AoPS Prealgebra people - can we talk more?

[wapiti]

As we come to the end of the first chapter, I have some scheduling questions. For this chapter, we did one section per day, but the summary/review section we may have to break into two days. I print out an excel spreadsheet for dd at the start of each week. I'm willing to bump assignments or parts of assignments to other days as we go along, but I like to load more up front, since it is unlikely dd will do more work if things go quickly, LOL.

 

(1) did you break up the review section or do it all in one day? Did you go through the "rules" together, or just have your student do so independently and get started on the practice problems?

 

(2) how many problems did you assign from the "challenge" section? I thought I'd have her try the first 5 - is that too much? Too few? Do you assign them all? Shall I allow her to select some number?

 

(3) for those few of you who are past the first chapter, how often have you had to break sections into two or more days? Has there been a particular pattern to how you have broken things up?

 

(4) if you (or the class) assign Alcumus, how much? Is there a particular setting you have it on or do you just limit it to the few topic(s) you've covered in the book? I didn't see a follow-the-book option yet, though I haven't looked yet today.

 

I'm still struggling to get dd to write things down. It helps her find the answer so much quicker sometimes. The importance of developing good habits with that is so obvious to me (and was especially obvious when I played around in Alcumus without writing things down, LOL). I don't know why she is so resistant - it's as though she thinks it's "less smart" or something.

 

Anyway, whoever wants to blab along with me about AoPS Prealgebra, feel free :)

[regentrude]

I have not used the prealgebra book, but our strategy with the AoPS algebra book was to work for a specific TIME, until concentration was decreasing - and then stop. Some days, that meant a whole section and a lot of problems - some other days, all we managed were two challenge questions.

I found that the difficulty varied between sections and that it was not feasible to "schedule" - but rather take the time needed for mastery.

 

The pre-algebra book may be different - but I thought I'd throw out that experience.

[Capt_Uhura]

Regentrude, although we've just started the Pre-Alg1 book, so far it's going exactly as you described. I'm discussing it with him for now and I find some pages go quickly and others we spend some time on. My plan is for it to take as much time as it takes. He's a 6th grader so we have time.

[snowbeltmom]

Question 1.

 

I broke up the review section from Chapter 1 into two days. I had dd complete 1/2 the review and 1/2 the Challenge problems the first day (she chose which problems to do.) I had her finish the entire review the 2nd day. I have also found that if I let her choose which problems to do, it helps me determine which type of problems she finds easier since she picks the easy ones to do first.

 

Question 2.

 

I make sure she can do all of the Review problems. I also assign all the Challenge problems, but I don't worry if she can't solve them all. We review the solutions, I make a note for myself, and assign them again at a later date.

 

Question 3.

 

I have found through my experiences with working with AoPS with my 13 yr old, that it is difficult to make a schedule too much in advance. I set an amount of time each day for math. Sometimes the concept is grasped easily and we are able to cover a lot of ground in that time; other days we don't even complete one section. My dd flew through the section with positive exponents. She still has not completely mastered the concept of negative exponents, so we have slowed down a lot until is completely "clicks."

 

Question 4:

 

My dd is taking the class. The class message board has a list of topics and a due date. She has completed the topics listed on the message board and has now hit negative exponents in Alcumus.

 

I think it depends on the child how Alcumus is used regarding the setting. My dd gets frustrated with herself when she gets a problem wrong- even though I have told her repeatedly that if she knew it all there would be no point in doing it. Because of this personality trait, I have told her not to work in Alcumus until we finish Chapter 2. I am going to use Alcumus as a tool to make sure she has mastered a topic - after she has had time to work on problems in the book first.

 

"I'm still struggling to get dd to write things down. It helps her find the answer so much quicker sometimes. The importance of developing good habits with that is so obvious to me (and was especially obvious when I played around in Alcumus without writing things down, LOL). I don't know why she is so resistant - it's as though she thinks it's "less smart" or something."

I had this problem with my oldest. Alcumus helped with this problem. There is nothing like only needing to get one more problem correct to move up to a new level, only to make a careless mistake and fall back.:D

[melmichigan]

We are following the schedule from class, doing the book work together over the week before the online session and then will do the summary, review, and challenge over a few days following that class. So this weeks class covers the second half of chapter 1 so we will have that done tomorrow, the videos are all watched, she just needs to finish the online class problems before Wednesday, we will then have the rest of the week to do the summary, the review, and the challenge. My DD is doing lots of Alcumus so I know she is getting lots of practice. (Today her Alcumus quest was not to work any problems for 8 hours. :D She really struggled with that.)

