Anyone else planning on jumping from BA 4D straight to AoPS Prealgebra?

[Rosie]

I am seriously considering having my 5^th grader finish Beast Academy 4D and then starting AoPS Prealgebra either in the summer or after finishing 5A at the beginning of 6^th grade. I asked this on the BA Facebook page:

 

 

 

I have a 5th grader who has been doing the BA books as they come out. I’d like to start her in the AoPS Prealgebra book next year for 6th. I was thinking of waiting until after she does BA 5A and then starting to work slowly through the Prealgebra book (plus Alcumus and videos) while we wait for succeeding BA books to be released. Do you foresee any problems with this approach?

 

Also, I own the Prealgebra book and have been glancing through it. I was thinking of doing the Number Theory chapter and maybe the Problem Solving chapter with her first (since they seem doable with what she’s learned so far in BA) and then starting at the beginning of the book. Thoughts?

 

To clarify - we would pause from the Prealgebra book any time a new BA book comes out, and then we would return to Prealgebra once she completes the BA book and is waiting for production of the next one.

 

 

Here is the response I got:

 

 

The rigor of the first chapter or 2 of Prealgebra can be a bit daunting to some students. I suspect that you know your child's strengths and weaknesses best and have probably made a wise choice to begin elsewhere in the Prealgebra book.

I suspect that the leap from 4D/5A to Prealgebra is not terribly difficult from a mathematical standpoint, but that the presentation and maturity of the approach in PreAlg may be a tougher bridge to cross. Unfortunately, there is not much out there that successfully bridges 5A to Prealgebra. (A 'bridge' book is among the many things on our to-do list after the series is complete.)

Hope it goes well, let us know!

 

 

So, just wondering if anyone else out there is planning this….

[deerforest]

We switched to AoPS pre-algebra after 4C. We did a bunch of other stuff too because we were always waiting for the next BA so she was ready skillwise. We completed the first chapter, and it went well, but she was frustrated that none of her friends were doing pre-algebra yet (in 5th) so I heard that she wasn't emotionally ready so we switched back to a bunch of living math like Ko's Journey and other things. We are going to do BA 4D for fun and then do more fun math over the summer and swing back to AoPS in the fall. She really likes it, which surprised me.

 

Several folks started AoPS much sooner than we did. I think you're really the only one who can judge what's right for your child.

[go_go_gadget]

We moved on to Pre-A after 4B, having covered a few topics using the MM Blue series. The topics we covered are now all covered by 4C and 4D, so it should be an even smoother transition. My daughter's been using Jacob's Mathematics: A Human Journey while waiting for 4D, and then she'll move to to Pre-A as well. I'm sure it'll be easier once the fifth grade level is out, but it's doable.

[LMD]

Wow, I'm so happy to read this. Dd has finished 4B, I'm going to order C & D (was waiting for D because shipping one quarter of a level to aus is way too costly!) in the meantime she picked up teaching textbooks 6, it was just sitting on my table, and is begging me to let her do it. I know Tt is generally 'behind' and it doesn't seem a huge jump from BA4...

So I was thinking of playing with tt6, life of Fred fractions, decimals & percents and then trying some pre-alg in the new year...

Oh gosh, did I just type that out loud! I'm not ready for my baby to start algebra, pre or otherwise!!!

[hellen]

You might want to introduce negative numbers prior to doing AOPS prealgebra. A knowledge of them is useful. In chapter one, the student is multiplying negative numbers and in the second chapter dealing with negative exponents. Since it is a discovery method of curriculum it will be easier to discover these things with some familiarity of their properties.

[Rosie]

I spent the morning going through the first two chapters of the AoPS Prealgebra book as well as looking through our Math Mammoth Blue books and Beast Academy books. BA has already far exceeded anything I see in Math Mammoth in preparing my dd for those first two chapters (which include negatives and exponents and are supposed to be the hardest of the book). I wish BA had prepared her even more, but I'm assuming that's coming in the 5th grade books. So, I'm even more sure now that our best bet is to jump into Prealgebra in the summer or fall and take BA breaks as they become available.

 

So what I did today was to write notes to her (and myself) in the first chapter of the Prealgebra book to help make the transition easier. It's not such a huge jump in math as much as it is a jump in logic and reasoning needed. And the wording is so much more formal than BA. And the discovery method seems just WAY too overwhelming to be thrown into like that. And the idea of proofs is a brand new thing. And formula after formula after formula that you're not supposed to memorize....Oy!

 

So I made notes in some sections to skip the discovery problems and go straight to reading their solutions so it would be more like direct instruction and so that she could begin to get an idea of what they are even expecting from her. And in some sections I wrote for her to watch the corresponding videos BEFORE attempting to figure out the discovery problems. (For the rest of the book I'll have her watch them AFTER she's gone through the teaching section in the book.) And in some sections I told her to attempt figuring out the problems for 5 minutes each before moving on to look at the solutions. (BTW, all of those notes were in regard to the teaching sections, not the practice exercises at the end of each section.) I will also have her skip the Challenge problems and use them as review throughout the course.

