Has anyone used Beast Academy as their *only* math curriculum?

[Eilonwy]

3 hours ago, stripe said:

ETA I will say that MEP works place value in to a surprising number of areas in their primary school books.

BA recommends MEP, I believe, as a program to get you to Gr. 2, but when I looked at it is seemed quite complicated and a lot of printing, so I didn’t actually do it.  Possibly should have, because the place value section in BA is not enough to stand on its own, but I’m working on that on the side now.
 

I wonder why BA only goes from Gr. 2 onwards?

[Not_a_Number]

37 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

BA recommends MEP, I believe, as a program to get you to Gr. 2, but when I looked at it is seemed quite complicated and a lot of printing, so I didn’t actually do it.  Possibly should have, because the place value section in BA is not enough to stand on its own, but I’m working on that on the side now.
 

I wonder why BA only goes from Gr. 2 onwards?

Maybe they haven't gotten around to Grade 1 yet? I'd be surprised if they never do it. 

[8filltheheart]

On 5/25/2021 at 9:02 AM, Not_a_Number said:

Our experience with BA has been kind of mixed. I usually write DD8’s lessons, and at some point I got some BA books for free from AoPS to do some supplementing. DD8 was excited about them at first but cooled on them quite quickly. She never asks to do them herself and prefers the lessons I write.

We also had the issue, at least in the 2nd grade books, that the difficulty level jumped in an annoying way: the basics were too easy and the hard stuff could be too frustrating. Plus, I didn’t feel like it spent enough time with certain important concepts.

DD8 does love the Guide Books, though. And the practice is fun! I just love it less than I thought I would.

The only BA book I ever purchased was 2A.  Dd didn't like it at all.  Part of the problem was that she already knew Roman numerals, so she wanted to simply solve via Roman numerals vs. seeing the focus on place value.  She thought that was dumb bc she had zero issue understanding place value.  That part so turned her off the books that she would refuse to consider them even a couple of yrs later.

Since I have always been happy with the outcome of our approach to elementary math, I just dropped it and moved on.

[Eilonwy]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Maybe they haven't gotten around to Grade 1 yet? I'd be surprised if they never do it. 

Their website says they are working on Level 1 now.

[Not_a_Number]

55 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:

The only BA book I ever purchased was 2A.  Dd didn't like it at all.  Part of the problem was that she already knew Roman numerals, so she wanted to simply solve via Roman numerals vs. seeing the focus on place value.  She thought that was dumb bc she had zero issue understanding place value.  That part so turned her off the books that she would refuse to consider them even a couple of yrs later.

Since I have always been happy with the outcome of our approach to elementary math, I just dropped it and moved on.

People have claimed that the books after 2 are better. I don’t use them, but they at the very least cover some unusual and interesting stuff. 

[stripe]

1 hour ago, Eilonwy said:

BA recommends MEP, I believe, as a program to get you to Gr. 2, but when I looked at it is seemed quite complicated and a lot of printing, so I didn’t actually do it.  Possibly should have, because the place value section in BA is not enough to stand on its own, but I’m working on that on the side now.
 

I wonder why BA only goes from Gr. 2 onwards?

I think they don’t want to deal with introducing the basics.

MEP doesn’t actually have that much printing, but they do have lots of stuff on the website. In the reception and first two years (?) there are posters and various homemade manipulatives like shapes and cards with dots. For the rest of the years through 6, there are three components: a book for the student (one page per lesson), a teaching plan, and the copy masters, which are big versions of problems to put on the overhead projector type thing.  Also it is possible to order printed copies of the student books until GCSE level. After all these years I finally did so a few months ago. Ha. I couldn’t handle papers flying everywhere and always missing that one page.

 

If anyone cares, here’s a list with ISBN numbers ; you can search for them from stores like Book Depository. They look like they’re print on demand.

https://www.cimt.org.uk/projects/mep/pricelist.pdf

[Eilonwy]

5 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

People have claimed that the books after 2 are better. I don’t use them, but they at the very least cover some unusual and interesting stuff. 

I find the books after level 2 are better. Second half of level 3 and up has some really good material that my kids (and I) have learned interesting things from.

4 minutes ago, stripe said:

I think they don’t want to deal with introducing the basics.

I thought about this too, since they seemed to struggle a bit with Level 2, but it now says they are working on Level 1, so they are trying to bridge that gap. 

