, which was our first year in Canada after having been overseas. The program is one day a week at another school. The teacher is amazing, not just with the gifted kids themselves, but also as a strong advocate in the kids' regular schools. My daughter is so happy because she has found a place where she can be herself (at least once a week) and is really thriving. The teacher is in the midst of developing IEPs for the kids in cooperation with the classroom teachers and resource teachers. She was at my daughter's school twice the last few weeks to talk to the resource teacher (who happened to be my daughter's grade five teacher last year). She asked my daughter what she finds easiest, and my daughter said, math. So she has already given the teacher a duotang of math stuff for her to do when she finishes her work. The duotang contains brain teasers and math contest practice questions and computer programming type questions. They have been going deeper into problem solving strategies in the gifted class itself. But my daughter has asked me to also do math at home. The first time she mentioned it, I didn't follow through because I know she values her downtime and her social life. But she has asked twice more, and she wants it to be a special time we spend together. We enjoyed working together through some Beast Academy a few years ago when I was homeschooling her, and maybe it's those times together she is remembering. She is also really ready to experience math beyond the "get into groups and write the expanded form of this number in the hundred thousands." My first thought was to order AOPS pre-algebra, but it is $33 to have it sent to Canada, which I find hard to justify on top of the price of the book. So I was wondering if anyone has experience with the online version of the book? The one drawback I see is that if we want this to be a mother-daughter bonding time as well as a math lesson, then it might be kind of weird looking at a screen the whole time. Or is there a way to use the online book in a more interpersonal-friendly way? Or should I break down and just pay for the extra shipping? I also looked at MEP year 8, but it seems like the teacher really needs to teach the lessons, rather than work through the student book together. Again, I'd love to hear how you might use MEP in a "parent-child exploring together" sort of way. Then I was thinking of Key to Algebra, which is inexpensive to begin with and only a few dollars extra shipping from most retailers. My question is whether it moves fairly quickly without beating each topic to death. From the sample pages, it looks like there are not too many problems on a page, so it doesn't seem to be tedious, but it is hard to judge how quickly it moves from one topic to another. What other suggestions do you have for resources that might be appropriate? Thank you so much for your insights!

This is what my daughter says, based on an excellent experience last year in grade 6, and a boring experience this year in grade 7: Like: Individual research projects and presentations on specific topics of interest within the broad topic that the teacher assigns Hands-on projects, especially building things using scientific principles (last year they made a Ferris wheel and a motorized gadget)--but cut and paste activities don't count!! Science experiments (even if they are really simple) Doesn't like: Taking class time to read the textbook together or listen to the teacher read from the textbook (I can't believe they are still doing that in this day and age!) Best wishes to your daughter!