What age and format is best for AOPS Pre-Algebra? Live of self-paced?

[ExcitedMama]

My DS is 11 and finishing up 5th grade with MIF 5 and BA online. He is very smart but easily frustrated. Unfortunately I’m not mathy and at times have struggled with his questions. He’s really enjoyed doing VP self-paced the last two years which had me thinking about adding in AOPS Pre-Algebra self-paced but I’m having sticker shock at the price. Plus I’m confused that it seems about the same cost as the live classes. He’s not happy about doing anything new for math and is strongly objecting to live and would rather do self-paced but he tends to feel that way about trying anything new. I’m also not sure if we did live if we should do it through AOPS or WTM Academy. I would love to ensure a full understanding of math for him that I believe something like this could help with. He’s definitely not the kind of kid whose excited about math which I’ve seen posts saying is good for AOPS. Is there an age where AOPS Pre-Algebra is recommended? I’m not sure if he should start now or maybe I should wait and do it after another year of 6th grade math. I would appreciate any advice and if you have experience with it through AOPS or WTM. Thank you!

[Not_a_Number]

I'd start if he seems ready 🙂 . I think the live classes are more fun, personally, but they do go faster. (By the way, you know that "live" is still text-based, right?)

[ExcitedMama]

14 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'd start if he seems ready 🙂 . I think the live classes are more fun, personally, but they do go faster. (By the way, you know that "live" is still text-based, right?)

I did not! Could you explain? I saw the demo of self-paced with the text and questions but I assumed live was more like a teacher talking on video. 

[Clemsondana]

My older started in in 5th grade and I wish I hadn't, or had done it differently.  We did it with the book so that it could be self-paced, but I initially felt like I needed to keep to some sort of regular pace.  It might have been OK if we had gone slower, but the combination of pace and low frustration tolerance turned kid off of math for several years.  We still use it (we'll be going precal next year).  We eventually wound up doing pre-A, algebra, and algebra 2 on a longer plan, but only did it 3 days a week, doing other math on other days.  And we did number theory and probability somewhere in there, although those moved at the regular pace.  Kid really liked number theory, thought probability was fun, and has done well with the algebras as kid has gotten more mature.  It was a weird path, but it worked well for my older.  I'm doing something different with my younger, who has no interest in math and no frustration tolerance at all.  Some kids do well with the programs when they are young. I think it depends on maturity, frustration tolerance, and whether there are other time pressures.  My kid really struggled with feeling rushed but wasn't interested in giving up Science Olympiad or sports to have a more mellow expanse of time to do math - moving slowly let kid work through the challenge without the stress, which was too much for a kid that age.

[Not_a_Number]

4 hours ago, ExcitedMama said:

I did not! Could you explain? I saw the demo of self-paced with the text and questions but I assumed live was more like a teacher talking on video. 

No, it's still text-based, but it's like a teacher typing in real time. (I teach at AoPS.) Here's a link that explains the classroom: 

https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/about-classroom

The classroom has recently gotten rather spiffier than the pictures above, but it's still text-based. In my experience, that actually works quite well, because kids can all answer without shouting over each other, and kids aren't afraid to answer and be wrong (since wrong answers aren't displayed.) However, this does mean that one ought to have the ability to focus on text for a while and the ability to type relatively fluently. 

[kirstenhill]

One thing I'll mention, in case you didn't know about it, is that for the Pre-Algebra book there are videos to go along with every lesson:  https://artofproblemsolving.com/videos

DS14 started the Pre-Alg book part way through 5th grade, and it took him about a calendar year to go through it, partly because we had a major move in there that meant we ended up taking almost 4 months off of school, and partly because I made him work every "example" problem in his notebook. He used the above linked videos occasionally.

