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Moving from Math Mammoth to AOPS--when to switch over?


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DD9 is on track to finish MM 5B sometime this fall. My current plan is to have her work through 6A and B and then move into AOPS prealgebra, but it seems I have heard some people skip MM6. I'm not in a hurry, but I am curious to know if there are things in MM6 that need to be covered before prealgebra or if the program is redundant at that point.

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We're in a similar boat, deciding re: MM6. Don't have BTDT advice, but this thread about AOPS pre-algebra might be interesting to you, in case you haven't seen it. Some people think that AOPS pre-algebra is written in a way that makes it more complicated than it needs to be, but that AOPS algebra is much better. http://forums.welltr...entary-algebra/

 

I'll be listening in. Let us know what you decide!

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absolutely must cover before AoPS Prealgebra: all operations with negative numbers (if your student understands concepts quickly, this need not take long; see chapter in MM 6B) and any needed review of all operations with fractions and decimals (the MM6 chapter reviews are good for this purpose)

useful to cover before AoPS Prealgebra, though not entirely necessary: ratios ch 2 in MM 6A (excellent chapter!), any topics in ch 1 of 6A that are new to the student (e.g., the little intro to exponents, scientific notation in decimals chapter), percents, number theory. For some topics, it's just nice to get one's feet wet prior to AoPS.

redundant with regard to AoPS; we never touched them: MM6 chapters on geometry, probability and statistics

Don't forget that there's a pretest for aops prealgebra

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absolutely must cover before AoPS Prealgebra: all operations with negative numbers (if your student understands concepts quickly, this need not take long; see chapter in MM 6B) and any needed review of all operations with fractions and decimals (the chapter reviews are good for this purpose)

 

useful to cover before AoPS Prealgebra, though not entirely necessary: ratios ch 2 in MM 6A (excellent chapter!), any topics in ch 1 of 6A that are new to the student (e.g., the little intro to exponents, scientific notation in decimals chapter), percents, number theory.

 

redundant with regard to AoPS; we never touched them: MM6 chapters on geometry, probability and statistics

 

I've now had three kids go from MM to AoPS Prealgebra and I've covered the above topics in a relatively short amount of time - a matter of weeks - with each of them, using only carefully-selected pages from MM 6. We were not doing every page in the above chapters or anything remotely close to that, except maybe ratios (disclaimer: they're very mathy kids).

 

Eta, AoPS Prealgebra can be a challenging format for a young mathy kiddo. One of my ds10s started last fall at 9.5 y.o. and had his fair share of struggles in the early chapters (ch 2 seems to really stretch them). He finished up last month and just started Intro to Alg. His twin brother started a couple months ago and is doing really well, already in ch 5.

 

Wapiti, I'm glad you chimed in! I was literally just looking for an earlier post by you on this same/related topic. I always appreciate your math advice; it resonates with me. Thank you!

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absolutely must cover before AoPS Prealgebra: all operations with negative numbers (if your student understands concepts quickly, this need not take long; see chapter in MM 6B) and any needed review of all operations with fractions and decimals (the MM6 chapter reviews are good for this purpose)

 

useful to cover before AoPS Prealgebra, though not entirely necessary: ratios ch 2 in MM 6A (excellent chapter!), any topics in ch 1 of 6A that are new to the student (e.g., the little intro to exponents, scientific notation in decimals chapter), percents, number theory. For some topics, it's just nice to get one's feet wet prior to AoPS.

 

redundant with regard to AoPS; we never touched them: MM6 chapters on geometry, probability and statistics

 

I've now had three kids go from MM to AoPS Prealgebra and I've covered the above topics in a relatively short amount of time - a matter of weeks - with each of them, using only carefully-selected pages from MM 6. We were not doing every page in the above chapters or anything remotely close to that, except maybe ratios (disclaimer: they're very mathy kids).

 

Eta, AoPS Prealgebra can be a challenging format for a young mathy kiddo. One of my ds10s started last fall at 9.5 y.o. and had his fair share of struggles in the early chapters (ch 2 seems to really stretch them). He finished up last month and just started Intro to Alg. His twin brother started the Prealgebra a couple months ago and is doing really well, already in ch 5.

 

Don't forget that there's a pretest for aops prealgebra

 

Thank you wapiti, this is a very helpful outline of what to cover. I don't have the MM 6 workbooks yet (I have preferred using the printed workbooks and don't own the PDF version) but I wonder now if I need to buy them at all. I do own the electronic version of the Blue (topical) series and it might just be easier to find these topics in there rather than getting the workbooks.

 

dd9 has a good conceptual understanding of negative numbers in addition, I think she would pick up the other operations quickly. She needs more practice with decimals in multiplication and division, aside from that I think she would have no trouble with the prealgebra pre-test. I will look up the topics you recommended from MM 6 and plan to work on those when she is finished with MM5.

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