Need some of advice -- math and science related

[SeaConquest]

Sacha thinks that he would like to go to Epsilon Camp next summer, which has an Algebra requirement for his age group. He is enrolled in Pre-Algebra at our local AoPS Academy for next year (for 4th), and I was planning to briefly run through Jacobs Algebra in tandem with Pre-A to get him up to speed on Algebra for camp. The following year (for 5th), I planned to enroll him in Algebra at AoPS. Plans changed when he was awarded a scholarship to take Honors Algebra I through CTY, which he's a month into and is doing fine.

So, now, I am wondering if I should scrap our plans to put him in Pre-A next year and should just move onto Algebra instead. We could still use the AoPS PA book to challenge him/shore up any weak points. One of the reasons I am thinking about moving on is because Sacha has a strong interest in physics, and what is holding him back from moving beyond conceptual physics is the math. If he moved onto Algebra, he could begin studying physics at a higher level and really probe his interest.

The downside is that he would move onto Geometry through AoPS in 5th, which scares me from a developmental perspective. I am not sure if he has the hand strength to hand write out proofs (he would be fine if he could type them). If your kiddo did Geometry in 5th, how did it go?

Anyone have any advice on how we should proceed? I planned to talk to Sacha's professor at AoPS about it to get his thoughts as well, but I really appreciate the advice here. ?

[Dmmetler]

DD did Geometry at age 10. We ended up using Life of Fred with AoPS as a supplement, mostly because the fully written out proofs were hard when that was the primary focus. She could do a few for challenge problems, but she needed the simpler format first, and then to convert them to words. Fred does two column proofs and more constructions.  She had college geometry (for people planning to teach math) last year, and had no trouble with proofs then, but there was a big difference between 10 and 12. (And since her class involved a lot of “write how you would explain this to a 15 yr old high school student”, the fact that she had started doing full write ups for math in words at pre-Algebra was a definite help.)  I’d say go for it, but be aware that the full AoPS style proofs may not click until later.  

[SeaConquest]

He is getting better at writing things out. Still a work in progress, obvs:

 

[quark]

1 hour ago, SeaConquest said:

Sacha thinks that he would like to go to Epsilon Camp next summer, which has an Algebra requirement for his age group. He is enrolled in Pre-Algebra at our local AoPS Academy for next year (for 4th), and I was planning to briefly run through Jacobs Algebra in tandem with Pre-A to get him up to speed on Algebra for camp. The following year (for 5th), I planned to enroll him in Algebra at AoPS. Plans changed when he was awarded a scholarship to take Honors Algebra I through CTY, which he's a month into and is doing fine.

So, now, I am wondering if I should scrap our plans to put him in Pre-A next year and should just move onto Algebra instead. We could still use the AoPS PA book to challenge him/shore up any weak points. One of the reasons I am thinking about moving on is because Sacha has a strong interest in physics, and what is holding him back from moving beyond conceptual physics is the math. If he moved onto Algebra, he could begin studying physics at a higher level and really probe his interest.

The downside is that he would move onto Geometry through AoPS in 5th, which scares me from a developmental perspective. I am not sure if he has the hand strength to hand write out proofs (he would be fine if he could type them). If your kiddo did Geometry in 5th, how did it go?

Anyone have any advice on how we should proceed? I planned to talk to Sacha's professor at AoPS about it to get his thoughts as well, but I really appreciate the advice here. ?

 

If he continues to do well with Algebra I with CTY moving to AoPS Algebra next is a no brainer to me. Plenty of kids have done well with that strategy. Pre-A was not around when we homeschooled and kiddo did fine using Dolciani with some AoPS supplementation afterwards.

There are other options to moving to Geometry in 5th! He could take another year to work on his writing skills via a milder Geometry while doing Algebra 2 concurrently. Or do a year of problem-solving or number theory/counting and probability.

If he does really well with CTY Algebra I he could take physics while concurrently pursuing AoPS Algebra.

Kiddo is a pure math kid at heart and learned how to write proofs with Jurgensen at 9. I did not think kiddo would be ready but kiddo was. Sometimes it happens!