[Not_a_Number]

12 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

I find the books after level 2 are better. Second half of level 3 and up has some really good material that my kids (and I) have learned interesting things from.

Of course, the problem with interesting material is that you have to introduce it in a slow and methodical way, and that’s not their forte. For instance, I’ve done very serious combinatorics with DD8, and a bunch of tree diagrams are simply not enough for true fluency.

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Eilonwy]

25 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Of course, the problem with interesting material is that you have to introduce it in a slow and methodical way, and that’s not their forte. For instance, I’ve done very serious combinatorics with DD8, and a bunch of tree diagrams are simply not enough for true fluency.

Yes, and I think some things are introduced in a fairly thoughtful, methodical way- especially topics with multiple chapters like fractions, factors, and exponents.  That probably does leave the single chapter topics with less than complete coverage.  But maybe they’re intended to be an introduction only, that will be built upon in AOPS?

Edited May 26, 2021 by Eilonwy

[Not_a_Number]

8 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

Yes, and I think some things are introduced in a fairly thoughtful, methodical way- especially topics with multiple chapters like fractions, factors, and exponents.  That probably does leave the single chapter topics with less than complete coverage.  But maybe they’re intended to be an introduction only, that will be built upon in AOPS?

I think exponents are a strand that need, like, a year of development.

[Eilonwy]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I think exponents are a strand that need, like, a year of development.

Do you mean a continuous year of predominately exponents? Or periodic exposure over the year?

[Not_a_Number]

14 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

Do you mean a continuous year of predominately exponents? Or periodic exposure over the year?

Periodic exposure. Exponents, unlike the basics, aren’t something most kids will encounter naturally. So then you do actually have to build the model from scratch even for mathy kids. 

I’ve never been able to rush the “explore the mental model and observe properties” stage. And I see kids who clearly have never fully integrated exponents all the time, and it’s a real problem.

[Eilonwy]

10 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Periodic exposure. Exponents, unlike the basics, aren’t something most kids will encounter naturally. So then you do actually have to build the model from scratch even for mathy kids. 

I’ve never been able to rush the “explore the mental model and observe properties” stage. And I see kids who clearly have never fully integrated exponents all the time, and it’s a real problem.

I think the opportunity is there, because they are introduced in a whole chapter in 4A, used frequently in at least one of the two chapters on factors and in the square roots chapter, and then have another whole chapter in 5D.  If you’re seeing lots of BA kids who don’t have a good mental model, then that would be a concern, but there is more than a year of periodic exposure planned in. 

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

I think the opportunity is there, because they are introduced in a whole chapter in 4A, used frequently in at least one of the two chapters on factors and in the square roots chapter, and then have another whole chapter in 5D.  If you’re seeing lots of BA kids who don’t have a good mental model, then that would be a concern, but there is more than a year of periodic exposure planned in. 

I dunno whether I’m seeing BA kids or not, but my online AoPS kids are almost uniformly uncomfortable with exponents, in the sense that they have trouble remembering the laws. And in precalc, I invariably have kids who don’t even know where to START with (AB)^n for matrices.

The question is whether the exposure is building the mental model or not. Not all exposure does. Lots of it just produces plug and chug.

[Eilonwy]

25 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I dunno whether I’m seeing BA kids or not, but my online AoPS kids are almost uniformly uncomfortable with exponents, in the sense that they have trouble remembering the laws. And in precalc, I invariably have kids who don’t even know where to START with (AB)^n for matrices.

The question is whether the exposure is building the mental model or not. Not all exposure does. Lots of it just produces plug and chug.

It’s possible that the exposure isn’t building a mental model, but I think generally it is so far.  I’ll think about it with this in mind.  My daughter is certainly much more comfortable than when she first saw them, and gives sensible explanations when asked about exponents. I don’t think she has done negative exponents yet though, that is in the next chapter. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Eilonwy said:

It’s possible that the exposure isn’t building a mental model, but I think generally it is so far.  I’ll think about it with this in mind.  My daughter is certainly much more comfortable than when she first saw them, and gives sensible explanations when asked about exponents. I don’t think she has done negative exponents yet though, that is in the next chapter. 