 

The online class covers Ch.1-7 in the first semester so that is the pace we are sticking with, my DD just does more Alcumus if the assignments are done.

 

I am trying to get my DD to write her problems in a notebook, sloppy version, so that she can refer back to find where she went wrong, so of course I am modeling that myself so I can see where I went wrong. ;) She still prefers to do everything on a white board.

Edited September 12, 2011 by melmichigan

[Allearia]

I am having some issues with this as well. I looked over how the class broke up the chapters to use as a rough guide, but we aren't able to take the class this time. Also, I am realizing that ds is having a very hard time keeping track of all the little details and writing things down correctly -- I am surprised at how well he is understanding, but he is still getting a ton of things wrong because of careless errors. So I think I am going to keep it slow and be very nit picky for a while until he learns to pay attention, though a big part of it is probably maturity. Right now he's working on the review problems for Chapter 1 so I haven't seen his ability to tackle the Challenge problems yet, maybe we'll do most of them together.

[Deniseibase]

We are in Chapter 2, and it's pretty much as everyone is describing - it works better to think of it in terms of TIME, not sections. But specifically to answer your questions -

 

1 - we just talked briefly about the review, and then went right on to the exercises. I think with AoPS, the kids learn the most from DOING the problems, so we only spent much time reviewing the concepts that gave her trouble.

 

2 - We assigned them all, but for the challenge problems I do NOT expect her to get them all right. I DO expect her to give them a serious try. Actually, even for the exercises, she tells me her answer and I say yes or no - if I said yes, we briefly go through the solution in the book, especially if her solution is different from the book's. If I say no, she takes a second stab at it. If she misses it the second time, I give her a hint - usually something like 'What are we doing in this problem? Have we seen a similar problem earlier in the chapter? What did we do to solve that one?' If she still misses it after that, if she's CLOSE, then I may give her another hint, but if she's completely lost at this point we go through the solution step by step together.

 

3 - So far we are spending 2 days per section in Chapter 2, one day to work through the problems in the text part and discuss those, and one day to work the exercises.

 

4 - We are not doing the online class. We do one Alcumus problem a day as a warmup, but she's allowed to do more if she wants, which she often does :)

 

 

Hope that helps!

[wapiti]

Thank you all for such detailed responses!!!! I really, really appreciate your efforts. A lot to think about. I'll consider going by time (I'd rather not tell dd, or she may abuse the system - think I can get away with that? LOL. I think she's done when I say she's done).

 

I'm excited for her to try Alcumus tomorrow, now that she's finally signed up. I'm afraid I'm going to hear about how hard it is. Maybe we'll start with just one question.

 

I too would prefer that she use a notebook, instead of the loose leaf pages that have not yet found a home in a binder; *sigh* it's not a battle worth fighting; it would just be neater. We'll see.

 

I look forward to hearing updates! Looks like there are at least 7 here using the Prealgebra :)

[Beth in SW WA]

:bigear:

 

My text/sg arrived today. What a unique format. I have an open mind. :)

 

ETA: I am in the research stage. We are a year or 2 away from this level. That I do know after first glance.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Beth in SW WA

[matilda]

I look forward to hearing updates! Looks like there are at least 7 here using the Prealgebra :)

 

Count us in. We just haven't started quite yet.

[Deniseibase]

Just a heads up for those of you in Chapter 1 - today we spent all day (about 50 minutes) on ONE problem. They list twelve different expressions and tell you to rewrite them as powers of two. Three of them are starred as challenge problems. I think the easiest one was '4 + 4 + 4 + 4', and the hardest one was '4^4 + 4(4^4) + 6(4^4) + 4(4^4) + 4^4'.

 

So, for those of you thinking about scheduling, keep in mind, there WILL be days when you literally will spend the entire lesson on one problem! :D

[Aquinas Academy]

Count us in. We just haven't started quite yet.

Same with me. :) I ordered the book a couple days ago so it will be at least a few weeks before we start. I'm very interested to hear how everyone else finds it. :lurk5:

[Dana]

:glare: at all of you.

 

Just bought the book.

 

:glare:

[snowbeltmom]

:glare: at all of you.

 

Just bought the book.

 

:glare:

You won't regret it!:D

[wapiti]

So, for those of you thinking about scheduling, keep in mind, there WILL be days when you literally will spend the entire lesson on one problem! :D

 

Thanks for this reminder, Denise :)

 

So we shouldn't have had a fight over 777777777770 divided by 77777777777? :banghead: Somehow I don't think that was supposed to be that kind of problem.