[quark]

Another idea is to do a fun foray into LateX. I was a bit of a traditionalist with hoping for kiddo to hand write proofs and kiddo wasn't into LateX then (can't live without it now) but kids we know learned to LateX it instead.

[SeaConquest]

1 hour ago, quark said:

 

If he continues to do well with Algebra I with CTY moving to AoPS Algebra next is a no brainer to me. Plenty of kids have done well with that strategy. Pre-A was not around when we homeschooled and kiddo did fine using Dolciani with some AoPS supplementation afterwards.

There are other options to moving to Geometry in 5th! He could take another year to work on his writing skills via a milder Geometry while doing Algebra 2 concurrently. Or do a year of problem-solving or number theory/counting and probability.

If he does really well with CTY Algebra I he could take physics while concurrently pursuing AoPS Algebra.

Kiddo is a pure math kid at heart and learned how to write proofs with Jurgensen at 9. I did not think kiddo would be ready but kiddo was. Sometimes it happens!

 

AoPS Algebra at the Academy includes C&P in the second semester, and I had planned to do NT as a summer course before starting Geometry. 

Next year, he is taking Bio with AIM Academy (he just finished a microbio camp at CTY that he enjoyed), but Jetta already gave me the go-ahead to enroll him in her physics class the following year (for 5th).

I had also been considering Latex, but I know nothing about it myself (other than it exists). So, I can talk to his AoPS professor about it for Geometry, if that's a possibility. I think I may have him do the AoPS Pre-Algebra end of year assessment to make sure he can move onto Algebra and shore up any deficiencies with the PA book. BA 5 contained a lot of the topics in PA, so it looks pretty doable for him.

Thank you so much for the advice, Quark and Dmmetler!

[Jackie]

You obviously know I don’t have experience with this, and we’re moving into AOPS Intro to Algebra this year. However, my plan is absolutely NOT to do Geometry the following year unless DD’s fine motor skills take an amazing leap. I’m not sure exactly what we’ll do - continuing on in Algebra, CP and/or NT, focusing on contest math problems, and pulling ideas from the relaxed math thread are all possibilities for us. For what it’s worth, my kid doesn’t care the tiniest bit about doing mathin any particular order, she just wants interesting stuff to do,so I’ll probably just show her the possibilities and ask what’s interesting to her.

[SeaConquest]

9 minutes ago, Jackie said:

You obviously know I don’t have experience with this, and we’re moving into AOPS Intro to Algebra this year. However, my plan is absolutely NOT to do Geometry the following year unless DD’s fine motor skills take an amazing leap. I’m not sure exactly what we’ll do - continuing on in Algebra, CP and/or NT, focusing on contest math problems, and pulling ideas from the relaxed math thread are all possibilities for us. For what it’s worth, my kid doesn’t care the tiniest bit about doing mathin any particular order, she just wants interesting stuff to do,so I’ll probably just show her the possibilities and ask what’s interesting to her.

 

I guess, I felt like we would need to move on to Geometry in 5th because he loves the live classes at the Academy, and really likes his professor. So, I feel like that's the natural progression. Also, because of nursing school starting in the fall (hopefully), I need this outsourced. I don't have either the ability or the time to take a math detour for a year if he finishes Algebra.

[quark]

Some good places to start. No hurry. Whenever he is ready.

http://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php?title=LaTeX

https://smile.amazon.com/Learning-LaTeX-David-F-Griffiths/dp/0898713838/

Lots of kids learn by just doing it for classes etc too.

[8filltheheart]

I have no answers for you, but wanted to share that my Dd was bored and disliked AoPS alg after having completed Foesters, so I do think stepping back to pre-alg might be worse. Having had completed alg prior to AoPS text made her decide she disliked the way topics were presented and she refused to use another AoPS text.

Fwiw, ds never used AoPS prior to the intermediate alg text which he started after Foerster's alg 2  (just the alg 2 portion) and had no problems. (Well, not exactly, he did the C&P book alongside the 2nd 1/2 of alg 2 and then jumped into their online intermediate alg class.) 

They were both older than your ds. Dd was a 7th grader when she did AoPS alg and ds was an 8th grader when he jumped into intermediate alg.(He never used their alg or geo texts.)