So... this is totally just MY approach, but I don’t do negative or fractional exponents until the definition feels obvious and kids can do the power laws and explain them with their eyes closed, so to speak. But perhaps your DD is already there 🙂 

[Eilonwy]

55 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

So... this is totally just MY approach, but I don’t do negative or fractional exponents until the definition feels obvious and kids can do the power laws and explain them with their eyes closed, so to speak. But perhaps your DD is already there 🙂 

She’s very comfortable with the definition.  When it comes to the power laws, I’m not sure, but I will go find out.

[8filltheheart]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I dunno whether I’m seeing BA kids or not, but my online AoPS kids are almost uniformly uncomfortable with exponents, in the sense that they have trouble remembering the laws. And in precalc, I invariably have kids who don’t even know where to START with (AB)^n for matrices.

The question is whether the exposure is building the mental model or not. Not all exposure does. Lots of it just produces plug and chug.

It certainly sounds like you have subpar AoPS students compared to the kids I know who have used AoPS in the past.  I can't imagine any of the kids I know being uncomfortable with exponents.  I'm not a math person, but I have never witnessed problems with exponents in any of my own kids.  

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, 8filltheheart said:

It certainly sounds like you have subpar AoPS students compared to the kids I know who have used AoPS in the past.  I can't imagine any of the kids I know being uncomfortable with exponents.  I'm not a math person, but I have never witnessed problems with exponents in any of my own kids.  

It depends what you mean. They can all calculate 3^3 and 2^10 and whatnot. But yes, I've seen kids try to use nonexistent rules many times, and I've seen kids be unable to generalize, and I've generally seen kids who only have a surface-level comfort. You've never seen a kid try to do something like 3^5*2^8 = (3*2)^(5+8)? Because it's just as common as (x+y)^2 = x^2 + y^2, which one also sees a lot. 

I've been teaching at AoPS for 6 years, and I taught at college before that. Conceptual misconceptions are more common than not. I have my own theories about why that is, but this isn't new. 

Now, it's possible that the kids who used to use AoPS were the best of the best and now they are not. But I can tell you that these mistakes are common even at top colleges.  

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, Eilonwy said:

She’s very comfortable with the definition.  When it comes to the power laws, I’m not sure, but I will go find out.

You could ask about what 3^9/3^4 is. I asked DD8 earlier today and she said "It's 3^5." And when I asked why, she said "Well, you're multiply nine 3s on top and four 4's on the bottom, and four of them cancel out, so there are 5 left on top. And the same thing works for any two numbers." 

If a kid can explain something like that for subtraction, addition and powers of exponents, I think of them as ready for generalizing. Otherwise, I don't. But I know that I'm basically alone in that. 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[stripe]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

If a kid can explain something like that for subtraction, addition and powers of exponents, I think of them as ready for generalizing. Otherwise, I don't. But I know that I'm basically alone in that. 

Honestly this seems like the intro to most chapters in math texts by Harold R Jacobs. 🙂

[UHP]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

You could ask about what 3^9/3^4 is. I asked DD8 earlier today and she said "It's 3^5."

Did she know from experience that you would be happy or happier with "It's 3^5" than "It's 243?"

I'm curious about this aspect of teaching exponentiation: it's reasonable to ask a kid to find out 15+99 as a way to get used to addition, to ask her to find out 15*99 as a way to get used to multiplication, but impossible to figure out 15-to-the-power-of-99 (and perhaps possible but pointless to have her figure out 3^5)

[Not_a_Number]

5 minutes ago, UHP said:

Did she know from experience that you would be happy or happier with "It's 3^5" than "It's 243?"

No, she just thinks this way by now. She wouldn't simplify it because she's lazy 😉 

 

Quote

I'm curious about this aspect of teaching exponentiation: it's reasonable to ask a kid to find out 15+99 as a way to get used to addition, to ask her to find out 15*99 as a way to get used to multiplication, but impossible to figure out 15-to-the-power-of-99 (and perhaps possible but pointless to have her figure out 3^5)

I generally focus on the stuff that they need to generalize and don't overfocus on actual numbers except as examples. I find that actual calculations often kind of get in the way of the principles. I mean, we obviously work on number sense and calculational facility, but not for this kind of thing. 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

5 minutes ago, stripe said:

Honestly this seems like the intro to most chapters in math texts by Harold R Jacobs. 🙂

As in, I agree with him? 🙂 Probably in what it means to be ready, although perhaps not in how to get there? 