 

I'm thinking that from the second chapter on, if I'm walking closely alongside her on the first chapter, she should be able to do it as written.... though still with me right there with her.

 

(FYI, I wrote all that out in case anyone else is going to attempt what we're doing and wanted ideas on how to make the transition easier! If you'd like to know specifically what I wrote where in the book, PM me.)

[Farrar]

We stopped after 4B and did a few topics like ratios and integers and have now started into pre-algebra, though with Jousting Armadillos, not AoPS. So far, so good.

 

We used NCERT's 6th grade book for some of the math topics we had not covered yet and it was a good, quick but thorough explanation.

 

 

[Roadrunner]

Do not start preA with number theory chapter. We are almost done with preA and chapter 3 was the toughest chapter we encountered in the book. My son didn't blink once in chapter 2, but 3 was not so easy.

 

I think how successful you are in jumping from 4D depends on a kid. We did JA and SM through 5B prior to preA and it was not necessary. I was just stretching the time since DS was young, but in retrospect, we should have started sooner.

[LMD]

Thanks for the reminder Hellen, I hadn't thought about negative numbers...

Eta just checked, they are introduced in tt6.

 

Dd has been working through it and is now up to lesson 6.

 

Farrar, what is NCERT please?

[Rosie]

Do not start preA with number theory chapter. We are almost done with preA and chapter 3 was the toughest chapter we encountered in the book. My son didn't blink once in chapter 2, but 3 was not so easy.

 

What would you say made that chapter so difficult? When I glanced through it, it seemed to be pretty similar to what she's already learned in BA. Plus I didn't see any negatives. I thought it would be an easier transition than starting at Chapter 1. I'll have to go through and have a closer look....

[go_go_gadget]

The first three chapters together are usually considered the hardest. Some students have more trouble with one than another, and it was only the last section (negative exponents) of the exponent chapter that threw my son for a loop (the loop it threw him for was so strong it made him forget everything he knew about exponents, though). My son found the Number Theory chapter much easier and more *fun* than the end of the exponents chapter. So it's very individual.

 

We didn't find Chapter 1 to be bad at all,about the same as Chapter 3. Also, the reciprocal section is used over and over again in most subsequent chapters, including Chapter 3 IIRC. As long as you do that section or cover it by other means, I think it wouldn't matter whether you did Chapter 1 or 3 first. 

[Roadrunner]

What would you say made that chapter so difficult? When I glanced through it, it seemed to be pretty similar to what she's already learned in BA. Plus I didn't see any negatives. I thought it would be an easier transition than starting at Chapter 1. I'll have to go through and have a closer look....

 

It's  been a while, but I remember he had to work with large numbers and quickly recognize if they were powers of two or three. It was tough on computation. I believe I even started a thread about memorization in math, because it seemed so overwhelming to recognize a lot of this without having some prompts. 

For us chapter three is the only one where we broke sweat. I would say chapter 5 was on the harder side as well because that was new - algebra first time. We think chapter 1, 2 and everything else is easy. I would say if you wanted really easy chapters, look at fractions and decimals chapters. They aren't challenging at all. 

[go_go_gadget]

It's  been a while, but I remember he had to work with large numbers and quickly recognize if they were powers of two or three. It was tough on computation. I believe I even started a thread about memorization in math, because it seemed so overwhelming to recognize a lot of this without having some prompts. 

For us chapter three is the only one where we broke sweat. I would say chapter 5 was on the harder side as well because that was new - algebra first time. We think chapter 1, 2 and everything else is easy. I would say if you wanted really easy chapters, look at fractions and decimals chapters. They aren't challenging at all. 

 

It would be odd to do the fractions chapter without first doing the LCM and GCD sections of the number theory chapter, IMO. Regarding the memorization: that's just for the divisibility rules. If the concepts of LCM and GCD are truly understood, the formulae are easy to re-derive on the fly.

 

We must have opposite sons: chapter 2 was tricky for mine, but 3 and 5 were easy. They agree on the fractions and decimals chapters being easy, though.

[Farrar]

Farrar, what is NCERT please?

 

NCERT is the national textbooks of India. They're available free online in several of the official languages of India, of which English is one. The elementary math books are super pared down. The middle school ones also have a sort of less is more feel. They're chatty to the student, then walk the student through a few problems, then have them practice. Here's the sixth grade math book divided by chapters. Like I said, we did a few things from NCERT, but mostly we did all of the chapter on Integers and the chapter on Ratio and Proportion. Both were excellent. We also did bits about rational numbers and exponents in the seventh grade book. Note that the answers to all the exercises are in a pdf at the bottom of the page with the chapters for each book. Also, you can find some other things correlated to the NCERT math books online - extra practice workbooks and so forth.