[SeaConquest]

On 7/21/2018 at 11:51 AM, quark said:

Some good places to start. No hurry. Whenever he is ready.

http://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php?title=LaTeX

https://smile.amazon.com/Learning-LaTeX-David-F-Griffiths/dp/0898713838/

Lots of kids learn by just doing it for classes etc too.

 

Thanks for these resources. I am going to talk to Sacha and his professor about learning this over the next year. What has been your son's experience -- does he do all of his work in Latex now? I know that a lot of engineers use Matlab -- how is that different from Latex? 

[8filltheheart]

12 minutes ago, SeaConquest said:

 

Thanks for these resources. I am going to talk to Sacha and his professor about learning this over the next year. What has been your son's experience -- does he do all of his work in Latex now? I know that a lot of engineers use Matlab -- how is that different from Latex? 

Latex is a way to create formatted math documents.  Matlab is a like a math calculations program.  They are not related in any way that I am aware of.

[4KookieKids]

4 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

Latex is a way to create formatted math documents.  Matlab is a like a math calculations program.  They are not related in any way that I am aware of.

Yes. Precisely. Latex is all about creating a  technical mathematical document that looks nice. Matlab is more like learning to code/program (it’s sort of similar to coding in C). I’ve used both extensively and there is about zero overlap in their functionality.

[quark]

7 hours ago, SeaConquest said:

 

Thanks for these resources. I am going to talk to Sacha and his professor about learning this over the next year. What has been your son's experience -- does he do all of his work in Latex now? I know that a lot of engineers use Matlab -- how is that different from Latex? 

Yes, others have answered about the difference but I wanted to say kiddo went from knowing zero LateX to using it almost exclusively now at advanced level. It's a lot like learning any other formatting software.

[SanDiegoMom]

Just as a word of warning from OUR experience... AOPS Geometry is SO challenging! My son has done the books through Intro to ALG A, then the online class for Alg B and is finishing up geometry. He has always gotten almost everything right previously, nearly perfect grades in the Alg B class, and geometry proved SO much harder for him.  He has spent more hours on it, and has had to give up on challenge problems (which he had never done before) and some problems have take him 5 hours to finish. The 3d stuff in particular is HARD, and just the general more out of the box thinking required brought the math to a whole new level.   

However with that said, with a whole year, and with teachers on site, you might have an easier time.  24 weeks has made it a blazingly fast pace, and since very few students have posted on the message board, my son has been avoiding posting for help himself.  He is so glad this is the last week of class.  

[SeaConquest]

I talked to Sacha's Academy professor today and he said that he would be comfortable putting Sacha into Algebra 1 if he could turn a good assortment of the PA topics in Alcumus blue. But, Sacha is already working very hard in the CTY class (which consolidates a year of Algebra into six months) and is in summer camp all day from 9-4 (he is getting his butt whooped into shape in junior lifeguard camp at the moment, as the physical stuff doesn't come easily for him). It's just too much.

And his professor reiterated that Epsilon Camp is very competitive. I just don't want Sacha working that hard, at this young age, for something so selective, that isn't even in his primary area of interest (math vs. physics), to the detriment of his summer downtime. Just...no. He is 9. Algebra and Physics and Epsilon or whatever will still be there when he is 10... and even 11! 

So, I apologize for all these internal machinations, but I told his prof to keep Sacha in PA for the fall. Thank you for all the advice. I really appreciate it.  

 

[seaben]

I see you've changed plans but I've been thinking about your original post and had a few thoughts.

1. I think its useful to keep thinking long range. If you end up finishing Algebra now and doing a 2nd time next year in 4th what's your overall trajectory(ies)?  So what do you want to have happen by High School?  I like thinking about a range of possibilities since things change but with radical acceleration its good to think through the whole process. Just for instance, here we have an IB HS that maybe we might use and that has a rigid structure so it doesn't seem useful to push Calculus early and more likely to be useful to go side wise into other topics instead. That's just an example, but the idea applies even with very different goals.

