Basics of the Jousting Armadillos series?

[SunnyDays]

Let me preface this a bit:  DS was homeschooled for 3 years, and has done 6th grade in private school this year.  We're not 100% thrilled with the situation, although it's worked well for the year.  But we're making some decisions about next year, and considering everything from bringing him home full time to a part time enrollment to who knows what.  :)

 

So, DS has always been accelerated in math.  He completed most of MM6 at home in 5th grade, and has gone through some of the LOF pre algebra.  He's been studying pre algebra this year at school, but I'm not entirely satisfied with the way it's been done, as they're trying to do several levels within the classroom and it seems a bit disjointed... pre algebra to me is something that needs to make sure you have the concepts down cold before moving on to higher maths.

 

I've been looking at resources either to shore him up at home over the summer (to be ready to take Algebra I in the fall), or to use if he does come home.  I keep seeing threads on Jousting Armadillos... I've read through some of them and I think it looks good.  But I'm hoping someone can answer some basics...

 

Is the three book series supposed to be a complete pre algebra program?  I see that it uses some discovery method but not like AoPS, which is probably good... DS is strong but I'm not sure AoPS is the right program for him. 

 

Would the series be good for someone who has covered some pre algebra, or would it be very repetitive for him?  If he's covered a lot of it already, would it be worth doing maybe just the third book, or do you really need to do all three together??  I looked at the website and saw a few samples, but is there a scope and sequence anywhere as to what each book covers?

 

Finally, if we do come home, I think we'd like to use either JA or LOF to flesh out the rest of pre algebra then move on to Algebra.  I'm thinking Jacobs seems a good contender... but I see that JA is partially based on Jacobs?  How does that work and is there too much overlap??

 

Hope this makes sense, sorry it got so long!!  Any thoughts appreciated!  :)

 

[madteaparty]

I think just the first one is pre-a; the other two are algebra? I don't know, and I'd love to know more.

[Space station]

I only have JA, so I can't comment on the others, and we never actually used it - we chose to go with LoF and AoPS instead.  From what the authors explain in the beginning, they wrote this series because they were using both Jacob's Human Endeavor and Jacob's Elementary Algebra over a 3 year period (6th-8th grades) to cover Pre-Algebra & Algebra, as well as supplementing those 2 books with other in house materials.  So they took the in-house materials that they had written and combined them with the parts of the Jacobs books that they wanted to include so that their students would not have to carry around 2 big text books and their teacher generated texts all the time.  It owes a heavy debt to Jacobs, so I would think that doing Jacobs after the series would be redundant, but like I said I have only seen the first book.  It is a much more like Jacobs than like AoPS.  It places a heavier emphasis on writing about math than any other book I have seen, including math journaling.

Hope that helps a little!

[Farrar]

We're only a little ways into JA, but I feel like the biggest elements of the series are the emphasis on writing and a "less is more" approach. The writing has been a struggle for ds since he's only in fifth grade and writing is not his strong suit. We've moved to letting him use dictation software for some of the writing. On the other hand, the thinking behind the writing is really good for him. I don't think it would be redundant for most kids coming out of pre-algebra to do JA. I haven't seen another program with anything like that deductive and inductive reasoning section at the start, for example (though maybe it's in Jacob's?). Because there's not a ton of problems, I think you could easily run through the whole thing as a deepening review - as in, checking off that everything was understood while also going to the next level with it through all that reflection. And it wouldn't get tedious because there's not a lot of review or practice built in.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I don't have a ton to add, other than yes, JA is PreAlgebra, and the other two books cover Algebra 1.  JA would be a good followup to MM6/PreAlgebra, and would definitely add depth.  JA assumes that you have all the basic operations down solid and are ready to start working with variables. So it reviews the operations, but using variables, so it's much more of a bridge to actual Algebra than a lot of PreA programs that spend the whole time working on operations and then just have a chapter or two on variables & equations.  Like Farar said, the inductive/deductive reasoning stuff at the beginning is unique and a nice introduction to thinking in geometry as well as Algebra.

 

We did MM6 & JA in 6th grade.  In 7th, we have done the first half of Jacobs.  It was mostly review of JA.  I don't regret having done it, but it was repetitive.  Shannon liked Jacobs, but she loved JA, so she actually asked if she  could use the other two books instead of finishing Jacobs for the rest of Alg 1.  She absolutely adores the author, his voice, his humor.  Even more than Harold Jacobs!  

