Grade 7 Math help

[Ausmumof3]

I’m still not having a great year with oldest with math this year.

we started AOPS algebra (after Singapore 6) and it was almost impossible to get anything to stick.  I switched to Math Mammoth but ds was getting kinda frustrated with the wordiness of it all.  So just this week we started Saxon Algebra 1/2.  This is about the right level of complexity I think.  He’s getting most right with a few errors to indicate more practice needed.  However now I’m stressing that at this pace we are just going to end up kinda losing a year as it’s very slow moving.  Now at the end of the day there’s no point rushing through if it’s not sinking in.  But also I keep hearing all the negatives about Saxon on here (doesn’t teach number sense/isn’t conceptually sound)

I’m hesitant to buy yet another math curriculum (Saxon was a hand me down).  I’m also well aware that we are almost mid year here and due to all the jumping around at this point we might not get through anything if we don’t get zipping through stuff pretty quickly.

what would you do?

[LAmom]

Following along. I have a struggling 6th grader and don't know where to go from here. 

[Arcadia]

We did AoPS prealgebra after SM6. Could you count this year as prealgebra and use the Saxon Algebra 1/2 at his pace?  

DS14’s 7th grade year was only Computer Science, Calculus, and a short Romeo & Juliet class. He was having his growth spurt from mid 6th grade (12) to 8th grade. (13.5). His German and Chinese was at recreational speed. His 8th grade year was only Physics, Chemistry and short Macbeth and Hamlet courses.

DS13’s 7th grade year was Precalculus, German (WTMA) and that’s all the formal work he did. 

Until my kids are over their growth spurt mental fog, we just have a couple of core subjects and the rest are all done light. We also school year round which is made easy because summer is so hot that the air-conditioned classrooms are more enticing than the outdoors. We take a break from Christmas to New Year. 

I joke to my husband that boys are at a disadvantage because girls hit puberty first and over their teen fog before 9th grade, thus not impacting their high school GPA.

[arliemaria]

20 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

We did AoPS prealgebra after SM6. Could you count this year as prealgebra and use the Saxon Algebra 1/2 at his pace?  

DS14’s 7th grade year was only Computer Science, Calculus, and a short Romeo & Juliet class. He was having his growth spurt from mid 6th grade (12) to 8th grade. (13.5). His German and Chinese was at recreational speed. His 8th grade year was only Physics, Chemistry and short Macbeth and Hamlet courses.

DS13’s 7th grade year was Precalculus, German (WTMA) and that’s all the formal work he did. 

Until my kids are over their growth spurt mental fog, we just have a couple of core subjects and the rest are all done light. We also school year round which is made easy because summer is so hot that the air-conditioned classrooms are more enticing than the outdoors. We take a break from Christmas to New Year. 

I joke to my husband that boys are at a disadvantage because girls hit puberty first and over their teen fog before 9th grade, thus not impacting their high school GPA.

I think is very true and a reason boys are more commonly redshirted. 

[Ellie]

3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I’m still not having a great year with oldest with math this year.

we started AOPS algebra (after Singapore 6) and it was almost impossible to get anything to stick.  I switched to Math Mammoth but ds was getting kinda frustrated with the wordiness of it all.  So just this week we started Saxon Algebra 1/2.  This is about the right level of complexity I think.  He’s getting most right with a few errors to indicate more practice needed.  However now I’m stressing that at this pace we are just going to end up kinda losing a year as it’s very slow moving.  Now at the end of the day there’s no point rushing through if it’s not sinking in.  But also I keep hearing all the negatives about Saxon on here (doesn’t teach number sense/isn’t conceptually sound)

I’m hesitant to buy yet another math curriculum (Saxon was a hand me down).  I’m also well aware that we are almost mid year here and due to all the jumping around at this point we might not get through anything if we don’t get zipping through stuff pretty quickly.

what would you do?

I say stick with Saxon. I don't care that some people don't like it; I know far, far too many people who love it, whose children excelled not only in college but IRL.

Your ds is just in seventh grade. I don't know how you could lose a year. o_0 He's doing pre-algebra. He'll be doing algebra before ninth grade. I don't know how that would be a year lost.