 

I will say that this text seems to teach to the strengths of students who are good at noticing patterns. Fortunately, that usually includes dd, so I love it. But if she's having a moment where she's unwilling to turn on the brain for more than a half-second, it's frustrating.

 

:chillpill: Ok, rant over. Calmed down. She's moving on with her exercises just fine. I need to make her understand that she needs to think about these problems for a bit before giving up or asking for help. Any ideas? I've tried to explain this but I'm not succeeding. Oh no.... excuse me... here we go again :tongue_smilie:

 

ETA: all right, we survived. I think she enjoyed looking at the solutions afterward, though she's not always patient as I walk through it with her ("ok, I get it! I get it!" as in, move on already, mom! :glare:)

Edited September 13, 2011 by wapiti

[East Coast Sue]

We are doing the AoPS prealgebra with the online class (starts next Monday). Our schedule is broken into about 20 minute segments: 1. reading the text 2. trying a couple Alcumus problems 3. Watching an assigned video. (Hopefully) she asks for help when needed. She is still getting used to the idea of not getting all the answers right. She enjoys rating the alcumus problems after she reviews the online solution- difficulty, solution, information learned.

[Deniseibase]

So we shouldn't have had a fight over 777777777770 divided by 77777777777? :banghead: Somehow I don't think that was supposed to be that kind of problem.

 

I will say that this text seems to teach to the strengths of students who are good at noticing patterns. Fortunately, that usually includes dd, so I love it. But if she's having a moment where she's unwilling to turn on the brain for more than a half-second, it's frustrating.

 

:chillpill: Ok, rant over. Calmed down. She's moving on with her exercises just fine. I need to make her understand that she needs to think about these problems for a bit before giving up or asking for help. Any ideas? I've tried to explain this but I'm not succeeding. Oh no.... excuse me... here we go again :tongue_smilie:

 

ETA: all right, we survived. I think she enjoyed looking at the solutions afterward, though she's not always patient as I walk through it with her ("ok, I get it! I get it!" as in, move on already, mom! :glare:)

 

LOL, sounds a lot like my DD!! :) Just keep at it - the first couple weeks after we switched to AoPS, I had SERIOUS doubts if we were going to stick with it, it made her so MAD to get a problem wrong, or to not get the answer as quickly as she wanted. But, the AHA! moment seems to be its own reward for these kinds of kids, and now I can say that we are having more and more aha! moments and fewer moments of growling through her teeth!!! :lol:

 

Plus, AoPS problems are set up so that kids learn pretty quickly that if a problem seems like it will take FOREVER to solve, you are probably not approaching it correctly (at least in the Pre-algebra anyway!). So the tendency to try to solve problems through straight arithmetic seems to be fading - she's learning to look for more than one way to solve these. That was NOT the case a couple weeks ago!! :D But, doing things the faster way is starting to look more attractive than doing things the way she is used to - but it's taken some time!

 

She's also finding that some of the problems that take her longer are ones where she still has something significant to learn - today's big epiphany was with the problem 2^20 - 2^19. She at first thought she was going to have to work it out by doubling 2 all those times, and was pretty mad about it. But then she remember that if it seems really hard, you are probably not doing it the easiest way, so she asked me to help her, and I suggested she make simpler versions of the same problem and see if she found a pattern. After solving 4-2, 8-4, 16-8, she suddenly said 'OH!!! so when you take off an exponent, you cut it in half!' Now there were several other problems that touched on this that she done ok with, but she just was not seeing the connection - and now having discovered the connection this way, it will stick in her head better. And I was just pleased that she was looking for other ways to solve this than through figuring 2^20!!! :)

[yellowperch]

My ds9 is using it as well. I won't have much to share here, though, because math is one thing I have outsourced. We live in a university town and my home schooled kids work with a grad school math guy. He finished 1.7 today. So far so good. I'm thinking now it would have been a good idea to have signed up for the course, but we've never done an online course, and I just didn't really get how it would work. The class that starts in October is on a swim team night so he probably won't be doing that.

 

Just thought I'd raise my hand and say hi. DS does math four days a week for 45 minutes with the tutor and 30 minutes on his own.

 

I'm trying to figure out Alcumus. Are there videos that go along with pre-algebra? I've only seen ones for the counting course. Do you have to sign up for the course for access to the videos.

 

Hoping to get up to speed...