[Eilonwy]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

You could ask about what 3^9/3^4 is. I asked DD8 earlier today and she said "It's 3^5." And when I asked why, she said "Well, you're multiply nine 3s on top and four 4's on the bottom, and four of them cancel out, so there are 5 left on top. And the same thing works for any two numbers." 

If a kid can explain something like that for subtraction, addition and powers of exponents, I think of them as ready for generalizing. Otherwise, I don't. But I know that I'm basically alone in that. 

For this question, she got to it after a bit and working out some other examples, including some with numbers she could readily simplify, but it wasn’t automatic. She said she’d multiply 3 by itself 9 times, and then the solution to how many per group if she made 3^4 groups was the remaining 3s once she separated the first four our with brackets, which was 3^5.  She can easily explain addition and powers of exponents using similar explanations from the definition.  We need to work on division of numbers with exponents, but I don’t think it’s a big stretch from this point, and this is also covered in the next chapter of her book, so she’ll also get some practice there. 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Eilonwy

[Not_a_Number]

8 minutes ago, stripe said:

Honestly this seems like the intro to most chapters in math texts by Harold R Jacobs. 🙂

I've heard excellent things about his books, though. And I bought Mathematics: A Human Endeavor at some point for fun, although we haven't used it yet. 

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

For this question, she got to it after a bit and working out some other examples, but it wasn’t automatic. She said she’d multiply 3 by itself 9 times, and then the solution to how many per group if she made 3^4 groups was the remaining 3s once she separated the first four our with brackets, which was 3^5.  She can easily explain addition and powers of exponents using similar explanations from the definition.  We need to work on division of numbers with exponents, but I don’t think it’s a big stretch from this point, and this is also covered in the next chapter of her book, so she’ll also get some practice there. 

So she'd do something like (3^5)^3 easily without thinking? 

[UHP]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I generally focus on the stuff that they need to generalize and don't overfocus on actual numbers except as examples. I find that actual calculations often kind of get in the way of the principles. I mean, we obviously work on number sense and calculational facility, but not for this kind of thing. 

I can't guess what you mean by overfocus, I thought your kids did spend months or longer adding and subtracting, and later multiplying and dividing, 2-digit numbers. I was going to ask what early work on exponentiation looks like to you but I might have misunderstood something upstream of that.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, UHP said:

I can't guess what you mean by overfocus, I thought your kids did spend months or longer adding and subtracting, and later multiplying and dividing, 2-digit numbers. I was going to ask what early work on exponentiation looks like to you but I might have misunderstood something upstream of that.

They definitely do spend months or longer adding and subtracting. Years, probably. But a lot of the work is about generalizing ideas, if you know what I mean? 

[UHP]

4 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

They definitely do spend months or longer adding and subtracting. Years, probably. But a lot of the work is about generalizing ideas, if you know what I mean?

Maybe not, does "generalize" mean you find a new concept, a special case of which is a concept you taught earlier?

[Eilonwy]

13 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

So she'd do something like (3^5)^3 easily without thinking? 

Medium.  She can do it fairly quickly and she can clearly explain why it works, but it’s likely not to the ‘without thinking’  stage. 

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, UHP said:

Maybe not, does "generalize" mean you find a new concept, a special case of which is a concept you taught earlier?

I guess I think of generalizing as finding patterns you can justify in general. I tend to teach with an eye towards algebra, I guess. I find it pays off to know generalizations. You can only do things like 14*8 = 10*8 + 4*8 so many times before you start being primed for (a+b)c = ac + bc. Especially if you prompt kids to generalize. 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[UHP]

16 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

You can only do things like 14*8 = 10*8 + 4*8 so many times before you start being primed for (a+b)c = ac + bc. Especially if you prompt kids to generalize.

Oh, I think I understand you! Good idea, I think I see how to implement it.

[Not_a_Number]

6 minutes ago, UHP said:

Oh, I think I understand you! Good idea, I think I see how to implement it.

It's kind of how I do "counting on" but for everything 😉 . I tend to introduce everything as "and here's a lovely shortcut for how to calculate. Does this work in general?" 
 

I'm going to have to transcribe our conversations, since it's really not obvious in our rather boring worksheets what we're doing 😕 . 

[stripe]

Also CIMT/MEP’s GCSE levels start everything “at the very beginning.”