DS12 went through Pre-A much faster.  He started in the fall of this past year (6th grade), and was done at the end of February of this year.  I didn't make him work in his notebook the example problems (he just read them, thought through it), and at least for him this strategy seemed to work pretty well.  We got into a really good habit of me correcting his work every day, then he would correct the errors before continuing on.  He never used the videos - just reading the text was a great explanation.  He "gave up" on maybe a handful of the hardest problems in the book, and I let him read the answer key on those.  He probably has a bit lower frustration tolerance than his older brother and I didn't want to force him to work longer than he was comfortable with on really hard problems if he at least gave them a fair try first.

All that being said, even if you aren't "mathy" the AoPs book is written to stand alone and teach the material, so you may be rarely required to give explanations? I found myself giving explanations a lot more often in Beast Academy with my kids, actually.   I guess my kids could be unusual in their ability to learn math from reading a textbook, but I think the style is well done and more suitable for this purpose than say, a public school textbook.

[Momto6inIN]

My oldest loved loved loved AoPS but the pace of the online classes would have killed him. He liked to savor the math and sometimes spent days on one calculus proof.

I personally wouldn't recommend AoPS at all for a kid who doesn't love math. It's a great program, and it's rigorous for sure. But rigor doesn't mean it's a good fit for everyone. My other kids (bright and good at math but not lovers of the subject) would have run screaming from the room if I'd tried to make them use AoPS 😂

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

My oldest loved loved loved AoPS but the pace of the online classes would have killed him. He liked to savor the math and sometimes spent days on one calculus proof.

I personally wouldn't recommend AoPS at all for a kid who doesn't love math. It's a great program, and it's rigorous for sure. But rigor doesn't mean it's a good fit for everyone. My other kids (bright and good at math but not lovers of the subject) would have run screaming from the room if I'd tried to make them use AoPS 😂

I don’t think everyone who uses AoPS needs to love math, but they ought to like solving problems, I think.

[ExcitedMama]

1 hour ago, kirstenhill said:

One thing I'll mention, in case you didn't know about it, is that for the Pre-Algebra book there are videos to go along with every lesson:  https://artofproblemsolving.com/videos

DS14 started the Pre-Alg book part way through 5th grade, and it took him about a calendar year to go through it, partly because we had a major move in there that meant we ended up taking almost 4 months off of school, and partly because I made him work every "example" problem in his notebook. He used the above linked videos occasionally.

DS12 went through Pre-A much faster.  He started in the fall of this past year (6th grade), and was done at the end of February of this year.  I didn't make him work in his notebook the example problems (he just read them, thought through it), and at least for him this strategy seemed to work pretty well.  We got into a really good habit of me correcting his work every day, then he would correct the errors before continuing on.  He never used the videos - just reading the text was a great explanation.  He "gave up" on maybe a handful of the hardest problems in the book, and I let him read the answer key on those.  He probably has a bit lower frustration tolerance than his older brother and I didn't want to force him to work longer than he was comfortable with on really hard problems if he at least gave them a fair try first.

All that being said, even if you aren't "mathy" the AoPs book is written to stand alone and teach the material, so you may be rarely required to give explanations? I found myself giving explanations a lot more often in Beast Academy with my kids, actually.   I guess my kids could be unusual in their ability to learn math from reading a textbook, but I think the style is well done and more suitable for this purpose than say, a public school textbook.

Thank you for the link! I did not realize it had videos for every lesson! Would you recommend watching videos before starting the lesson? Now I’m intrigued if that could be enough for him without the pricy classes or self paced. 

[kirstenhill]

4 minutes ago, ExcitedMama said:

Thank you for the link! I did not realize it had videos for every lesson! Would you recommend watching videos before starting the lesson? Now I’m intrigued if that could be enough for him without the pricy classes or self paced. 

I think it depends on the student.  A bit of the discovery method is maybe lost I think if you watch the video first, but if your student doesn't really want to discover the principles via the example problems and just wanted it taught in a more straight forward method, I think watching the video first could make sense.  We didn't use them very extensively though, so maybe others who have will chime in with how they used the videos.

