Beast Academy

[LauraBeth475]

How do you schedule this? I just got the third grade books for my daughter.

[Kiara.I]

Are you using it as a supplement or as your only math curriculum?

 

Most people who use it as the sole curriculum do a set amount of time for work on it per day.

 

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[eternallytired]

We don't exactly schedule.  We usually snuggle on the couch and read the guide section on one day, and the kids dive in and do the first page or so, which is usually a pretty simple intro to the concept.  From there, we look over the pages and set goals for each day based on how difficult/time consuming the material appears to be.  At the beginning of a chapter, we might get through four pages (single side) easily; by the chapter's end the work is often more challenging and we might only do a page.  I keep one finger on the kids' pulse--if they're enjoying it, we may work for quite a long time; if they're frustrated or if the work is taking longer than we anticipated and they've begun to drag, I revise our goal.

[Kat w]

We snuggle up too :)

[Jackie]

We go by time, not pages. 30 minutes of math per day, regardless of how many questions that covers.

[mskelly]

Time limit here also.  Some days we can do 3 pages, some days we get through 1.  It's not easy to make a long term schedule for this book.  It took us 2 months to finish 5A, but one of the 4th grade books was finished in one month.

[Cake and Pi]

We also set a time limit of 30 minutes.  Sometimes that means 6 pages of work, sometimes it's a single problem.  I include time spent reading the guides in that 30 minutes.  It's really hard to plan ahead.  

[LauraBeth475]

She's going to be using this along with Kumon worksheets and some things from the Living Math lesson plans, but Beadt Academy will be her primary text. I'll have to try and step outside my scheduling comfort zone and play it by ear a bit.

[Jackie]

She's going to be using this along with Kumon worksheets and some things from the Living Math lesson plans, but Beadt Academy will be her primary text. I'll have to try and step outside my scheduling comfort zone and play it by ear a bit.

This clicked with me, so adding: we start every day with one logic game and one worksheet. The worksheets for this year are 80% math drill and 20% logic (as off the cuff estimates). I call them our brain warm ups. I don't even think of the morning warmup as part of our school most days, but it's definitely there. And we have lots of living math and math games.

 

I wonder... idly... what percentage of parents who use BA are generally comfortable with math themselves and mix and match. It seems like a curric that would draw math-savvy parents who figure out how to supplement when needed.

[Kathleen.]

She's going to be using this along with Kumon worksheets and some things from the Living Math lesson plans, but Beadt Academy will be her primary text. I'll have to try and step outside my scheduling comfort zone and play it by ear a bit.

Are the Living Math lessons from LivingMath.net?

[LauraBeth475]

Are the Living Math lessons from LivingMath.net?

Yes.

[Kat w]

I think adding the kumon books with it is a great idea.

 

We use beast as a supplement and were already doing kumon workbooks anyway.

 

I would set a time limit as others have said. I set 30 mins also .

 

On 3A tho....there can be some confusion in the first chapter . so I started at the last chapter, area and perimeter.

Then went back. It's the games that thought you off on first CH. Probably mainly BC beast is the first of its kind.

 

Ive heard others say here too that starting in the back helped them too. You get used to method, how ita taught, what the games mean erc.

[Kat w]

Oh, and yes. We do the The living math books too.

[Kat w]

This clicked with me, so adding: we start every day with one logic game and one worksheet. The worksheets for this year are 80% math drill and 20% logic (as off the cuff estimates). I call them our brain warm ups. I don't even think of the morning warmup as part of our school most days, but it's definitely there. And we have lots of living math and math games.

 

I wonder... idly... what percentage of parents who use BA are generally comfortable with math themselves and mix and match. It seems like a curric that would draw math-savvy parents who figure out how to supplement when needed.

We have learning challenges here so we have to do tons if review. We use Singapore too. Mus. One curriculum does not have all the review we need.

 

I use beast as "fun time" in the afternoon to cuddle up and do together on the couch. Since beast iant about getting the right answer necessarily , but different ways to get the answer, we can get away with that.

 

So, we have our kumon workbooks and other math out of the way before we do beast.

 

We do math first thing in the morning BC we had to start all over coming home from PS and they were wayyyy behind.

 

I think it's nice to add Singapore with beast, mixes it uo a bit and teaches them more.

[Kat w]

Khan academy is a really good option to supplement too.

 

It's free online. College professor s recommend it to struggling college students.

 

You could ( and what we do) is jus use it to go through your grade level. That way you have no holes. More practice and working grade level work. It has online videos to explain the concept then you work the problems (on computer).

 

I have my kids do this at bedtime. I'm sneaky bout it....I put them to bed 30 mins early and tell them to do Khan.

They think they are getting away with something by' staying uo late' hee hee.

 

Khan helps a ton and you make sure they are getting everything in grade level. They can go beyohnf their grade level if they want too

 

They have avatars thst you earn fir every level you mov uo within your grade.

 

My boys love it

[eternallytired]

This clicked with me, so adding: we start every day with one logic game and one worksheet. The worksheets for this year are 80% math drill and 20% logic (as off the cuff estimates). I call them our brain warm ups. I don't even think of the morning warmup as part of our school most days, but it's definitely there. And we have lots of living math and math games.

 

I wonder... idly... what percentage of parents who use BA are generally comfortable with math themselves and mix and match. It seems like a curric that would draw math-savvy parents who figure out how to supplement when needed.

 

Hey, what worksheets are you using?  I'm trying to carve out a few minutes each day to work with YDS when we start our next session in a couple weeks, and I'd decided that some math warm-up/review could be one of the things the older two use independently during that time, but I'd rather not reinvent the wheel.

 

[Jackie]

Hey, what worksheets are you using? I'm trying to carve out a few minutes each day to work with YDS when we start our next session in a couple weeks, and I'd decided that some math warm-up/review could be one of the things the older two use independently during that time, but I'd rather not reinvent the wheel.

 

The math ones are from Kumon workbooks - the third grade level of Addition&Subtraction, Multiplication, and Geometry&Measurement. I'll add the third grade Division workbook to the mix after the Multiplication one is done.

[Incognito]

We've generally done 2-4 pages a day (4ish days a week) and made it through each level in a school year.  For us, somehow we have missed a month or so somewhere in there each year (got the books late, took a long math holiday over Christmas, etc.), so we've had to go a little heavier (4-5 pages some days) at times and that has been too much for my particular child. 

 

It really depends on how hard the day's problems are.  The beginning of a unit - 4 pages is easy to do in one sitting.  The end of a unit - way too much.