Beast Academy questions...because my questions will get lost in that other thread. ;)

[kristi26]

So the other thread on Beast Academy has me looking at it for DD for next year.  First, she is just finishing up MUS Beta this year though she is in third grade.  She has also read through LOF Farming, if that is any indication of her math abilities.  My questions:

 

1. Would Beast Academy 3A be a good place for her to start knowing the above information?

2. How quickly are you to move through each unit?

3. Would 3A and 3B be enough for the year or would she truly get through all four in a school year do you think?

4. Can this stand alone or is it a supplement?

 

Thanks! :)

[tmstranger]

interested to know this as well...I'm intrigued by the program and we need a change in this house.  My son is currently doing saxon 3 and we've done LOF for fun breaks and we've done Apples and Butterflies so far.

 

I guess I should look for a placement test for BA...

[kristi26]

Yes, I saw the placement test on their website...hoping for more information here to make a good decision. :)

[OneStepAtATime]

I would highly recommend starting with 3A.  As to how fast she moves through it, that will entirely depend on how she does with the material.  We use it as a supplement because my kids don't retain the info without a LOT of review/spiral.  We do Beast as a family for fun.  However, others have been able to use it as their main spine.  Some kids move quickly.  Others need more time.  Others need more time coupled with review through another program.  Hard to say until your child starts using it.  This can be a very challenging program.  

 

But definitely, I would start with 3A.  See how it goes.

[go_go_gadget]

I haven't used Saxon or LOF, so I'll just address the other questions.

 

2. How quickly are you to move through each unit?

Two months per book seems to be a pretty comfortable average pace. 

 

3. Would 3A and 3B be enough for the year or would she truly get through all four in a school year do you think?

That seems quite slow. At that pace, she'd finish the third grade material at the end of her fifth grade year, if I'm correct in reading your OP and she's in third grade this year. Many people prefer to use BA a year ''behind'' and that seems reasonable, but this would be a year behind and half-speed.

 

4. Can this stand alone or is it a supplement?

It's designed to be used alone, but many people find that their students need more repetition, especially with multiplication facts. It's fairly common that people use something for fact drill alongside BA for a while after the multiplication chapter.

[Tsuga]

There are enough games that even as review 3A would be fun. I didn't realize how puzzle-oriented it would be. So while I don't regret starting in 3B I could see children of many abilities starting in 3A.

 

Two in one year seems slow. I got the feeling it was meant to be 3rd/4th grade leading up to pre-Algebra in 5th/6th grade.

[redsquirrel]

I can't answer the first part of your question, but the four books are meant to comprise an entire school year. Yes, parents can divide up as needed, but 4 books is a school year.

 

For example, we started BA last year, more than halfway through third grade. We are at that same spot this year in 4th grade and are just starting 4a. So an entire school year took us 4 books. If I had started in September, I am guessing we would have gone through all 4 books by June.

 

BA is CC aligned, so they cover all the required topics in a school year. If you only do 2 books you are only covering half a grade's worth of math.

 

But, that might not matter to you at all :001_smile:

 

And BA is a full math curriculum. Your student might need more work on a particular area, but you don't need anything else. I had ds2 'warm up' with xtra math every morning.  Now we have moved on to doing a math sprint before we tackle BA. But BA doesn't have to have anything else.

[Five More Minutes]

I'd agree with others that 3A is a good place to start. Beast has a very different approach to topics -- skip-counting in 3A was eye-opening for me! 

 

The pace for us depends on the unit. We use it as a supplement here and I think we go through around 3 books in a 12-month cycle.

 

I know that some use it as a spine or stand-alone, but for my student (bright, not gifted), we need a bit more review of skills on an ongoing basis. (I wish Beast had the equivalent of Singapore's Intensive Practice!)

 

 

[kristi26]

Okay, thanks!! All very helpful information. It really looks like something DD would enjoy but she is definitely the "needs lots of practice and review" type.  What are you all using for that side of things then?