[Not_a_Number]

I would guess that watching the videos first without doing the discovery would mean there wasn’t enough review. The discovery is supposed to provide the practice.

Of course, it really depends on what a student already knows.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Noreen Claire]

DS12 worked through the pre-alg book in 5th grade; it took a full calendar year. He worked through the first 2/3 of the book by himself (work the examples/watch videos if needed/work problem sets/practice in Alcumus if needed), and then he took the pre-alg2 course through AoPS to finish (we were butting heads, so I needed him to be responsible to someone else for a bit). The live courses go very quickly, and if your kid (like mine) needs/wants to work through all the problems in the text *in addition to* all the problems that are assigned, it is a LOT of work. It was good for what we needed (a bit of review and then finishing up the book with someone else grading his work).

FWIW, he's a terrible typist, and that was not an issue. He did get kinda antsy in the last 15-20 minutes of each class, but it ended right at dinner time (he took the early section).

[daijobu]

19 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

I personally wouldn't recommend AoPS at all for a kid who doesn't love math. It's a great program, and it's rigorous for sure. But rigor doesn't mean it's a good fit for everyone. My other kids (bright and good at math but not lovers of the subject) would have run screaming from the room if I'd tried to make them use AoPS 😂

I know I'm in the minority here on this topic, but I'm going to respectfully disagree.  I think nearly all kids who are NT and don't have LDs or any other issues,  should be learning math with a problem solving focus as taught by AoPS.  Not necessarily every last challenge and starred problem, but  everything else.  

Or at least attend one of @Not_a_Number's classes.  I, for one, would love to watch a recording or read a transcript of her class.  

[Not_a_Number]

16 minutes ago, daijobu said:

I know I'm in the minority here on this topic, but I'm going to respectfully disagree.  I think nearly all kids who are NT and don't have LDs or any other issues,  should be learning math with a problem solving focus as taught by AoPS.  Not necessarily every last challenge and starred problem, but  everything else.  

Or at least attend one of @Not_a_Number's classes.  I, for one, would love to watch a recording or read a transcript of her class.  

I unfortunately have limited control over what I teach 😉 . And I do think my classes go too quickly for a lot of kids, which frustrates everyone.

I do agree that a problem-solving focus is a good idea for most kids, though. But I don’t know that most kids need a high level of frustration... it’s a tricky balance.

[rzberrymom]

20 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

My oldest loved loved loved AoPS but the pace of the online classes would have killed him. He liked to savor the math and sometimes spent days on one calculus proof.

My kiddo was the same way. We tried online classes at both WTM and AOPS, and the pace felt so rushed. I say take as much time as you need to get through the books—no need to go quickly.

 

My kiddo still thanks me for having her use those books, since she feels like she can reason her way through any math problem she encounters.

[Not_a_Number]

10 minutes ago, rzberrymom said:

My kiddo was the same way. We tried online classes at both WTM and AOPS, and the pace felt so rushed. I say take as much time as you need to get through the books—no need to go quickly.

 

My kiddo still thanks me for having her use those books, since she feels like she can reason her way through any math problem she encounters.

Yeah, for us the advantage of a problem-solving focus is increased math confidence. That being said, we don’t use the AoPS approach per se — I find it doesn’t take enough time to build intuitions. Although it takes more time than most curricula...

[daijobu]

5 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I unfortunately have limited control over what I teach 😉 . And I do think my classes go too quickly for a lot of kids, which frustrates everyone.

I do agree that a problem-solving focus is a good idea for most kids, though. But I don’t know that most kids need a high level of frustration... it’s a tricky balance.

Actually I meant one of your zoom or in person classes.  I thought the AoPS classes were pretty much scripted so it didn't vary much between teachers.    

ETA:  @Not_a_Number, what happens in your zoom classes?  How are you teaching?  Is it core material or  extra fun math?  

