To beast academy or not

[visitor]

Dear all, we are curently using Singapore math standard edition as our main maths. We are using all te books. It is just to easy for him. I was thinking to buy Beast Academy as a supplement on SM. Because we also have 3 languages and lot's of Science in our current curriculum I was wondering how you all supplement BA with SM. So these are my questions : 1 how many time do you spend with BA dailly. 2 Do you feel BA is a good supplement on SM. 3 When you suplement BA with SM do you still use all the outcome books (wb, ip, cwp). Or do you cut off something from SM to save time. 4 Do you feel BA is a good comprehensive starter for AoPs. I know a lot's of questions . I hope someone can help me out. I really can't decide to buy BA or not. Thanks in advance , Visitor

[desertflower]

1. We are taking it at a leisure pace since he's ahead. I would have to say that it depends on the topic. We are reviewing (PS 2, CWP 1, IP 1B) as well as BA3a.

 

2. Yes.

3. Once the review is over, I will not being doing SM WB. I will do CWP, PS, and some problems in IP along with BA. Although some people just do BA alone.

4. Judging from reading other threads, I think it is. But not there yet.

 

I highly recommend BA. My ds thinks SM wb is too easy as well.

[ikslo]

Beast! Beast! Beast!

 

(We love it. We were doing MiF prior to then along with, and this year we're just doing Beast. Plan to move on to AoPS after.)

[visitor]

Haha ikslo you are funny .thanks .Thanks desertflower

[zarabellesmom]

With my oldest, we have just finished BA. We started with MiF and when BA first became available, we switched. She finished MiF 1, 2, and 3 in the first half of her 1st grade year, math was her thing.  BA we took really slowly because it was coming out slowly. We managed to drag it out until recently, but we've had to move on. We did BA all by itself.  Right now, we are kind of doing review, Zaccaro Upper Elementary Challenge Math and Jousting Armadillos while we ready ourselves for AoPS pre-algebra.  Mathmatically she's there, but emotionally, she is in a rough place. Being 10 has hit us hard.

 

My youngest is 7. She's pretty mathy too, but not as much as her sister. We just started (this week even) BA and we are going to do it in conjunction with MiF.  I'm not going to try to line them up.  We are doing three days BA and two days MiF.  I think this will be better for her because it will build in review and reinforcement. I've never used any part of Singapore Standards except the CWP, but I would probably continue some of it. It probably depends on how much review or practice your child needs. My oldest didn't need much in order to remember skills so we just moved along.  There's not a whole lot of review built in with BA, that is to say, they build on previously learned skills, but they don't have any outright review.

 

All that to say, it really depends on the kid. Helpful, right?

 

Teresa

[visitor]

Thanks Teresa well it is helpful. I am thinking of buying 3A and 3B just to see how it will work out . DS doesnt need lots of review

[SoCal_Bear]

If SM is too easy, you may want to not do the WB at all and only use the TB, IP and CWP books instead.

[SeaConquest]

We love BA here. My son doesn't even want to do Singapore anymore because he thinks BA is so awesome. I'm not sure I'm ready to drop Singapore entirely, but we've only ever used the IP and CWP. I imagine we will continue to do a bit of Singapore for review, but BA is definitely our main math program now.

[IfIOnly]

I would use it as a supplement if it wasn't for the cost. $$$

[MeganW]

Can you just double-time the SM until you are at the right level?  Just do the odds, and if he gets them all right, move on!

[MeganW]

As for how to do a supplement, we used BA over the summer in conjunction with another program.  We did BA until we hit a natural stopping point, then switched over until we got to a good stopping point, then switched again.  Another option would be to do BA on Fridays, and SM Mon - Thurs (or some other combo).  Or finish your current SM book, then switch to BA and do a book, then switch back.

[klmama]

We had to stop BA because they were coming out too slowly, but my dc loved it.  After we had moved on and they finally came out with more, I couldn't justify the cost of buying yet another math curriculum.  That said, I wish it had occurred to me to put them on the wish list for the grandparents.  That dc would have been thrilled to receive such a gift.  Come to think of it, dc probably still would, just for the enjoyment factor.  Hmmmm....

 

 

 

  

[Penelope]

I use Beast as a supplement. My student using it is in Singapore a year ahead of Beast coming out. So in 5B now, using the level 4 Beast books. We do mostly IP in Singapore, sometimes the workbooks.

 

We don't do all of Beast, but pick and choose. Really, they are so different that it works out. Beast covered distributive property and order of operations better than Sinagpore, so we used Beast instead for those. Then there were the logic and beginning number theory parts of Beast, that really weren't in Singapore at all.

 

Because of using Beast, my student won't start pre-algebra til sixth, and that is actually part of my reason for supplementing. I did the same thing with my older child-- did lots of extras since Singapore went rather quickly and he ended up ahead. I don't see a reason to rush to Algebra before age 11-12. Of course there are very exceptional students for which this would not apply, YMMV.

[Verity]

We alternate Singapore and Beast every other day. I love the way BA encourages thinking about math but I want to keep up the computation practice from Singapore for my 4th grader.