[Tsuga]

Public school. ;)

 

Seriously though, I am pretty happy with the math book. They use Math Expressions. Better than what I had when I was a kid.

[Five More Minutes]

Okay, thanks!! All very helpful information. It really looks like something DD would enjoy but she is definitely the "needs lots of practice and review" type.  What are you all using for that side of things then?

 

Confession: I'm a chronic, bordering obsessive, math supplementer. I probably couldn't use a single program if I tried. So with that in mind ...

 

I use Singapore as our main spine and Beast as a supplement. With Singapore I'm using the textbook, Process Skills & CWP, and IP. We do about half of the problems in each book on any given topic; however, if my dd is finding one section particularly challenging, we do all of the problems.

[ChocolateMomster]

on the side...? Lotsa! :hurray:

 

We use Singapore, MEP, Miquon, Practical Arithmetics...and Beast Academy.

[redsquirrel]

I use SM CWP and math sprints one year behind for review and practice.

[MotherOfBoys]

For review and extra practice we use tablet games like Medieval Math and stuff. The grandparents felt the need to give us 3rd and 4th grade School Zone math books that turned out to be a nice supplement for the days his brain wasn't in the mood. Khan Academy online was a nice addition too.

 

I just wanted to say though, the placement test didn't give me an accurate idea if my son could handle it or not. Beast is mind bender type stuff not school zone spit out 20 or the same thing. The placement test tells you the topics he knows but not if he could handle the thinking for 10 minutes on one problem then doing it wrong and having to redo.

[Tsuga]

not if he could handle the thinking for 10 minutes on one problem then doing it wrong and having to redo.

 

 

This is why I got this book, though. Because my daughter is not the type to do that and I want her to learn to do it. I want her to learn to run so hard she falls and then has to get back up. Some kids are naturally got at that, true (I'm that type, my little one is too) but everyone needs those skills eventually.

[ikslo]

We just finished up MiF2B, and so I figured that I would try BA for the rest of the year, figuring I could always return to MiF next year or double up.  Well, we started the Friday before last, and for the first time in our homeschooling journey have done 7 days of math with no fussing.  DS has had a smile on his face, and even asked for more last night.  Can we do another page?  Music to my ears.  I know it's too early to be jumping for joy, but I am jumping for joy. 

[Peaceful Isle]

I am planning on using them (3a-3d) for my son's 4th grade math along with math u see delta. :) I am excited ! 

[Forgiven]

We use BA as a stand-alone program. We started with 3A when my DS started 3rd grade. Though he is good in math, he freaks out when he's challenged. He's the kind of kid who gets overwhelmed if he doesn't know what to do right away. We had a lot of days where he enjoyed it, then a lot of days where he'd cry. His problem wasn't that he couldn't do it, but that he didn't know how to think through it all, as math always came easy to him. 

 

I let him go at a slower pace as we struggled through  adapting to BA's approach. He now works through BA just fine. We are on 4A right now, and I believe we'll get through 4C by the end of the year. I'd actually be okay if he only gets through 4B, as I don't want to get stuck ahead of production of the books. If he has to finish up 5D, or even 5C and 5D, in his 6th grade year before starting Pre-Algebra, I'll be okay with it.

 

Anyway, I do want to say that he has good retention on his multiplication tables. I learned after we started 3A, that they were supposed to have them memorized, but we never did that. He memorized them while using BA. Even though it's not obvious, there is review within the books, but the review comes up in different ways than a typical math program. We found this to be pretty hard at first, but now he's used to them "sneaking" things into the starred problems (He calls it sneaking. I call it brilliant on BA's part).

 

Angie

[Tsuga]

"I learned after we started 3A, that they were supposed to have them memorized, but we never did that."

 

Really? I did not get that. I thought you had to have solid preparation on operations, but 3A and 3B take you through the tables. Right now my daughter is working through some math puzzles at the start of 3B which are solidifying her multiplication knowledge.