[Capt_Uhura]

I thought someone posted that Alcumus now included problems from the Pre-alg1 book. wait, I read that on the website. But when I log in and look at Focus Topic, I don't see pre-alg1 text listed.

[Allearia]

Thanks for this reminder, Denise :)

 

So we shouldn't have had a fight over 777777777770 divided by 77777777777? :banghead: Somehow I don't think that was supposed to be that kind of problem.

 

I will say that this text seems to teach to the strengths of students who are good at noticing patterns. Fortunately, that usually includes dd, so I love it. But if she's having a moment where she's unwilling to turn on the brain for more than a half-second, it's frustrating.

 

My ds had problems with this one. It is so obvious to me that when the numbers are crazy there must be a trick, and to look over previous examples, but he gets caught over and over. Maybe he'll figure it out by the end of the book :tongue_smilie: At least he seems to be enjoying it.

[snowbeltmom]

I thought someone posted that Alcumus now included problems from the Pre-alg1 book. wait, I read that on the website. But when I log in and look at Focus Topic, I don't see pre-alg1 text listed.

 

I am pretty sure that you need to be enrolled in the class in order to have access to the pre-algebra videos.

[Capt_Uhura]

I see now that it is giving me pre-alg problems. It's not listed in the list of books however.

[wapiti]

I see now that it is giving me pre-alg problems. It's not listed in the list of books however.

On my page, Pre-alg is at the bottom of the list in the "Active Subject" box (I just changed all the other subjects to inactive, so now they are hidden).

 

There isn't a follow-the-book option yet in the "Focus Topic" box - I really wish there were. I was trying to select an easier topic for dd, and it kept switching back to harder topics after a few questions. I must be doing something wrong.

[wapiti]

It is so obvious to me that when the numbers are crazy there must be a trick, and to look over previous examples, but he gets caught over and over. Maybe he'll figure it out by the end of the book :tongue_smilie: At least he seems to be enjoying it.

 

LOL, sounds a lot like my DD!! :) Just keep at it - the first couple weeks after we switched to AoPS, I had SERIOUS doubts if we were going to stick with it, it made her so MAD to get a problem wrong, or to not get the answer as quickly as she wanted. But, the AHA! moment seems to be its own reward for these kinds of kids, and now I can say that we are having more and more aha! moments and fewer moments of growling through her teeth!!! :lol:

 

Plus, AoPS problems are set up so that kids learn pretty quickly that if a problem seems like it will take FOREVER to solve, you are probably not approaching it correctly (at least in the Pre-algebra anyway!). So the tendency to try to solve problems through straight arithmetic seems to be fading - she's learning to look for more than one way to solve these. That was NOT the case a couple weeks ago!! :D But, doing things the faster way is starting to look more attractive than doing things the way she is used to - but it's taken some time!

 

Thank you for the encouragement!!! I appreciate knowing that I'm not alone :D. I feel certain this is right for her. I think the brain stretching will be wonderful. But there are going to be challenging moments for ME, lol.

 

So, what IS it with Alcumus?! Or was it the Bedtime Effect. Where was this girl earlier today? "Mommy this is FUN!!!!!" "I know I need help with this one but I do not want ANY help!! I want to do it myself!!" "Can I do one more, pleeeeeease?" "Mommy, I love math; is that ok? :D"

 

I don't know why the most math seems to happen at bedtime :glare:

[snowbeltmom]

 

There isn't a follow-the-book option yet in the "Focus Topic" box - I really wish there were. I was trying to select an easier topic for dd, and it kept switching back to harder topics after a few questions. I must be doing something wrong.

 

Has Alcumus determined that your dd has mastered the easier topic? That may be why Alcumus is switching to hard problems after a few questions.

 

You can get a report in Alcumus that will tell you what topics have been mastered and what topics Alcumus thinks the student is ready to cover.

[SkateLeft]

I have not used the prealgebra book, but our strategy with the AoPS algebra book was to work for a specific TIME, until concentration was decreasing - and then stop.

 

:iagree:

 

We're using the pre-algebra book, and this is the approach I'm taking. My ds would do math all day, at the expense of everything else. I set a timer for an hour, then he works for that amount of time and when the timer goes off, he has to do other subjects. If he wants to go back and work on math some more afterwards, that's okay.

[krisperry]

Sorry for bumping an old thread :tongue_smilie: We are using the Pre-Algebra as well.

 

We work on math for 1 hour 15 minutes each day (with mental breaks). My daughter is an 8th grader. There isn't much of a pattern. Some days we've gotten through pages, other days it has just been a problem or two. Easier to work with time.