2. I think by 4th its also useful to involve your son a bit in the planning with the idea that he transitions over the years to taking the lead. So I'd be really interested how deep his interest in camp really is vs physics. (I can't quite tell from your posts)  I think its appropriate to share some of the range of possibilities for the next few years even though you still will direct the process at this point.  Maybe that will help clarify which way to go.

3. I know its fairly popular on this board to repeat the same topic twice but I personally would have hated that at the same age. I think especially when you're this ahead of the curve you have the opportunity to it do it once but do it well and thoroughly.  This is where knowing your own child really comes into play.  

4. Re:jumping around. What makes the AoPS books special to me is less the direct presentation of topics than the arrangement and selection of problem sets. So if your son really is passionate about he math I would take about it with him and think about either threading in the challenge problems or just using one of the original AoPS contest books over the year  The key to me is constant exposure to interesting problems but at a pace that avoids burnout.

5. Also post algebra there really are a lot of topics and directions to turn to besides Geometry.  Perhaps the academy can help here or if you're considering Epsilon Camp maybe finding a tutor able to customize things would be on the table.

Anyway I hope this helps and good luck

[SeaConquest]

8 minutes ago, seaben said:

I see you've changed plans but I've been thinking about your original post and had a few thoughts.

1. I think its useful to keep thinking long range. If you end up finishing Algebra now and doing a 2nd time next year in 4th what's your overall trajectory(ies)?  So what do you want to have happen by High School?  I like thinking about a range of possibilities since things change but with radical acceleration its good to think through the whole process. Just for instance, here we have an IB HS that maybe we might use and that has a rigid structure so it doesn't seem useful to push Calculus early and more likely to be useful to go side wise into other topics instead. That's just an example, but the idea applies even with very different goals.

2. I think by 4th its also useful to involve your son a bit in the planning with the idea that he transitions over the years to taking the lead. So I'd be really interested how deep his interest in camp really is vs physics. (I can't quite tell from your posts)  I think its appropriate to share some of the range of possibilities for the next few years even though you still will direct the process at this point.  Maybe that will help clarify which way to go.

3. I know its fairly popular on this board to repeat the same topic twice but I personally would have hated that at the same age. I think especially when you're this ahead of the curve you have the opportunity to it do it once but do it well and thoroughly.  This is where knowing your own child really comes into play.  

4. Re:jumping around. What makes the AoPS books special to me is less the direct presentation of topics than the arrangement and selection of problem sets. So if your son really is passionate about he math I would take about it with him and think about either threading in the challenge problems or just using one of the original AoPS contest books over the year  The key to me is constant exposure to interesting problems but at a pace that avoids burnout.

5. Also post algebra there really are a lot of topics and directions to turn to besides Geometry.  Perhaps the academy can help here or if you're considering Epsilon Camp maybe finding a tutor able to customize things would be on the table.

Anyway I hope this helps and good luck

 

Thanks so much for sharing all of these thoughts. I really appreciate them. A couple of thoughts in reply:

1) I definitely involve Sacha in the decision-making and the planning. I showed him what he would have to do in Alcumus if he wanted to skip Algebra. I shared my thoughts that he was already doing a lot of work with CTY and camp, and that this additional work would most certainly cut into his free time. But, I said, the tradeoff would be that he could skip a year of math. He agreed with me that he was already doing enough.

2) Although he is young, we have talked about his trajectory and what that could look like for him. Before I began outsourcing so much, it was less sure where he would end up at the end of each academic year. But, with the Academy and so many online courses, I am no longer really driving that train. So, one path could look like: PA in 4th, Algebra and CP in 5th, Geometry and NT in 6th, Algebra 2 and Int. CP in 7th, Pre-Calc and Int. NT in 8th, Calc BC in 9th, Multivariable/Linear/Diff Eq sequence in 10th, Abstract Algebra sequence in 11th, and Real Analysis sequence in 12th. We are lucky to have an excellent 4-year university just 10 minutes from us, and a new trolley route going to the school, so he could easily start DE at a fairly young age. He could also do something like Stanford Online HS. I don't anticipate that he will want to go to regular public school (he loves homeschooling with a charter school), but you never know. Some of the better public schools in San Diego do offer post-Calc math options, if he wanted to go that path.