 

I've been trying to encourage more people to make use of them. There are a few different math terms, but nothing that hasn't been pretty obvious. The money is all in rupees, but that's easy enough. The examples all have Indian names and foods, but we saw it more like a cultural exchange. There have been a couple of problems where we understood how to do the math but didn't know what it meant. In the ratios chapter, I remember that there was a problem about "runs per over" that we laughed about because we couldn't understand it. It wasn't until after ds had solved it that suddenly a lightbulb went on in my head. I practically shouted at ds, "It was about CRICKET! Runs per over!" But really those sorts of things have been rare. While it's a little funny to be calculating how much money Rupa will make selling dosas at the market, it makes sense even if you've never eaten a dosa.

[zarabellesmom]

Like Farrar, we are moving to Jousting Armadillos, though we will probably move from that to AOPS. I have the books and have worked through some of it myself. I'm waiting for my daughter to mature a little before we try it. She still deals with challenge by breaking into tears...even after BA. We used a variety of resources to cover decimals, percentages, and a couple of extra topics that I thought she needed before jumping into JA. That said, we are dropping JA for BA briefly. I just love BA and so does she. I imagine we will pause whatever we are doing every time a fifth grade book comes out too.

[Farrar]

Oh, I just remembered... we also used the Key to Math books to cover practice in things like division with decimals that I don't think got covered in Beast. And I made ds do a lot more long division as well.

[Roadrunner]

It would be odd to do the fractions chapter without first doing the LCM and GCD sections of the number theory chapter, IMO. Regarding the memorization: that's just for the divisibility rules. If the concepts of LCM and GCD are truly understood, the formulae are easy to re-derive on the fly.

 

We must have opposite sons: chapter 2 was tricky for mine, but 3 and 5 were easy. They agree on the fractions and decimals chapters being easy, though.

It wasn't the concept. It was the computation with large numbers. I think the best place to start is chapter 1. I don't recommend starting in 3.

[Ariston]

My almost 11 year old is able to do all the problems on the AOPS preA pre-test except for multiplying and dividing negatives (he gets the signs wrong.) Would you all say that test is an accurate indication of readiness? We haven't done 5th grade math yet but I was hoping to skip to pre-a, even if its a slow pace. Also how long us the preA book meant to take?

[wapiti]

My almost 11 year old is able to do all the problems on the AOPS preA pre-test except for multiplying and dividing negatives (he gets the signs wrong.) Would you all say that test is an accurate indication of readiness? We haven't done 5th grade math yet but I was hoping to skip to pre-a, even if its a slow pace. Also how long us the preA book meant to take?

 

No, personally I would not start the Prealgebra text until you teach a unit on operations with negative numbers.  Understanding that is a prerequisite.

 

That said, a bright math student can usually pick this topic up relatively quickly.  Find some resources online.  One of my ds12s learned in about 30 seconds at 9 y.o., right before we started the Prealgebra text.  My soon-to-be-9 ds knows this well already (I have not started him in this text yet - he has a few more things to learn).  On the other hand, my other ds12 will still mix himself up if he's not paying attention; some kids just need more practice, practice that seems so simple at the time, so that they don't get signs mixed up when things quickly become more complex.

 

As for skipping "5th grade math," it depends what you mean - what program are you using?  I can't remember what BA covers in 4.  I would want a student to have had fractions, decimals and a good bit of percents, instruction that is typically located within the 5th grade level of many programs.  Of course, it's also possible to teach these yourself, outside of your program, especially for a bright math student using, say, BA.  These topics will get covered again in Prealgebra, but I would not want the student's main instruction on these topics to occur during AoPS Preaglebra.  Fractions are super important to have nailed down first, all aspects (AoPS will take it deeper :)).

 

The Prealgebra text takes roughly a school year, but of course that depends on how fast/slow one proceeds.  Some people take a full calendar year.  My dd used it for 5th grade and it took about the school year.  The chapters are of uneven length in the first half, so some chapters will take much longer than others.  FWIW, the toughest chapters for my kids have been 2 and 5.  Don't be afraid to go as slow as needed when you get started.  The second half is not only more "even" in terms of lesson and chapter length, but most kids will have found a groove by then :)  Have fun!

[Ariston]

Thanks for your reply!

 

He has finished MEP 4.  I had a baby this year and we got kind of burnt out so since then he's been doing Khan videos.  He's pretty quick with fractions and decimals.  He's never had any formal teaching on negatives although MEP introduces the concept at a young age.  So when I asked him what 5 plus -3 was, he didn't hesitate to say 2, but when I asked what he thought -6 divided by -3 was, he answered -2.

 

I'll do some more work on Khan Academy, fractions, decimals, percentages, and introducing negative numbers and see how that goes.  I think from reading other reviews I can see that he would be the type of student who might succeed in AoPS if he was already somewhat familiar with the material.  From what I've seen so far Khan Ac. does not go deep at all but it seems to be working at least as an introduction to topics.