 

(We're on a break from textbooks and doing the Algebra 1 and Geometry classes on Edx right now. That's why we've only done 7 chapters of Jacobs but haven't started Crocodiles & Coconuts yet. In case anybody was wondering.  ;)  :D )

[Garga]

My son is using MUS for pre-algebra and the first Jousting Armadillos book. (Which is called Jousting Armadillos. The other 2 books have other names.)

 

The information that he learns in MUS weaves in with JA. Sometimes we learn a concept in MUS first then bump into it in JA, and sometimes we learn it in JA first and then see it in MUS. Either way, it's all been pre-algebra in this JA book. We're nearing the end of the year, so I'm confident that JA is just pre-alg and not Alg I. The MUS pre-alg and JA information has been the same in both books.

 

It has been a good fit for us. MUS is solid, though some people say it's too easy. JA certainly makes a person think and has some challenging puzzles in it that do require a bit of thought. My son and I do it side-by-side. I write the problems on scrap paper and figure it out and he figures it out in the book. If he did it alone I think it would frustrate him. (He doesn't love math. He doesn't hate it, but he doesn't love it either.) Doing some of the puzzles would drive him nuts because he doesn't want to sit still long enough to puzzle them out on his own. It's easier when we work on them side by side. If you're a middle-of-the-road math person, then get the answers key. There were a good number of puzzles that I needed to check my answers in the book for and I got a few of them wrong. I don't hate math, don't love it, am not "good" or "bad" at it. I'm pretty middle of the road in my math abilities.

 

Knowing what I know now and having used the program, if I was unsure of the pre-alg materials he was taught in school, I would be pleased with using JA to review it all again over the summer. It's solid.

 

However, I think my son would be most unhappy to be doing math in the summer. JA is a full curriculum that has taken us the entire school year to cover (it'll be 10 months of work when we're done). It would be a lot of work to squeeze it into a summer break, since summer break is only about 2 months long. You'd have to do a lot each day, and I don't think it's an easy curriculum. It does take a bit of thinking and focus.

 

As far as the writing that another poster mentioned...we didn't do a whole lot of that. My son is a master at using as few words as possible to answer a question. There are a few times the book asks you to explain how you figured something out. They also ask you to write "notes to self" about how to do things so that you can refer to them later if you forget. Like, we just finished writing "notes to self" on how to find a LCM or GCF and did have to refer to them when we forgot how to do one.

 

If you have more questions, you'll have to PM me because WTM won't notify me if you quote me. It's broken.

[Chrysalis Academy]

So it sounds like it's hard to predict how long JA will take.  We certainly didn't take a whole year with it - more like 2-3 months.  For the most part, Shannon was able to do one lesson a day for the first 5/6 chapters.  Chapter 6 took a lot longer.   If your experience with it was more like ours, it would be a great summer thing.  If it's more like Garga's, that wouldn't work so well.

 

Although in reality we repeated the same material again in the first semester of 7th grade, using Jacobs Ch. 1-6, so it's not like we flew through it.  We just covered it in two passes, rather than spending a whole year on JA.  Just a different path through the same material, I think.

[Farrar]

Rose, does that mean you're returning to do Crocodiles to Coconuts? That's sort of exciting. I feel like you're the one that sold all of us on JA's coolness. :)

 

I anticipate that we will take nearly a year with JA. We're doing some of Real World Algebra alongside it. I've also go ds doing problems in Process Skills in Problem Solving for grade 6 to keep reviewing math stuff - plus some of those are still pretty challenging. And I anticipate that we'll continue to do some breaks and do a little geometry alongside it. We're eclectic like that. I've been trying to let it sink in and take it slow.

[SunnyDays]

Thanks, ladies... this is all extremely helpful.  Sounds like it's concept heavy, practice light, which would make the boy happy, LOL.  He wouldn't be big on writing either but we could work around that.  I'll give it some more thought, of course factoring in what we decide to do about school next year.  And I probably need to read more prealgebra/algebra threads and figure out the following steps as well.

