Math supplement

[Elizabeth86]

Ds is using BJU math 2 this year.  It is a win for both of us.  The beginning of each chapter starts with a little story to introduce the concept that chapter is about.  Ds told me multiple times he loves the math stories and wants more.  I have seen life of fred mentioned.  I showed it to him and it looks good  and I will likely buy these.  My question is about beast academy.  The best I can tell it looks comic book style which also looks pretty cool too, but I can't tell how casual it is.  Does it feel very school-work-like or is it enjoyable?  I see they have an online program too.  Is it the same as the regular curriculum or something different?  Any other suggestions he might like more? 

[Elizabeth86]

15 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Are you supplementing to just change things up, or do you feel like he needs more than BJU- like it's not complete enough? 

My DS7 likes the BA Guidebooks, but the workbooks are just black and white, and they burned him out if I made him go through all of the problems. His words "sometimes they make things more complicated than they should Mom," which made me laugh. We've used parts of Level 2 and into 3. I'm just sort of eh, about it as is he. We'll leave them for weeks or months and then come back for a few days, but he isn't super into them by any means.  To him it does feel school-worky. It's like a trick. Comic books, oh wait. Ugh. more school. But I know some people and their kids here puffy heart love BA. 

Imo, Beast is a very different feel from BJU. I use BJU with my dd6, but have only used BJU 1 so far. I feel like BJU is very gentle and wants the kid to understand. Sometimes I agree with DS and agree that BA can overcomplicate things, but I'm not a math major either, so maybe it serves a purpose. But I do like BJU. Its working well for my dd so far. I don't supplement for her. I only do him because he's a little squirrel and needs a lot more to keep engaged and his brain busy enough. 

You might just buy a level of BA and see what he thinks. The Guidebooks are cute. I think it's really kid dependent if they'll like the workbook, so you'd have to buy to know for sure if the samples aren't enough. Compared to BJU its bland and boring imo as far as the workbooks. I put ds on BA coming from Right Start and at first it was like, ahhh color. But then the workbook pages were just blah for him. It's not his favorite. I haven't tried the online, so not sure about that. 

One supplement my ds7 has liked a lot more than Beast, are the Math Adventure Series from Mindware. I think it was wendyroo that told me about them here? I bought the series and he really enjoys those. You could start with the addition one: 

https://www.mindware.orientaltrading.com/addition-adventures-a2-22069.fltr?keyword=addition+adventure

We've also done most of the Star Wars math books like this and he thinks some of them are cool. He liked the word problems. 

https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Workbook-Grade-Workbooks/dp/0761178090/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1549153194&sr=8-2&keywords=Star+Wars+math

 

Thanks fornthe reply. To make it clear, I am not supplementing because bjubis lacking.  Ds just likes the math stories and asked if there were more math stories like the ones in bju at the start of the chapters.  So, I am just following his intetests.

[alisha]

My kids loved the BA textbook part, so for your son who just wants some math stories, they will probably work well (just skip the workbook books). Another thing I've had recommended to me is Penrose the Mathematical Cat books (but have never looked further into them). If you have library access, you could search math stories and see what comes up, my library has quite a few fun books in that category.

[desertflower]

There's a website for living math books. I don't know it, but I'm sure one can find it if googled.

There is also math and and magic in wonderland and a sequel.  and funville from natural math.  and mathamagical.

I have not read any of them, but have my eye on them. 😊

[Janeway]

13 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Thanks fornthe reply. To make it clear, I am not supplementing because bjubis lacking.  Ds just likes the math stories and asked if there were more math stories like the ones in bju at the start of the chapters.  So, I am just following his intetests.

Maybe a book of word problems. There are many. I do not love Challenging Word Problems but have used them before. Others love challenging word problems. You can likely find a book with word problems at any ole book store. My son has enjoyed the Minecraft workbooks, they have some word problems but not a ton.

[Sarah0000]

Life of Fred is a real story with plot and character development and contains math problems directly related to the story. LoF has practice problems after each chapter and sometimes little bits of the story continue in the problems. 

Beast Academy doesn't have any story elements in the workbook and the guidebook has very minimal plot or character development; it's not much of a story, but it is silly and colorful. It explains math concepts better than LoF. There are spots to stop and do a problem or discuss an idea while reading it. The engaging part in the workbook for my son are the puzzles.

Penrose the Mathematical Cat is definitely a story. Of these three it does the best of mixing the story elements with the math elements because the story is directly about the math. But the topics are supplemental, they will not be review of what's covered in a core math program except where you might use arithmetic to solve a problem. 

As others mentioned there are tons of picture books but most of them don't have practice problems or project ideas to practice what is learned. The Math Start series has project ideas in the back of every book but most of these will be below level for your son. Some of the level 3 ones may be good review, especially of vocabulary terms. The Sir Cumference stories are very well done and there are free units online to add practice to them, but the books themselves don't contain practice problems. "This Is Not a Math Book" is a textbook covering common core style math for roughly grades 1-4, IIRC, and has a couple characters teaching the concepts. There are problem sets after each chapter.