3) Working with the Thinkwell math program this past month has really reminded me of just how truly special the AoPS materials are. I feel incredibly blessed that he has the opportunity not only to work with these materials, but to learn the material from actual mathematicians. I know we have talked a lot about how pricey the Academy classes are, but I would honestly donate plasma to be able to give this learning environment to him. It's nothing that I can replicate myself.

4) Sacha is a pretty easy-going kid, and would be happy doing a lot of different camps next summer. I don't look at Epsilon as some sort of end-all, be-all for him. At this point, he is more interested in science than pure math, and I think that if the choice was between Epsilon and a cool physics camp through CTY or Duke, he would jump at the physics. So, we will work through the CTY materials, because he will need Algebra both for Epsilon and for physics, but I don't think he will be crushed if he doesn't get into Epsilon as long as he has something else fun to do, which G-d willing he will. ? 

      

 

[8filltheheart]

Ds went to Math Zoom in middle school, but he quickly lost interest in any type of math camp as a goal bc so many of the math camps are competition math focused. He did not like math competitions. They were definitely not his thing.

Astronomy Camp has a beginning teen and an advanced teen camp. Astronomy Camp was his first real taste of physics outside of one of our courses and he was hooked.  https://www.astronomycamp.org/pages/teencamp.html

Yrs from now (applying Jr yr), if he still loves physics, definitely aim for SSP.. https://summerscience.org/ (funny, I just went there to copy the link for you and saw ds's picture! Since he is now a college grad, I didn't expect to see him.  Anyway, in the big pictures that scroll across the top, in the group picture with all of the kids standing together, ds is the kid in the red tshirt in the back right.) SSP was an amazing experience. 

PAN would be an excellent goal the yr before SSP http://www.jinaweb.org/outreach/PAN/ Ds was accepted the same yr as SSP so he had to make a choice. He wishes he had known about it the yr before.

[gstharr]

From my experience with the new 8th grader, don't undervalue the importance of pre-alg.  it took my kid nearly all of 3rd and 4th grade to complete pre-alg.  there were many pause for maturity to catch up.  After that he was able to breeze  through alg1, geom, alg 2 and pre-calc.   More importantly pre-alg wraps up, and reinforces  1-6th grade math.  if someone never took a math class after  pre-alg, they would have all the math needed for regular life..: fractions, decimals, unit measurements and conversion formulas, area measurements. Mastery of these areas are required for standardized testing.   

[mumto2]

Another idea might be Discovery or NEM from the Singapore track which integrates geometry with Algebra.  We used the LoF Geometry fwiw,  my kids had but did not enjoy AoPS.  ;)

[mathnerd]

8 hours ago, gstharr said:

From my experience with the new 8th grader, don't undervalue the importance of pre-alg.  it took my kid nearly all of 3rd and 4th grade to complete pre-alg.  there were many pause for maturity to catch up.  After that he was able to breeze  through alg1, geom, alg 2 and pre-calc.   More importantly pre-alg wraps up, and reinforces  1-6th grade math.  if someone never took a math class after  pre-alg, they would have all the math needed for regular life..: fractions, decimals, unit measurements and conversion formulas, area measurements. Mastery of these areas are required for standardized testing.   

There is a lot of wisdom in this post that I agree with. In my opinion, the basic math building blocks need to be rock solid and those concepts have to flow freely when a child goes into upper level math. This is the reason that you see many people doing multiple passes of PreAlgebra with various curricula. It is very important to make long term educational goals and stick to a schedule, but it is also vital to ensure that a child consolidates all the skill sets necessary to give him a powerful toolbox to use when moving on to Algebra and beyond or even the Competion based math camps. So, it is OK to let him take his time to get to Algebra. There is no merit in pushing hard to reach algebra by grade 4 or 5 if the child is into other stuff like Summer camp and sports in the summer and the family values downtime as well.

There are a lot of Science based (Physics oriented) summer camps offered by Science Museums and Exploratoriums etc. For a kid interested in Physics, that would be a great option to give him a deeper understanding of Physics.