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Rose, does that mean you're returning to do Crocodiles to Coconuts? That's sort of exciting. I feel like you're the one that sold all of us on JA's coolness. :)

 

I anticipate that we will take nearly a year with JA. We're doing some of Real World Algebra alongside it. I've also go ds doing problems in Process Skills in Problem Solving for grade 6 to keep reviewing math stuff - plus some of those are still pretty challenging. And I anticipate that we'll continue to do some breaks and do a little geometry alongside it. We're eclectic like that. I've been trying to let it sink in and take it slow.

 

Yes, we really are - we did JA, then Ch. 1-7 of Jacobs, then Shannon asked if she could do Crocodiles plus Chuckles instead of finishing Jacobs.  Not that Jacobs isn't awesome, but, she really, really loves and connects with the Arbor School books.  The only reason I hadn't originally planned to continue with them was because I ALREADY OWN JACOBS!!! and they are freaking expensive.  But, I bought AoPS because I wanted to check it out, and we won't use it, so how could I tell my child no, I won't buy you these books you really want and love and know you can learn from??  Priorities and all.

 

We didn't spend nearly that long with JA, but then, my kid was in the second half of 6th grade, not 5th grade.  (We also did RWA alongside JA - very nice combo!).  But we *did* do the first seven chapters of Jacobs, and Ch. 1-6 are pretty redundant with JA.  So maybe we did JA faster, but then repeated, whereas you will do JA slower, and skip over the equivalent info in Jacobs.  Does that make sense?  I have found that repetition from different directions works well for Shannon, whereas spending lots of time moving slowly with a single resource, not so much - she gets bored.  So I have come at her from a bunch of different directions with the same content.  It seems to be working so far.

 

What can I say, my kid is really the one who sold me on JA's coolness! I was perfectly happy with Jacobs, myself . . . but maybe it's a more mature style of humor or something? Hope springs eternal, anyway.  :lol:

[SunnyDays]

Rose, as I can't remember the last time I told my child "no" on *any* book... I completely understand!  :D

 

[Nicholas_mom]

 

I have found that repetition from different directions works well for Shannon, whereas spending lots of time moving slowly with a single resource, not so much - she gets bored. So I have come at her from a bunch of different directions with the same content. It seems to be working so far.

 

This. Thank you Rose for this enlightment.  This has been brought to my attention with my ds.  We have done different math curricula (including JA) until we settled with Dolcini: Pre-alg.  Now we are stuck with a chapter and I decided we will do Lial's Pre-alg for the same stuff that he is stuck on and its like a breath of fresh air here.

 

Regarding " the inductive/deductive reasoning stuff at the beginning is unique" --- I saw this exercise in Ellen Mchenry's Free Physics curriculum, which was a great science exercise but I also found it somewhere else, too. I can't remember if its Foerster's alg or Jacobs.  

 

We didn't like JA.  I hate trick questions.  I actually remember the one I got in High School while using Jacobs Alg that JA uses.  The old race horse exercise.  You needed to know that race hoses run the track counter-clockwise to answer the question correctly.  Who knows this stuff!!!

 

But, we do use "Notes to self" using the Dolciani text.  That is very helpful.   But, guess what? Next year I have Jacobs algebra or Foerster's alg.  I just don't know which one to use :)  So go figure.....

[shburks]

This. Thank you Rose for this enlightment.  This has been brought to my attention with my ds.  We have done different math curricula (including JA) until we settled with Dolcini: Pre-alg.  Now we are stuck with a chapter and I decided we will do Lial's Pre-alg for the same stuff that he is stuck on and its like a breath of fresh air here.

 

Regarding " the inductive/deductive reasoning stuff at the beginning is unique" --- I saw this exercise in Ellen Mchenry's Free Physics curriculum, which was a great science exercise but I also found it somewhere else, too. I can't remember if its Foerster's alg or Jacobs.  

 

We didn't like JA.  I hate trick questions.  I actually remember the one I got in High School while using Jacobs Alg that JA uses.  The old race horse exercise.  You needed to know that race hoses run the track counter-clockwise to answer the question correctly.  Who knows this stuff!!!

 

But, we do use "Notes to self" using the Dolciani text.  That is very helpful.   But, guess what? Next year I have Jacobs algebra or Foerster's alg.  I just don't know which one to use :)  So go figure.....

