AEC Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I've got time before I need this (a year...maybe a year and a half). But especially for math which has a kinda long road of progressive learning I'd like to be prepared. Plus, both my kiddos are happier when they know what's coming - DS in particular freaks out much less if he can see FAR down the road. SO - planning...I'm trying to see what the path looks like from pre-algebra to calculus. The AoPS curiculum seems very highly regarded, and I like a lot of the things mentioned on their site...but for the life of me I cannot figure out how you make it a curiculum. Some of the classes are 16 weeks..some 8, some 24. What do people 'usually' take? Do they run the classes year round - a new one starting every few weeks? Are people using JUST this, or is it mostly extras?? *confused* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 You don't have to do the classes. Many people just get the books and use them at home on their own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allearia Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 We are just starting the pre-algebra so are not experts. We decided against a class for now since ds is taking another intense online class so wanted to be able to pace this. So you can just do the books without the class. The book is a more than full curriculum, there is a lot in there at a high level. We may do some reinforcement with Khan Academy videos and other stuff but that is just if he needs extra help. If we don't need that then just doing the book is plenty of math for a whole year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AEC Posted August 30, 2011 Author Share Posted August 30, 2011 huh. OK. Is the following roughly the breakdown into the 'usual' sequence of JrHi/HS math courses? PreAlg IntroAlg + Counting & Prob Geometry & Number Theory Intermediate Alg Pre-Calc + Intermediate Probability Calc Which would "normally" be 6 years of math?? -andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowbeltmom Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 The AoPS curiculum seems very highly regarded, and I like a lot of the things mentioned on their site...but for the life of me I cannot figure out how you make it a curiculum. Some of the classes are 16 weeks..some 8, some 24. What do people 'usually' take? Do they run the classes year round - a new one starting every few weeks? Are people using JUST this, or is it mostly extras?? *confused* AoPS is the only math curriculum we use. AoPS covers far more material and in greater depth than a traditional math class. Their website lists the recommended sequence of classes to take. My oldest found the Introduction to Geometry the most challenging and time consuming of all of the intro level courses. IMO, the titles of the books are a little misleading - there is nothing "introductory" about them. This is a very rigorous program. The pace of the classes is extremely fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 Counting and Probability, and Number Theory are topics off the beaten path and not part of the standard high school sequence. They are great as additional courses for math interested students. There is almost no way to finish Intro to Algebra and Counting&Prob in one year (Algebra book took DD 200+ hours of work) For us it will look like this: Intro to Algebra (DD in 8th, DS in 6th+7th (2 years)) Intro to Geometry in 9th Intermediate Algebra in 10th Precalculus (she MAY start 2nd semester of 10th, of she finishes Alg 2) Calculus We do not use the classes, just the books. The classes move extremely fast. We did not have the pre-algebra book available; I would have used that in 5th or 6th grade with my kids. Is the following roughly the breakdown into the 'usual' sequence of JrHi/HS math courses? PreAlg IntroAlg + Counting & Prob Geometry & Number Theory Intermediate Alg Pre-Calc + Intermediate Probability Calc Which would "normally" be 6 years of math?? Not sure what you mean by 6 years - here the public school starts algebra in 9th, 8th for the gifted kids. Be advised that the AoPS books are VERY meaty; the algebra book contains a lot more material than a high school algebra 1 course (that would only be the first 11 or so chapters) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 (edited) Regentrude, if I may pick your brain for a moment, did your ds already do the Intro to Algebra over 6th and 7th, or is that just a plan based on your experience with your dd? Would that be for the whole book, or just the first 11 chapters that would come closer to a traditional high school algebra 1? If that was for the whole book, how long would you plan for covering the first 11 chapters? I'm just trying to get a feel for a sensible plan. Edited May 26, 2015 by wapiti Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 (edited) Regentrude, if I may pick your brain for a moment, did your ds already do the Intro to Algebra over 6th and 7th, or is that just a plan based on your experience with your dd? Would that be for the whole book, or just the first 11 chapters that would come