 

http://ba-cdn.beastacademy.com/store/products/3G/Grade3ScopeSequence.pdf

[blondeviolin]

We use it as a stand-alone. My son is quite mathy and doesn't need 20 problems of the same type. My daughter needed me to be there with all of her math work when she was working through BA. She liked the program for the story and characters, but not for the math.

 

My current math beast, though, is completely opposite. The story is okay, but he loves the math of it. He can do all of the non-starred problems on his own. Some starred problems he does just fine with, other ones I help by explaining the problem and letting him go, others we work through together. He has completed only 3A, but his pace of 2-3 pages a day had him through it in two months. He is the type of child that Beast Academy is made for.

[go_go_gadget]

"I learned after we started 3A, that they were supposed to have them memorized, but we never did that."

 

Really? I did not get that. I thought you had to have solid preparation on operations, but 3A and 3B take you through the tables. 

 

Correct. There's the skip-counting in 3A, and then the facts are supposed to be learned in 3B.

[Tsuga]

That makes, sense, go go gadget. Not to hijack, but tonight she worked through the diamonds. We're afterschooling so it all goes pretty slow as it's only 15 minutes a day. But you know what happened? All of a sudden she just starts spitting out answers... "Wait... I know this...  7x7 is 49... 8 x 7 is 56..." Bing, bing, bing, ten problems in about 12 seconds. That's after just a few pages of BA. Sweet!

[PentecostalMom]

Confession: I'm a chronic, bordering obsessive, math supplementer. I probably couldn't use a single program if I tried. So with that in mind ...

 

I use Singapore as our main spine and Beast as a supplement. With Singapore I'm using the textbook, Process Skills & CWP, and IP. We do about half of the problems in each book on any given topic; however, if my dd is finding one section particularly challenging, we do all of the problems.

 

As an aside, can you tell me how you use the SM books, like which books on which days and frequency?  I have a dd that will begin 1A over the summer and I am trying to figure out which boos I want and how to schedule them.

[Five More Minutes]

As an aside, can you tell me how you use the SM books, like which books on which days and frequency?  I have a dd that will begin 1A over the summer and I am trying to figure out which boos I want and how to schedule them.

 

I'll do my best to describe a typical week! This is more what I aimed for, but rarely did exactly as described because I wanted to stay flexible for my dd.

 

For Level 1, I used the Singapore (Standards) HIG, textbook, workbook. I used the schedule in the front of the HIG to give me a sense of how long different topics *might* take. Almost every day we used every book: She started with a bit of Mental Math from the HIG, after which I introduced a topic with manipulatives based on the HIG guidelines. Then we did the textbook orally, and she did the corresponding page(s) in the workbook. We used Miquon to mix things up more with this level. Toward the end of the year I added Process Skills Level 1, which were done mostly on the whiteboard together; she did about half of the problems for any given strategy.

 

For Level 2, I used all of the above, and added in the Intensive Practice books a half-year behind. So same weekly/daily schedule as above, but she also would do some IP each day. We also started CWP 2 partway through this year. I circled about half of the problems in the CWP and IP for my dd to do.

 

For Level 3, we were done with Miquon and added Beast in towards the end of the year. She started to do a lot more written work from the textbook (vs. doing it all orally with me). I didn't expect her to do more than half of the problems from the text, CWP, or IP unless there were signs that we needed to slow down. She does every problem in Beast.

 

For Level 4 (dd9's current level), I dropped the Singapore workbook. Our lessons were from the HIG, and then she just worked from the textbook. We retained CWP and IP, and Beast. Each week I give my dd the pages that I expect we'll cover in each book, and she gets to choose how she works through those. (I still do a short lesson with her based on the HIG almost daily.) Some weeks she does all of her CWP pages on one day, then all of the IP pages the next, and all of her Beast the next day. Other weeks she does a little bit in each book each day. As with previous levels, she rarely does all of the problems in each Singapore book; just enough to show she's mastered them. (I typically circle the hardest ones for her to work on!  :D ) She still does every problem from Beast.

 

Wow -- that looks confusing now that I've written it, and it sounds a lot more complicated and rigid than it actually felt. Hope it helps anyway!