 

This exactly...we didn't like the trick questions.  DS was very frustrated with them.  I wanted to like JA...I really did.  We cut out nearly all the writing parts after the first few chapters because ds hated it so much.  He understood the concepts and didn't get why he needed to use words to write them down.  It was also just way too wordy for us.  DS breezed through it until Chapter 6 when we came to a complete stop--tears, anger, it was awful.  We took a break and then came back and finished it.  We're now in Ch 3 of Jacobs.  Like Rose said, so far it has been a lot of review of JA except for the functions section but Jacobs is a MUCH better fit for ds.

 

So it sounds like it's hard to predict how long JA will take.  We certainly didn't take a whole year with it - more like 2-3 months.  For the most part, Shannon was able to do one lesson a day for the first 5/6 chapters.  Chapter 6 took a lot longer.   If your experience with it was more like ours, it would be a great summer thing.  If it's more like Garga's, that wouldn't work so well.

 

Although in reality we repeated the same material again in the first semester of 7th grade, using Jacobs Ch. 1-6, so it's not like we flew through it.  We just covered it in two passes, rather than spending a whole year on JA.  Just a different path through the same material, I think.

We didn't take a whole year on it either.  Even stopping it completely for about a month, we finished it in January, I believe.

[Rivka]

We did MEP through 4b, and then compacted MEP 5-6 together only doing selected portions.

 

The only part of Jousting Armadillos I felt comfortable skipping was the negative numbers chapter. MEP covers operations with negative numbers really well. The introduction to variables was pretty easy for Alex because we'd had some of that in MEP as well, but I really enjoyed the way JA developed the concepts and she enjoyed the whimsical questions.

 

Now we are about halfway through Crocodiles and Coconuts and I am breathless with admiration for what a fantastic book it is. I love the way that Linus builds deep understanding of how two-variable equations and how they are used to represent data in the real world. My daughter really gets how equations are depictions of relationships, in a way that I don't think I fully grasped until college statistics. It's a very practical approach to algebra - a great match for the future scientists out there.

 

Oh, and C&C is definitely algebra, not prealgebra. Major sections are graphing functions on the coordinate plane, simultaneous equations, and conic sections.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Nice review, Rivka, thanks! Shannon put C&C aside reluctantly to do the EdX Algebra 1 & Geometry classes this spring, but it's her next move for Algebra.  i agree with your assessment, I love how it builds an understanding of equations and data representations.  I'm glad to hear from somebody who is farther ahead with it than we are, and enjoying it - I feel like I've been a one-woman cheering section for these books for the last year!  

[JDoe]

I haven't seen another program with anything like that deductive and inductive reasoning section at the start, for example (though maybe it's in Jacob's?). 

 

Jacob's Human Endeavor does indeed have  that deductive and inductive reasoning section at the start

[Rivka]

I will say that we do most of the narrative questions orally. I do have Alex write the "Notes to Self," and I think those are helpful, but yeah - she's not expected to write multiple sentences about "how do you know that X is blah blah blah." It's enough of a struggle to get her to articulate it orally. ("It just IS! It's OBVIOUS!" "Well, Linus wants you to put it into words.")

[Chrysalis Academy]

I agree with that, too - if she could articulate the insight orally, I didn't require long written narratives. I was sitting right there and we were talking about it, so I knew if she got it. I think those written exercises are necessary if you have a whole classroom of kids, and you are trying to probe the level of insight. But less necessary one-on-one.  Although doing the Notes to Self was a good exercise.

[Forgiven]

Okay, I feel like an idiot. I thought C&C was the second half of Pre-Algebra and the first half of Algebra. My daughter is in the second Chapter of C&C. She loves it, but she thinks she's still doing pre-A. LOL Oops.

 

We plan to continue on with Chuckles, but we are planning on doing Chuckles alongside AoPS Algebra. Why are there so many good options out there? Ugh! I guess we'll see how it all works out. I'm glad I read through this. I don't have to worry about her being behind. I wanted my DD to be finished with the entire C&C book by the beginning of August. There's no rush now, I guess. LOL

 

Oh, we love the trick questions. We have so much fun on them. ;)

 

Angie

[Rivka]

Also? I knew Linus in college. We may or may not have engaged in hijinks and shenanigans of the type one does not normally associate with one's curriculum provider.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Also? I knew Linus in college. We may or may not have engaged in hijinks and shenanigans of the type one does not normally associate with one's curriculum provider.

