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My son failed the Geometry portion of MM5


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If I had taken the geometry part out he would have scored over 90%. He still technically 'passed' with an 80, but the geometry part 

was a total BOMB. He has a good understanding of all the other concepts, yet he is in 6th grade and just finishing MM5, because 

we slowed down last year to concrete some other topics - obviously geometry wasn't one of them.

 

I was going to move him onto Jousting Armadillo's (pre-A) but now I'm not sure, what would you do?

 

1) Do another year of Math Mammoth, finishing level 6

2) Reinforce geometry concepts then move onto Jousting Armadillo's (possibly starting of 7th grade)

3) Start Pre-Algebra and work in Geometry with a supplement

 

He is (11) and in 6th grade with all other subjects. 

 

Thanks!

 

 

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I wouldn't worry about the geometry being mastered, I agree that he will see it all again later. My dd will be finishing MM 5 in a month or so, we are moving a bit quickly through the geometry portion. We are also starting Jousting Armadillos, but plan to do MM6 alongside it.

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So, a couple of things:  

 

I agree, I don't like MM's presentation of Geometry all that much.  And it hasn't stuck for my kid, either.  I just got this book from Critical Thinking Company called Understanding Geometry:

 

http://www.criticalthinking.com/understanding-geometry.html

 

and I'm planning that we'll work through this alongside our PreA/Algebra 1 the next couple of years.  So I agree with the suggestion that you might want to look to some other resource (something other than MM6) to reinforce and learn the Geometry you will need.

 

Second, I love JA.  It's fantastic.  But be aware that you might need to supplement it with some portions of MM6, depending on your son's retention.  My dd aced the MM5 post-test (except for geometry), but I have found that she has needed some time in 6th grade to reinforce the basics.  And there are some things that JA doesn't cover, or just covers briefly in the context of working with variables, that you might need to review. We have used chapters or sections from MM6 for this purpose, while entirely skipping others in favor of JA.  

 

So, specifically, we've used the MM chapters on Fractions to review as-needed, Decimals (especially the unit conversion sections), Percents, and Ratios.  We've done that prior to covering sections on algebraic fractions and working with ratios and percents with variables in JA.  It's been very helpful.

 

JA doesn't review decimals at all, nor does it cover geometry or any of the statistics/probability that is typically covered during preAlgebra, so you might want to supplement that as well.  MM6 does cover that stuff.

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I'd move ahead to the next grade anyway. Geometry concepts will roll around again in the 6 book and most prealgebra books, and it will be in the early chapters of his high school geometry book too. There is no reason to make it a deal breaker this early in the game. :)

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The geometry section of MM5 is what finally convinced us to abandon ship after that book. I thought the geometry was very poorly done. I moved my dd into Dolciani Pre-A after MM5, and she's doing great.

 

My complaint with MM's geometry section is that the concepts were practiced with exercises that were too complex. Instead of work that reinforced the concept being taught, the exercises were computational nightmares: too detailed and tedious to be useful in reinforcing a new concept.

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I've skipped the geometry sections of MM 5 and 6, but have used many sections of MM 6, which does an excellent job with other concepts, like fractions and ratios. DD loves geometry but MM's geometry is lacking something. Oddly enough, BA 3 had geometric concepts that can be found in higher grades. We've used a few other books to cover this topic, such as AOPS Pre-A, MEP, and Patty Paper Geometry. I haven't put much emphasis on this as our goal is to cover it separately at a higher level using Jacobs or AOPS.

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Yes, I've just started BA with Morgan, and am reminded of how, um, challenging the Geometry is compared to most . . . all . . . other third grade math programs! :huh: :lol:

The other "problem" with using BA geometry is that your kid will ask why we can't do more of BA geometry. Hey kid, don't complain to me, email BA about their wacky schedule. It's like that pig book, if you give your kid BA 3, she'll ask for....

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The other "problem" with using BA geometry is that your kid will ask why we can't do more of BA geometry. Hey kid, don't complain to me, email BA about their wacky schedule. It's like that pig book, if you give your kid BA 3, she'll ask for....

 

Yes, exactly this. We just finished the geometry part of 4A and I'm afraid to tell ds there is no more.

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Thank You! I really like the look of "Understanding Geometry" from Critical Thinking company, it's been hit and miss with their stuff for me, but

this book seems pretty intuitive to me (meaning I'll actually be able to teach it the way it's shown). We started MM 6 today, and I have a feeling a lot of 

it he is going to fly through. So I am going to use both MM and Jousting Armadillos, we also use Life of Fred and I've been holding back the decimal 

and precent book, to use it as review. So we'll toss that into the mix too. 

 

Thanks for the help.....we actually used RightStart Math up through E, and it was a great fit for my DS, but he did not want to do the Level G which is

geometry based, maybe we should have stuck with it!

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