Fun supplements to use with Beast?

[Cake and Pi]

I'm just trying to slow my 7yo (nearing 8yo) down a little.  He's taken about a month to do each Beast Academy book (started in 3C and now almost 1/3 of the way through 4B).  We will run out of BA long before they finish writing it if he continues at this pace.  I'd planned to have him finish out BA and then try AoPS pre-A.

 

So I'm looking for something fun for him to do during math time.  He's not a big fan of worksheets and very much dislikes any kind of drill.  He continues to play variations of games he learned in RightStart and loves most of the "recess" games in BA, but he needs more.

 

I was thinking of looking into Life of Fred?  Maybe Hands on Equations?  Something else??  Is there anything that meshes nicely with BA?  I'm open to any suggestions!

[Jackie]

We're using Hands On Equations and Zaccaro and Dragonbox in fits and spurts alongside. All work well.

 

ETA: I do find that, ultimately, supplementing speeds my daughter up rather than slowing her down. Since she then has exposure to higher topics, when we get to those topics formally they seem easy.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Jackie

[Cake and Pi]

We're using Hands On Equations and Zaccaro and Dragonbox in fits and spurts alongside. All work well.

 

ETA: I do find that, ultimately, supplementing speeds my daughter up rather than slowing her down. Since she then has exposure to higher topics, when we get to those topics formally they seem easy.

 

Thanks, Jackie!  Do you know if Dragonbox is something I would need to buy separately for each of my boys, or is it something they could share?

[desertflower]

I like these from the critical thinking company:

1)  http://www.criticalthinking.com/crypto-mind-benders-famous-quotations.html

2)  Balance math and more

 

I'm also enjoying Camp logic:  http://naturalmath.com/camplogic/

 

I wasn't sure what you were looking for.  hth.

[desertflower]

dragonbox is something they can share.  My kids also enjoyed it too. 

[EKS]

And here I thought that BA *was* the fun supplement!

[eternallytired]

My 7 yo is absolutely OBSESSED with Prodigy.  It's a free online RPG (though you can have more pets/stuff if you pay) where you are a wizard and have to answer a math question to take your turn in battles to complete quests.  It's actually pretty good strategy work, too, since you have to figure out what type of creature and spell is best to use in what situation.  I love that it cycles through the whole gamut of math stuff, from story problems to comparing fractions to long division, so he's constantly reviewing (or learning) all kinds of things.  He adores both the math and the strategy.  We're only in BA3C, but since math comes intuitively, he's been able to figure out a lot of extra stuff he's encountered in Prodigy--and it actually slowed him down quite a bit.  (Since I let him do some gaming every day, he hasn't been doing as many pages of BA--though he was only doing a book every two months, not every month like yours!)

[visitor]

BA is our fun supplement we use Singapore Math as well.

[Cake and Pi]

Thanks you guys!  I have a lot to check out now.

 

I didn't realize so many people use BA as a supplement?  We've been using it as a stand-alone.  Seems pretty thorough, just doesn't have much extra practice, which works well for my DS#1 since he balks at repetitive work.

[eternallytired]

Yep, that's why we switched to Beast, too--ODS gets annoyed when a curric makes him do too much repetition and he kept wanting more/harder material.  We use Beast as our main curric, but I do like the way that Prodigy keeps all those other concepts from getting rusty.  A lot of people seem to use Beast for the problem solving aspect and use a standard curric for their main material, either because they don't want to force the problem solving too much on a kid who gets overwhelmed by the challenge (that would be my DD!) or because they like the integrated review of other programs.

[Porridge]

Life of Fred might be a little slow for your child.

 

Agree with recommendation for Balance Math and Balance Benders series from the Critical thinking Company.

 

My daughter also loved "G is for Googol." It's not a book with problems you work through, but it introduced interesting math concepts that are fun to discuss and explore.  

[Jackie]

I concur with the rec for Prodigy Math. Didn't think about it with my first post, but it is excellent for review. Unlike many "educational games", it puts the game first and the math secondary and therefore feels more fun than all the many programs that put the math first and add on a tiny bit of game.