 

Jealous! Linus sounds like someone I'd like to know.

 

I keep thinking of further responses, but they're a little racy for a homeschool forum!  ;)  :D

[Rivka]

Jealous! Linus sounds like someone I'd like to know.

 

I keep thinking of further responses, but they're a little racy for a homeschool forum!  ;)  :D

 

Not THAT kind of hijinks! :tongue_smilie:

[Chrysalis Academy]

With the EdX Algebra class over, Shannon has jumped back into Crocodiles and Coconuts, with great satisfaction.  "Ah, I missed Linus!" she said this morning.  She is also back to gleefully discovering errors in the TM.  :tongue_smilie:

[Farrar]

Today, ds was explaining to me why Linus is a better writer than Ed Zaccaro. He's not keen on the Real World Algebra apparently.

[shanezomom]

Can a student jump in at Crocodiles and Coconuts and skip JA?

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yes, if they have had a very strong PreAlgebra program and are ready for functions, graphing, and two-variable equations.

[kiwik]

Not THAT kind of hijinks! :tongue_smilie:

Now I am imagining you carrying out animal rights raids or subversive politics!

[SilverMoon]

So it sounds like it's hard to predict how long JA will take.  We certainly didn't take a whole year with it - more like 2-3 months.  For the most part, Shannon was able to do one lesson a day for the first 5/6 chapters.  Chapter 6 took a lot longer.   If your experience with it was more like ours, it would be a great summer thing.  If it's more like Garga's, that wouldn't work so well.

 

Although in reality we repeated the same material again in the first semester of 7th grade, using Jacobs Ch. 1-6, so it's not like we flew through it.  We just covered it in two passes, rather than spending a whole year on JA.  Just a different path through the same material, I think.

 

That's a lot of $$ for 2-3 months. I was really thinking about trying JA, but then....   :tongue_smilie:

 

 

 

Instead of starting a whole new thread.. DD/rising 5th is 3/4 of the way through Horizons 5. She can do two lessons in 30 minutes without breaking a sweat; that's every problem of every lesson. She has dabbled in Keys to Alg 1, Alcumus, Khan's prealg path, and a bit of Zaccaro's Challenge Math, and eavesdropped into her brother's AoPS prealg lessons. She'll be on a Math Olympiad team this coming year. She's the kid that just looks at a complicated problem with a scrunched up face before suddenly blurting out the correct answer she fully worked out in her head.

 

Would you (collective, anyone who's very familiar with JA, sort of you) consider JA "worth it" for this kid to do between finishing Horizons 5 and starting AoPS prealg? Or perhaps spliced between AoPS chapters.

[Roadrunner]

 

 

Would you (collective, anyone who's very familiar with JA, sort of you) consider JA "worth it" for this kid to do between finishing Horizons 5 and starting AoPS prealg? Or perhaps spliced between AoPS chapters.

 

I have a kid like that. We did JA last summer between 3rd and 4th grade. In retrospect we didn't need it at all. It's a wonderful program that offers a lot, but if you are planning on AoPS preAlgebra, you will be doubling up for no reason. I say just jump into AoPS preA and if it feels overwhelming, then back away into JA. We found JA extremely easy even in 3rd grade. I also have a kid who completed AoPS preA in 4th grade without much fuss. I didn't think it was possible, but the best thing we did is let him try. I say just let him try AoPS first.  

[Chrysalis Academy]

I agree, SilverMoon, it'll probably be redundant for your kid if you anticipate that she'll thrive with AoPS.  You guys have a really different type of kid.  I have a kid who is bright, good at math, likes it fine, and needs gentle encouragement to go deeper and to grapple with new, hard problems different from those she's seen before.  MM6 was getting boring, and redundant, but AoPS PreA was too into-the-deep-end for her.  JA hit that perfect sweet spot - gentle discovery, but it didn't ever pull the rug out from under her entirely.

