Scheduling AoPS and MM6

[Halcyon]

We are doing more AoPS as older seems to really enjoy it, but after MM...it just seems there isnt a lot of actual practice of the concepts, kwim? Since i own MM, i thought i might have him continue with MM6 for extra, "more traditional" practice (and yes, he uses Alcumus, but again, not the "drill" type stuff i was thinking of.

 

Thoughts on how i might schedule both? Does it matter? 3 days of one, two of the other?

[wapiti]

The only MM6 chapters that I could see potentially using as practice/review after or concurrent to the same topic in AoPS would be ratios, maybe geometry and probability/statistics (though the latter two I would probably just skip, leaving only ratios ;)). All the other chapters I would do prior to encountering the topic in AoPS because the depth is so different.

 

You could always use parts of MM6 for occasional review days. It doesn't sound quite right to page through it concurrently with AoPS on a weekly basis. Take for example ch 4 of MM6 and ch 3 of AoPS - factoring, lcm, gcf. MM6 is great, but something about that chapter in AoPS was quietly mind-blowing for me personally (I can't say for dd, lol). Whether to even bother doing the MM6 chapter first will depend on your ds, and afterward it seems pretty moot.

 

Note that the coordinate plane is not a topic in AoPS Prealgebra, though there are some lessons on that in MM6 in the integer chapter.

 

If you are looking for drill to add to AoPS, I'd point you toward Dolciani instead - it aligns much better, I think.

 

Also note that almost no prealgebra resources that I'm aware of go to the same depth with exponents that AoPS does (not even the Dolciani), and yet what is learned in chapter 2 underlies so much of what comes later.

 

just my two cents :)

[Halcyon]

The only MM6 chapters that I could see potentially using as practice/review after or concurrent to the same topic in AoPS would be ratios, maybe geometry and probability/statistics (though the latter two I would probably just skip, leaving only ratios ;)). All the other chapters I would do prior to encountering the topic in AoPS because the depth is so different.

 

You could always use parts of MM6 for occasional review days. It doesn't sound quite right to page through it concurrently with AoPS on a weekly basis. Take for example ch 4 of MM6 and ch 3 of AoPS - factoring, lcm, gcf. MM6 is great, but something about that chapter in AoPS was quietly mind-blowing for me personally (I can't say for dd, lol). Whether to even bother doing the MM6 chapter first will depend on your ds, and afterward it seems pretty moot.

 

Note that the coordinate plane is not a topic in AoPS Prealgebra, though there are some lessons on that in MM6 in the integer chapter.

 

If you are looking for drill to add to AoPS, I'd point you toward Dolciani instead - it aligns much better, I think.

 

Also note that almost no prealgebra resources that I'm aware of go to the same depth with exponents that AoPS does (not even the Dolciani), and yet what is learned in chapter 2 underlies so much of what comes later.

 

just my two cents :)

 

Thanks. I have Dolciani (surprise surprise :tongue_smilie:) and think it is a great, solid text, so i will see about "aligning" or adding in practice from there. Thanks! And i think your idea of using mm as review is a good one. I really like to mix up my math texts so that ds is comfortable with many approaches, so that's a good idea.

[Halcyon]

Has anyone else tried to align aops and dolciani?

[regentrude]

I have not seen the prealgebra book (I assume that is what you are using?), but for the other books, the idea is that all the practice problem differ from each other so that the student has to think every time; even in the later books, you won't find the drill exercises you may be used seeing in other programs. What we found was that the thorough conceptual understanding greatly reduced the amount of drill necessary for mastery.

We have in one algebra chapter had the need to supplement with extra practice, and we just wrote a bunch of extra practice problems. So, instead of trying to align it with another text, I would simply pull out practice problems in areas where you think your student needs some extra work and put progress in AoPS on hold until the topic has been mastered. (If you read other post from me re math, you know that I am not in favor of scheduling for math, but rather spend whatever time is necessary for mastery - it may vary from section to section how much supplemental practice you need to use.)

 

Also, just to give you a heads up: many of the concepts will be revisited at the beginning of the algebra text and used throughout, so that there is built in review and the opportunity to strengthen skills.