My best advice: Stay with Saxon. Be sure to have your ds do every single problem. If you aren't sure why, read the intro to the book. 🙂

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Ellie said:

I say stick with Saxon. I don't care that some people don't like it; I know far, far too many people who love it, whose children excelled not only in college but IRL.

Your ds is just in seventh grade. I don't know how you could lose a year. o_0 He's doing pre-algebra. He'll be doing algebra before ninth grade. I don't know how that would be a year lost.

My best advice: Stay with Saxon. Be sure to have your ds do every single problem. If you aren't sure why, read the intro to the book. 🙂

Well... I guess we’ve only just started but we haven’t hit anything new yet.  That’s why I’m wondering if we are going to be losing time.  Don’t get me wrong this kid could use some review for accuracy and setting out.  AOPS was beyond what he could manage for sure.  But if Saxon moves at this pace all year it will be effectively a repeat. 

i am skipping every second problem for now but we haven’t hit anything we haven’t seen before.  I will keep doing that until we hit new concepts or stuff then move to doing everything in the book.

thanks for the reassurance though.  I know mums who have said it’s great and their kids have gone to school and transitioned well to math there.  I just know it gets bad reviews around here.

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, Arcadia said:

We did AoPS prealgebra after SM6. Could you count this year as prealgebra and use the Saxon Algebra 1/2 at his pace?  

DS14’s 7th grade year was only Computer Science, Calculus, and a short Romeo & Juliet class. He was having his growth spurt from mid 6th grade (12) to 8th grade. (13.5). His German and Chinese was at recreational speed. His 8th grade year was only Physics, Chemistry and short Macbeth and Hamlet courses.

DS13’s 7th grade year was Precalculus, German (WTMA) and that’s all the formal work he did. 

Until my kids are over their growth spurt mental fog, we just have a couple of core subjects and the rest are all done light. We also school year round which is made easy because summer is so hot that the air-conditioned classrooms are more enticing than the outdoors. We take a break from Christmas to New Year. 

I joke to my husband that boys are at a disadvantage because girls hit puberty first and over their teen fog before 9th grade, thus not impacting their high school GPA.

Oh yes!  Maybe I should just do AOPS pre a.  Most people seemed to go straight from Singapore math 5 if they were doing that but I think part of the problem is the change in format so that could help.  

Your kids did calculus in 7th grade?!  Is that typical or are they fairly advanced?

[mumto2]

FWIW, I believe the first several lessons of Saxon are review from the prior year.  The curriculum was designed to be used in schools with a long summer holiday and also takes into account that kids in school may not complete all the lessons in their math book.  I wasn’t a Saxon user but did use a similar curriculum for years and skipped through the review lessons doing multiple lessons daily for a couple of weeks at the start of a new book.  We schooled year around.

[Arcadia]

7 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Your kids did calculus in 7th grade?!  Is that typical or are they fairly advanced?

 

DS14 is subject accelerated for math and science even when in public school. Typical for my area is 11th grade. He took a longer time with AoPS prealgebra book and AoPS intermediate algebra book than the other AoPS books. 

AoPS prealgebra book has three authors and can be rather wordy. Whether you use AoPS or Saxon boils down to what works for your kid. As for testing understanding, my husband just give random questions from random textbooks (used bookstores) and see if kids can do the questions. Chemistry and Physics help check that math skills are mastered. 

[Emba]

DD is a 7th grader this year, and we’ve used parts of 3 different programs. I decided about halfway through that we would just have to keep plugging along at a pace where she’s actually learning and retaining, which is much slower than the book goes, and we’ll just do prealgebra again next year.

i don’t really feel like algebra in 8th is a goal that is useful or attainable for her, though. I started out with Saxon 8/7 assuming we might need to do algebra 1/2. I just got frustrated with Saxon. Plenty of people in my area use it all the way through, though, and have kids who are successful in college.

[Ellie]

9 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Well... I guess we’ve only just started but we haven’t hit anything new yet.  That’s why I’m wondering if we are going to be losing time.  Don’t get me wrong this kid could use some review for accuracy and setting out.  AOPS was beyond what he could manage for sure.  But if Saxon moves at this pace all year it will be effectively a repeat. 

i am skipping every second problem for now but we haven’t hit anything we haven’t seen before.  I will keep doing that until we hit new concepts or stuff then move to doing everything in the book.

thanks for the reassurance though.  I know mums who have said it’s great and their kids have gone to school and transitioned well to math there.  I just know it gets bad reviews around here.