 

As far as the cost, I balked at that big-time at first. Shannon did JA in the spring of 6th grade in a few months. In 7th, she did a bunch of different things, including the first 7 chapters of Jacobs, but then asked if she could use the other two Arbor School books instead of continuing with Jacobs. I gave in - she was asking for the math program that she liked best, that she could really learn from, so it seemed silly to say no, it's too expensive, especially since I had plunked down the $$ already for AoPS PreA and Intro to Algebra, which she will probably never use.  For her, it is worth the $$.  For your kid, probably not.

[SilverMoon]

Thank you both.  :001_smile: The school budget can sigh. I kept looking at it because it looks like something she'd enjoy, but she enjoys math in general. I've been throwing all those extras at her to keep her engaged long enough to finish Horizons 5. I will not be able to keep up this act through Horizons 6.  :tongue_smilie: She needs something more challenging/satisfying, and we already have AoPS and 4-5 Zaccaro books.

[AEC]

FWIW.....

 

I've now taken a taken one child through all of AoPS prealg, and one through all of JA and the first 1/2 of AoPS.

IMO....JA is materially less thorough and challenging, and considerably more repetitive.  It's a decent preAlg course that you can move through pretty quickly but it doesn't have nearly the depth, nor does it grow the ability to tackle challenging problems and really use your knowledge.

 

DD1, who loves math and is pretty silly, is now doing AoPS after having done JA.  She tore through JA in 5-6 weeks (1 section a day, basically...took her about 45 minutes each day).

 

In her opinion...AoPS is not nearly as fun to read, but at least the problems are interesting and there aren't so many of them.  She felt like JA was rather excessive with the number of problems that are basically the same.

 

She believes that if only the AoPS book would re-write their word problems so they involved thumb-wrestling weasels with hats it would be the PERFECT math book.

 

I can't really disagree.

 

We also find the AoPS book much easier to assign, work through together, etc.

[Spy Car]

:lurk5:

 

 

About 80 pages into AoPS Pre-A with the little man for "summer school" and can't really afford to be distracted   :cursing:  :glare:  :laugh:

 

Bill 

 

 

 

[maize]

:lurk5:

 

 

About 80 pages into AoPS Pre-A with the little man for "summer school" and can't really afford to be distracted :cursing: :glare: :laugh:

 

Bill

If your guy is enjoying AOPS no need to do JA as well.

 

We're doing both but my dd doesn't love math and a pure diet of AOPS is a bit much for her. We're taking our time with prealgebra and mixing in lots of resources.

 

JA is admittedly her favorite.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yeah, I agree - if AoPS is a good fit you might find JA underwhelming. I see it as that great sweet spot for kids who don't mesh with AoPS, but who want (or whose parents want  ;) )  a challenging conceptual program..

[Spy Car]

If your guy is enjoying AOPS no need to do JA as well.

 

We're doing both but my dd doesn't love math and a pure diet of AOPS is a bit much for her. We're taking our time with prealgebra and mixing in lots of resources.

 

JA is admittedly her favorite.

 

 

Yeah, I agree - if AoPS is a good fit you might find JA underwhelming. I see it as that great sweet spot for kids who don't mesh with AoPS, but who want (or whose parents want  ;) )  a challenging conceptual program..

 

You know it's curious. My son really does enjoy AoPS. When he solves really tough problems he goes a happy dance. But there is a wee bit of "torture" in there as well   ;)

 

It is making him strong. And he likes it. That feeling of  strength. But there is a little pain factor (no pain, no gain  ;) ). A little balance would be nice...if we had the time.

 

A certain someone ( ;) ) wants to be done with AoPS Pre-A before Middle School starts up mid-August. Tick, tock!

 

Bill (that parent  ;) )

[Farrar]

Bill, I think one of the big the selling points of JA over AoPS is that it's very "less is more." Since you afterschool/summer school and you have a kid who groks math, I could see that it could be a better choice that might take a kid further along and be a more pleasurable experience while still having some depth. I could see that it could appeal to you. I haven't used AoPS's preA, but I assume that it would have more though - certainly more practice, but maybe more depth as well. I'm not sure.

[Spy Car]

Bill, I think one of the big the selling points of JA over AoPS is that it's very "less is more." Since you afterschool/summer school and you have a kid who groks math, I could see that it could be a better choice that might take a kid further along and be a more pleasurable experience while still having some depth. I could see that it could appeal to you. I haven't used AoPS's preA, but I assume that it would have more though - certainly more practice, but maybe more depth as well. I'm not sure.