[Eilonwy]

22 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm going to have to transcribe our conversations, since it's really not obvious in our rather boring worksheets what we're doing 😕 . 

Yes, please do, it seems like the conversations are as important as the questions, and the questions wouldn’t make sense without them. 

[Eilonwy]

6 hours ago, stripe said:

Also CIMT/MEP’s GCSE levels start everything “at the very beginning.”

From counting and place value on up?  Or maybe there is something even more beginning-ish than that?

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

From counting and place value on up?  Or maybe there is something even more beginning-ish than that?

I feel like it's pretty hard to get earlier than counting... 

[stripe]

13 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

From counting and place value on up?  Or maybe there is something even more beginning-ish than that?

I mean, I wouldn’t actually start a little kid with GCSE levels just because they review it. It’s just that there’s a huge review at the start of each chapter, which isn’t included in the material more advanced students are expected to cover.

But yes, Reception level covers counting. Looooots of counting. They’ve got little games you’re supposed to make by cutting the papers into little game pieces, and there’s a lot of counting using the posters. The posters show up in Reception, Y1, and Y2. Here’s Poster 3 (color). You can see there are different things to look at and (for example) count. 

Year 1 has tons of counting, and basically covers one number a week, from 0 to 20. (It doesn’t really go above twenty for the whole year.) This is a page from the practice book.

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by stripe

[Eilonwy]

27 minutes ago, stripe said:

I mean, I wouldn’t actually start a little kid with GCSE levels just because they review it. It’s just that there’s a huge review at the start of each chapter, which isn’t included in the material more advanced students are expected to cover.

No, of course not, I was just intrigued that the GCSE levels (British secondary school, roughly) covered it all! 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Eilonwy

[stripe]

As examples, fraction to decimal conversion, “long” multiplication and division, and the Cartesian coordinate system.

It ramps up from there, obviously, but it really reviews everything.

[eternallytired]

On 5/25/2021 at 6:15 PM, GracieJane said:

Thank you so much for the responses! If I can add on a question: if you went on to AOPS (we have the pre-algebra book on deck), which math curriculum did you love for the basics? My DS is roughly mid-grade 3 if it helps.

OP, I think this really depends on the kid. 

ODS sailed through BA 3-5 and PreA (and then hit a wall halfway through the Alg book, but that's another issue) with no other math program.  I had him play some Prodigy just to do more straightforward problems and spiral review, since sometimes it seemed like BA was so focused on complications and neat tricks that the kids never did straightforward things.  (Somehow he didn't learn how to do long division or multi-digit multiplication--at least not the algorithms.  Or he didn't remember them AT ALL.  He has his own ways of coming up with the answers, but sometimes they aren't efficient.)  I tried supplementing with other things, but it was like pulling teeth and felt largely redundant, so I stuck with Prodigy and BA.

For YDS, I'm just using BA as a supplement/challenge, though I'm still trying to find the perfect fit for the everyday stuff.

Singapore is generally very highly regarded as far as math programs go, but it had too many moving pieces for us.  I used Math Mammoth for DD: the approach is very similar to Singapore, but the instruction and practice are all integrated into one book.  (The author notes that there are ample problems for those who need extra practice, though the average student won't need to do them all.  DD did about half.)

[Emily ZL]

I'm sure OP already got all the answers she needs. I would just add an example of something frustrating: in the year 3 book that introduces multiplication, it has a drill sergeant just say you need to memorize the table, and that's it. Done. After that one lesson, they expect you to have memorized the tables. So off we go, to find our own additional flashcards, practice timed worksheets, etc. In contrast, math mammoth does 2-3 pages for each number (8s, etc) and doing lots of practice, and then having them fill in their table with what they have learned so far, adding more each time. 

I think BA is great for kids who love puzzles, and who are proud and happy and "high" when they solve something. Lots of kids are good math students who hate puzzles, or who finally get the answer and don't feel "high" but instead feel discouraged and defeated that it was so hard. When my son said he hated math after successfully slogging through a hard puzzle, we quit. My husband was a math major and hated that curriculum from the start. But I know lots of people have very different kids and excellent results! 