Edited April 27, 2021 by daijobu

[happypamama]

I did it with one son starting in 6th grade.  That son liked math and was good at it, same as I am.  He turned out not to love AOPS, even though I liked it.  I don't wish I had started later; he was ready for it and did well with it, but its style just turned out not to be one he likes.

 

I recently started it with my current 6th grade son, also good at math but differently from his older brother.  He's doing really well with it and likes it a lot!  We're on the third chapter so far; we take 2-4 days to do each section, and that works well for us so far.  I feel like this has been a great time to start it.  My goal is to finish it by the end of 7th grade (so a bit over a year from now), and I don't think that'll be very difficult.  At the same time, if he decides he really doesn't like it, we have plenty of time to find something different for him.

ETA: I do it all myself, no online class.  AOPS is a good fit for me, though.

Edited April 27, 2021 by happypamama

[Not_a_Number]

13 minutes ago, daijobu said:

Actually I meant one of your zoom or in person classes.  I thought the AoPS classes were pretty much scripted so it didn't vary much between teachers.    

I do some serious ad-libbing, though, lol. And I did rewrite the precalcs. 

 

Quote

ETA:  @Not_a_Number, what happens in your zoom classes?  How are you teaching?  Is it core material or  extra fun math?  

Well, see, I don't really TEACH much 😉 . I don't believe in teaching a ton. 

But the way the class works is that we talk about the mental models for things for a bit, I introduce a shortcut or two that they can use or not as they see fit (say, if they are taking four of something, they could double the original amount twice), then we do a "decoder puzzle" where they each use their personal "code instructions" to figure out the answers to their questions. (I code the questions by color -- each kid has their own color in the class for convenience.) Generally, the question is the set-up for a joke, and the decoded answer is the punchline. 

Then we play a math game of some sort. I tend to like games that reinforce mental models for concepts, of course. Tomorrow, I think we'll play Blockout -- you roll two dice, then you draw a rectangle of that size on the board and you write down its area inside it. That is your score for that round. And so on, so forth 😄. I might do the BA rules and play Block Blob instead, where you have to make sure all your rectangles are attached. 

Then we read a math book. I tend to think of math books as just encouragement for kids as opposed to actually them learning stuff, which is good, because my Zoom class has kids doing 2nd to 9th grade math, and it'd be totally impossible to teach them all something new at once 😛 . 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, happypamama said:

I don't wish I had started later; he was ready for it and did well with it, but its style just turned out not to be one he likes.

Any idea what he didn't like? 🙂 I doubt my DD would like it either, although we haven't tried. 

[daijobu]

5 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Then we read a math book. I tend to think of math books as just encouragement for kids as opposed to actually them learning stuff, which is good, because my Zoom class has kids doing 2nd to 9th grade math, and it'd be totally impossible to teach them all something new at once 😛 . 

Wow, that's a large range of ability.  Are they all around the same age, or do you have high school and elementary school kids?  

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, daijobu said:

Wow, that's a large range of ability.  Are they all around the same age, or do you have high school and elementary school kids?  

They are between 8 and 10 years of age. DD8 is at the top of that range -- I don't know if she's exactly in 9th grade math, but I think it's safe to say she's in high school math. We're working on proof-based geometry and algebra at the moment.

There's another kid who's in AoPS prealgebra 2, and then a bunch of kids floating around in elementary math somewhere. Two of them are probably the same grade level or so -- maybe 3rd or 4th. Not sure. I don't sequence things like the schools, anyway, so it's all estimates. 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[happypamama]

5 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Any idea what he didn't like? 🙂 I doubt my DD would like it either, although we haven't tried. 

I think he didn't care for the discovery sort of method, the "what do you notice about this?" sort of thing.  

[Not_a_Number]

9 hours ago, happypamama said:

I think he didn't care for the discovery sort of method, the "what do you notice about this?" sort of thing.  

Ah, got it. I like the discovery method but not necessarily the AoPS version thereof.