closer to a traditional high school algebra 1? If that was for the whole book, how long would you plan for covering the first 11 chapters? I'm just trying to get a feel for a sensible plan. DD took one year and 200+ hours to get through the whole book; she was in 7th grade and finished over the summer. DS began the book in 6th grade and completed chapters 1 through 11 during the 6th grade school year. He is now in 7th and we have resumed with chapter 12 (complex numbers). He will probably be done with the book before the end of this school year. (ETA: We do derive the formula for the solutions of quadratic equations ourselves during chapter 11, even though the book postpones this till chapter 13 until the student has covered complex numbers and can deal with complex solutions. We felt this unnecessary and found it better systematically to derive the formula earlier.) We did run into one problem in 6th grade: he had some trouble with some of the more advanced ratio problems in chapter 7. We plan to go back and work on this again. It was an issue of being able to use enough abstraction to translate the difficult word problems into ratio equations (if you know AoPS, some are REALLY tricky) We felt he was not yet mature enough to really master this and will revisit some time this year. Other than that, he completed all sections of chapters 1-11 during 6th. Edited August 31, 2011 by regentrude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 DD took one year and 200+ hours to get through the whole book; she was in 7th grade and finished over the summer. DS began the book in 6th grade and completed chapters 1 through 11 during the 6th grade school year. He is now in 7th and we have resumed with chapter 12 (complex numbers). He will probably be done with the book before the end of this school year. (ETA: We do derive the formula for the solutions of quadratic equations ourselves during chapter 11, even though the book postpones this till chapter 13 until the student has covered complex numbers and can deal with complex solutions. We felt this unnecessary and found it better systematically to derive the formula earlier.) We did run into one problem in 6th grade: he had some trouble with some of the more advanced ratio problems in chapter 7. We plan to go back and work on this again. It was an issue of being able to use enough abstraction to translate the difficult word problems into ratio equations (if you know AoPS, some are REALLY tricky) We felt he was not yet mature enough to really master this and will revisit some time this year. Other than that, he completed all sections of chapters 1-11 during 6th. Thank you for these details, and especially for the tip about quadratic equations. Lots of food for thought :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AEC Posted August 31, 2011 Author Share Posted August 31, 2011 Counting and Probability, and Number Theory are topics off the beaten path and not part of the standard high school sequence. For us it will look like this: Intro to Algebra (DD in 8th, DS in 6th+7th (2 years)) Intro to Geometry in 9th Intermediate Algebra in 10th Precalculus (she MAY start 2nd semester of 10th, of she finishes Alg 2) Calculus Thank you - that's exactly the outline I was looking for. Is the pre-algebra book/course new? Anyone have experience with it enough to compare it to SM 6a/b Standards ed? Is this reasonable/sufficient prep for the pre-algebra course? Do they overlap much, or is there a gap I'll need to cover with them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 AoPS has recommendations here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 Thank you - that's exactly the outline I was looking for. Is the pre-algebra book/course new? Anyone have experience with it enough to compare it to SM 6a/b Standards ed? Is this reasonable/sufficient prep for the pre-algebra course? Do they overlap much, or is there a gap I'll need to cover with them? Prealgebra is brand new, just came out. there is a thread elsewhere on this forum about it. Check the pretest on the AoPS website to see what the prerequisites are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowbeltmom Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 ... Is the pre-algebra book/course new? Anyone have experience with it enough to compare it to SM 6a/b Standards ed? Is this reasonable/sufficient prep for the pre-algebra course? Do they overlap much, or is there a gap I'll need to cover with them? Yes, the book was just released a few weeks ago. My daughter is half-way through chapter 2 in AoPS pre-algebra. She has completed SM 6a/6b, Intensive Practice and Challenging Word Problems (all of 5 and most of 6), along with the Hands-on-equations verbal problems. In our limited experience so far, I think you would be in great shape starting this book after SM 6B. This is an extremely rigorous book. I was joking with my dh tonight that I think after completing AoPS pre-algebra, she would be able to do 90% of the problems on the SAT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 Yes, the book was just released a few weeks ago. My daughter is half-way through chapter 2 in AoPS pre-algebra. She has completed SM 6a/6b, Intensive Practice and Challenging Word Problems (all of 5 and most of 6), along with the Hands-on-equations verbal problems. In our limited experience so far, I think you would be in great shape starting this book after SM 6B. Thank you for this information. My dd is currently working out of SM 5A. Can we launch into AOPS Prealgebra after 5B, or do you think completing SM level 6 is necessary? (Mom and dd are both pretty mathy.