[madteaparty]

32 minutes ago, Emily ZL said:

I'm sure OP already got all the answers she needs. I would just add an example of something frustrating: in the year 3 book that introduces multiplication, it has a drill sergeant just say you need to memorize the table, and that's it. Done. After that one lesson, they expect you to have memorized the tables. So off we go, to find our own additional flashcards, practice timed worksheets, etc. In contrast, math mammoth does 2-3 pages for each number (8s, etc) and doing lots of practice, and then having them fill in their table with what they have learned so far, adding more each time. 

I think BA is great for kids who love puzzles, and who are proud and happy and "high" when they solve something. Lots of kids are good math students who hate puzzles, or who finally get the answer and don't feel "high" but instead feel discouraged and defeated that it was so hard. When my son said he hated math after successfully slogging through a hard puzzle, we quit. My husband was a math major and hated that curriculum from the start. But I know lots of people have very different kids and excellent results! 

So with beast online, they do have several ways to practice this. Fill a bucket or climb a rope, I forget. Now this was timed practice and my DD was positively livid at the thought, so we also used other things, but unless your kids are offended at timed practice there are ways to practice. And I’m not an AOPS apologist.🤣

 

[Not_a_Number]

11 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

So with beast online, they do have several ways to practice this. Fill a bucket or climb a rope, I forget. Now this was timed practice and my DD was positively livid at the thought, so we also used other things, but unless your kids are offended at timed practice there are ways to practice. And I’m not an AOPS apologist.🤣

 

Here’s my question... do they help the kids develop strategies?

[madteaparty]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Here’s my question... do they help the kids develop strategies?

I don’t know what they do because she has an actual teacher for the current class. The few times she’s needed my help I’ve needed to watch the videos 🤣and yes I think those are very well done. 

[UHP]

7 hours ago, Emily ZL said:

I would just add an example of something frustrating: in the year 3 book that introduces multiplication, it has a drill sergeant just say you need to memorize the table, and that's it.

But the way mine is stomping around singing "we don't skip count any more, 8 times 8 is 64" like she's in full metal jacket makes me think she won't forget that entry at least.

[Not_a_Number]

See, maybe these are just my totally different priorities, but I was MUCH less interested in the memorization of multiplication tables than I was in general facility with multiplication, and specifically with the kind of facility that leads to generalizations and algebra. 

Don't get me wrong -- we memorized multiplication tables eventually. They do come in handy. I'm not anti-drill. But it seemed like a much better idea to use small multiplications to keep working on concepts like distributivity, commutativity and associativity, and to keep working on mental models. 

[Not_a_Number]

8 hours ago, Emily ZL said:

I think BA is great for kids who love puzzles, and who are proud and happy and "high" when they solve something. Lots of kids are good math students who hate puzzles, or who finally get the answer and don't feel "high" but instead feel discouraged and defeated that it was so hard. When my son said he hated math after successfully slogging through a hard puzzle, we quit. My husband was a math major and hated that curriculum from the start. But I know lots of people have very different kids and excellent results! 

Right. Exactly. I was the kind of kid who had a feeling of pride and happiness when I solved a puzzle. I loved being stuck on puzzles. I would guess BA would have worked relatively well for me... or at least, it would have entertained me and gotten me to spend extra time on math, and that would have probably done the trick.  

DD8, on the other hand, is not a kid who's particularly into puzzles. When I give her puzzles, she often wants to give up and know the answer if she doesn't care intrinsically about it. She doesn't enjoy BA in the way that I would have as a kid. 

Part of the reason I'm posting here, though, is to point out that DD8 is a VERY MATHY kid who doesn't particularly enjoy BA. Sometimes I get the sense that people think that if BA doesn't work, that's because the kid is not in the intended audience -- they aren't mathy enough. That's simply not the case. DD8 has never, ever asked to do a page of BA instead of the normal math she does, and yet she's more than a little mathy -- she's extremely mathematically talented. I can give some examples of the work she's currently doing if anyone wants to see what I mean about that, but I'm not bragging (especially since her talents aren't my doing, anyway) -- I'm simply explaining that it's possible to both be very mathy and very uninterested in a puzzle-based curriculum. 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[stripe]

I felt like the program was directing students towards math competitions, or some other setting where finding some way to deal with an apparently nightmarish scenario is important, and thus the practice problems were overly specific. As an example, how often do you REALLY need to figure out a “clever” / “shorter” way to calculate 101*99?

My kids who used BA 3A and 3B did like the popping out corners strategy for finding perimeters, though, and remember and use it to this day.