Math Help and Suggestions (Mostly Beast Academy) (Long)

[Salus]

My two eldest HATE math and they struggle with it. Math time hasn't really ever been pleasant. I tried so many math programs with them and finally just bought Math On The Level and got them to VideoText. 
 
So imagine my surprise and excitement when I realized that my youngest just gets math!! He just understands it and does most of it in his head. I usually squint my eyes at him and ask him to walk me through his process and strategy and it's just amazing to listen to how he worked his way through it. The only thing is, he gets really bogged down when being taught the traditional methods and they actually seem to confuse him and make him make mistakes. I have been using a combo of MUS and MOTL and I have realized that this is not going to be a good path for him. I bought Right Start Math. It confuses me a bit, and to be honest, it's a little too teacher intensive for me.

 

So I am looking at Beast Academy and we worked through the 3A pre-assessment together. It says that students should be comfortable adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers and must have a solid understanding of place value. The questions on the assessment went far beyond that, though. The thinking, strategies, and processes described in the answer section excited my son but before reading through them, he didn't know them. There was one where it asked him: 800-82-17=800-____

I explained it and then he figured it out and was able to do the next one, but had never seen anything like that. 

BA starts with 3A, what math program is teaching this? Will 3A go back and teach these? 

 

Is there another program out there that teaches math this way?

 

[CadenceSophia]

I am not sure my son would have known what to do instantly in your example problem. I'd probably need to say "They don't want you to solve it, they just want you to say what math problem it is the same as". I think I actually remember using that exact sentence :-)  After that he'd be able to do it.  I think if you have completed second grade math, and your child really does have a solid understanding of place value and adding multi-digit numbers, you can go ahead and start BA. You might want to do something more traditional on the side for review & algorithms though.  Maybe Singapore or pulling pages from MM. I don't know what MOL covers though so maybe you have enough material there to pull problems. 

[Kiara.I]

Beast will eventually have a level 2, but not yet.

 

If you have Rightstart, why not just skim through it and teach him yourself using the little cube cards, the place value cards, and especially the abacus. Then do Beast.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Pegs]

We started Beast a little earlier than the placement test might have suggested we should, and it's been a roaring success.

 

Before that, DS would add and subtract multi-digit numbers mentally mostly by decomposition (occasionally by equal difference), but refused to learn any formal algorithms. I rolled with it, and we've filled in those gaps very happily when the skills became necessary and the timing was right.

 

Supplementing Beast with Prodigy has been a pretty good way to address some of the more boring arithmetic skills as we go, too. So if you don't mind throwing a little screentime in, that might be an option if you're keen to start Beast now. People use all sorts of things to supplement BA when extra practice is necessary, but I like Prodigy because it's mathematics which DS does independently, whereas BA is very much a family affair in our house. That's the way we like it. :)

[Jackie]

Math Mammoth teaches some of the thinking strategies.

 

But, there's nothing else quite like Beast. Is he ready for BA3? If so, I'd suggest starting in on it, and maybe going back and adding in the BA2 books as they get released over the next year or so. If not, Math Mammoth has some of the same math teaching/conceptual style as RightStart, but in an all-in-one workbook format. We've used some of the MM dark blue subject series to cover pieces DD needed before moving into BA3.

[MeganW]

My mathy kid cried in Beast 3A the first time we tried it.  After Singapore 4, he LOVED and sailed through Beast 3.  Maybe sailed isn't the right word.  He had to work hard, but it was definitely do-able.  Most people would say we did it late, but I feel like he was really ready for the challenge at that point and got a lot more out of it.

[MistyMountain]

I saw that placement test and I did not think ds was ready because he did not know the strategies it was calling for but he does have a good grasp on place value and is very good at multi digit adding and subtracting. He does it all in his head. I am not sure if he would like it or find it frustrating.

[HomeAgain]

MEP asks questions like that.  It starts in K very gently, but in year 1 starts adding things like number puzzles (each shape is a different number, figure out what goes where to add to the total), tables, and gets them going on strategies to combine numbers and do mental math easily.

From Beast Academy's Facebook page, when someone asked about lower levels:
 

Beast Academy We are a small team developing a new curriculum that is a tremendous amount of work. We will finish grade 5 before moving on to grade 2.

There are lots of alternatives. The two we are comfortable recommending are Singapore Math and a free curriculum called MEP, which takes a little while to navigate but does have good problems and the added benefit of being free: http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/