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 I just bought the pre-algebra book (waiting for it to arrive). I'm in the same boat (want to work ahead to get a grasp on it). Maybe we could check in with each other? Yes, let's keep this conversation going. I also am waiting for my copy of aops prealgebra. I plan to compare that to the TOCs of SM 6A and 6B and see if there is a lot of overlap. I tried to find a "Key to..." book for negative numbers, but it seems like they don't offer one? http://www.keypress.com/Documents/KeyToOrderForm.pdf (And I love your GIFs by the way. I want to get the "Find x" t-shirts for our math club! I think I saw them on Cafepress...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Yes, let's keep this conversation going. I also am waiting for my copy of aops prealgebra. I plan to compare that to the TOCs of SM 6A and 6B and see if there is a lot of overlap. The TOC for the AoPS book is on-line, but you'll see when you get the book that the approach is so different, it's hard to compare. I tried to find a "Key to..." book for negative numbers, but it seems like they don't offer one? http://www.keypress.com/Documents/KeyToOrderForm.pdf If you're looking for instruction on negative numbers, you could try the Math Mammoth topic book on integers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 If you're looking for instruction on negative numbers, you could try the Math Mammoth topic book on integers. Thanks, wapiti. I will definitely look into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jangelini Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 My 7th grade daughter just started AoPS Intro to Algebra and loves it! She is using the book and not the online class. My question is how to assess mastery, since the book has problems for each sub-section, but has neither cumulative reviews nor tests--? Also, if a student is having difficulty with a concept and has exhausted the book's problems, what to use for supplemental practice? Last year we used BJUP Math 7, and it had a plethora of supplemental materials (quizzes, tests, extra problems, etc.). I'm hoping AoPS will be sufficient on its own, but would like to be prepared if not (BTW my daughter and I share a mutual hatred for Singapore Math, so this is not a good option for us). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 My question is how to assess mastery, since the book has problems for each sub-section, but has neither cumulative reviews nor tests--? Also, if a student is having difficulty with a concept and has exhausted the book's problems, what to use for supplemental practice? For the topics where the kids needed more practice (for them it was simplifying expressions, expanding products, especially with minus signs) we simply wrote a few more problems similar to the ones in the book. There are plenty of websites with free algebra worksheets as well. We write our own cumulative exam at the end of each semester. (To see whether the student has mastered the material of the chapter, you simply see if they can do the review problems, so I don't see a need for end of chapter tests). For the test, you can simply take problems from the book (no student memorizes all problems done during the semester), use problems from the book the student has not done, or write your own similar to the book problems (we do that especially for word problems where the main issue is translating the "story" into equations) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jangelini Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 Thanks for the helpful advice. I wasn't sure if I was simply overlooking review/test materials. I'm guessing these aren't available because AoPS isn't strictly speaking written as a homeschool curriculum (and because the online course is available). Unfortunately, it does mean more work to pull together reviews and assessments! I've been spoiled by BJUP and Saxon Math, which have all the "extras" done for me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jangelini Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 Forgot to mention that the AoPS people also responded to my query about testing: We don't have tests, but we do have a free online learning system, Alcumus, that offers a great deal more practice on a variety of topics in the book. You can learn more about Alcumus here: http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Alcumus/Introduction.php Just in case anyone else wants more practice too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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