 

So...like, you're muddying the waters for me? :D

 

Bill

[AEC]

Bill, I think one of the big the selling points of JA over AoPS is that it's very "less is more." Since you afterschool/summer school and you have a kid who groks math, I could see that it could be a better choice that might take a kid further along and be a more pleasurable experience while still having some depth. I could see that it could appeal to you. I haven't used AoPS's preA, but I assume that it would have more though - certainly more practice, but maybe more depth as well. I'm not sure.

 

definitely more depth.  IME (and DD's opinion), definitely LESS practice.  AoPS covers quite a bit more ground (much broader scope of topics) and in greater depth.  It has 1/2 to 1/3 as many problems / section, though the problem are rather more difficult.

 

You have to kind of like the challenge.

[wapiti]

About 80 pages into AoPS Pre-A with the little man for "summer school" and can't really afford to be distracted

 

A certain someone ( ;) ) wants to be done with AoPS Pre-A before Middle School starts up mid-August. Tick, tock!

 

LOL that's a pretty tight schedule but if you're choosy, you can get it done, especially since it's the summer and especially if he's already done BA.  Prioritize your chapters (e.g., if 3, 4 and 6 are mostly familiar topics, do the chapter review).  Ch 8-14 are more evenly-paced than earlier chapters; they could be done in a week or less apiece, depending on how many challenge problems you assign - one lesson per day is reasonable IIRC... Eta, I take that back; maybe my memory is faulty, because looking back, they look more like two days per lesson, but it depends on how you break them up - if you are really driven, you could do lesson in the morning and exercises in the afternoon.  (If he will take a placement test when he gets to the middle school in August and the idea is to place out of common core 8, there's an extra topic or two I'd throw in as well.)

[Spy Car]

LOL that's a pretty tight schedule but if you're choosy, you can get it done, especially since it's the summer and especially if he's already done BA. Prioritize your chapters (e.g., if 3, 4 and 6 are mostly familiar topics, do the chapter review). Ch 8-14 are more evenly-paced than earlier chapters; they could be done in a week or less apiece, depending on how many challenge problems you assign - one lesson per day is reasonable IIRC... Eta, I take that back; maybe my memory is faulty, because looking back, they look more like two days per lesson, but it depends on how you break them up - if you are really driven, you could do lesson in the morning and exercises in the afternoon. (If he will take a placement test when he gets to the middle school in August and the idea is to place out of common core 8, there's an extra topic or two I'd throw in as well.)

I'm starting to feel like the Cleveland Cavs and we're 12 points down with 5:04 left in the game :D

 

And he's escaping leaving for two weeks of vacation next week. Better go wake him up :p

 

The good thing is placement tests are done. He is going to be in an accelerated Math Academy program for Middle School that's he's aspired to for years. Next year will be CC6/7, then CC8/Algebra 1 in 7th, CC Geometry in 8th.

 

Why am I still talking?!

 

Bill

[Spy Car]

Woo...smoke coming out of the dear boy's ears after a brutal delightfully-positive morning session finishing AoPS Pre-A Chapter 2's lesson on Negative Exponents, the Review Problems, and a sampling of Challenge Problems...then on to the Ch 3 lesson on Multiples. 

 

I got a big hug and a "thank you for helping me, I love you!" from the spent little man who looked relieved to be heading out with his mother to a pool play date.

 

Good times :D

 

Bill 

[Rivka]

We're planning to follow up CC and CtRD (the two JA books that are considered "algebra") with AoPS Algebra. I wouldn't do two different PRE-algebra programs unless I had a kid who really needed more time to mature cognitively in order to handle the abstractions of algebra, but my understanding is that AoPS Algebra goes broad and deep enough that it won't be overly repetitive to do it next. I'm assuming we'll skate quickly through some sections and spend more time on the complex ones.

 

Maybe it's just because Alex is young (she's barely ten), but she really seems to thrive on the whimsy and humor and her sense of Linus as an encouraging and personal guide. Even though she's a high math achiever, I'm a bit nervous about transitioning her to a more stripped-down, grown-up AoPS approach. I think it will help to have already been through algebra once.