I promise you that every problem in every problem set is important. They are not in there just for practice.

If everything is still easy for your ds (you're using it because it was given to you, not because you did the placement test, right?), you could have him take the tests, one a day instead of a lesson, and when he gets less than 80% on a test, that's where you would start in the book.

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, Ellie said:

I promise you that every problem in every problem set is important. They are not in there just for practice.

If everything is still easy for your ds (you're using it because it was given to you, not because you did the placement test, right?), you could have him take the tests, one a day instead of a lesson, and when he gets less than 80% on a test, that's where you would start in the book.

Yeah I could do that.

I promise you there isn’t a problem we’ve skipped that he hasn’t seen the same kind of problem before.  That’s partly why I was concerned I guess.  It seems a long way behind the level of Singapore he was working at.  But I’m assuming that’s a beginning of the book thing and it’ll pick up.

[Ausmumof3]

9 hours ago, Arcadia said:

 

DS14 is subject accelerated for math and science even when in public school. Typical for my area is 11th grade. He took a longer time with AoPS prealgebra book and AoPS intermediate algebra book than the other AoPS books. 

AoPS prealgebra book has three authors and can be rather wordy. Whether you use AoPS or Saxon boils down to what works for your kid. As for testing understanding, my husband just give random questions from random textbooks (used bookstores) and see if kids can do the questions. Chemistry and Physics help check that math skills are mastered. 

I think my kid prefers doing what he knows than figuring stuff out. Which is probably going to be a problem with AOPS even if I drop a level.  Eventually he’s going to have to work out those thinking muscles.  

I’m glad that calculus in year 8 is not the standard.  Well done to your ds though.

[Arcadia]

30 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

 It seems a long way behind the level of Singapore he was working at.  But I’m assuming that’s a beginning of the book thing and it’ll pick up.

 

I’ll give him the placement tests https://www.sonlight.com/homeschool/curriculum/placement-tests/saxon-placement-tests/

Saxon Algebra 1/2, Algebra 1, and Algebra 2 Scope and Sequence https://www.hmhco.com/~/media/sites/home/education/global/pdf/scope-and-sequence/mathematics/k-12/saxon-math-homeschool/shs_prealg_alg2_ss-4-8.pdf?la=en

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

 

I’ll give him the placement tests https://www.sonlight.com/homeschool/curriculum/placement-tests/saxon-placement-tests/

Saxon Algebra 1/2, Algebra 1, and Algebra 2 Scope and Sequence https://www.hmhco.com/~/media/sites/home/education/global/pdf/scope-and-sequence/mathematics/k-12/saxon-math-homeschool/shs_prealg_alg2_ss-4-8.pdf?la=en

Thanks!

working through these now and also found the AOPS pre a test so will do both to get a bigger pic.

[Ellie]

5 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I promise you there isn’t a problem we’ve skipped that he hasn’t seen the same kind of problem before.  That’s partly why I was concerned I guess.  It seems a long way behind the level of Singapore he was working at.  But I’m assuming that’s a beginning of the book thing and it’ll pick up.

It might problem might, indeed, be the "same kind of problem" that he did before. But those problems aren't just for practice (although that is one of Saxon's strengths, that there is continual review); they continue to build on concepts already taught, or express the same concept differently. Sometimes children hit a wall with a new concept because they missed the development of concepts that lead to the new one, because they were doing odds or evens.

[Ausmumof3]

21 hours ago, Ellie said:

It might problem might, indeed, be the "same kind of problem" that he did before. But those problems aren't just for practice (although that is one of Saxon's strengths, that there is continual review); they continue to build on concepts already taught, or express the same concept differently. Sometimes children hit a wall with a new concept because they missed the development of concepts that lead to the new one, because they were doing odds or evens.

Yeah I see what you are saying.  I suspect it’s just case of figuring out where we are at in relation to moving curriculums probably.