When your child gets stuck in Beast Academy

[Clarita]

Beast Academy people. When your child gets stuck on a Beast Academy concept/problem what do you do or how do you help them?

Things that I know to try

1) Re-reading the comic book section, maybe actually demonstrating what the monsters are doing with manipulatives. - This was not met with happiness the first time around.

2) Teach similar concept from a different math book. (For us this would be Singapore Math and I would have to get the next level up to get to the same place as Beast Academy) - hurts my wallet to run two concurrent math curriculum one of which barely gets used

3) Continue to forge ahead in the problems with mom repeating the concepts presented in the comics.

FWIW child is the one choosing Beast Academy as his main math curriculum, even though he knows if we move to another math curriculum things would be easy.  

[SilverMoon]

I would start working out problems directly with him, probably on a whiteboard, discussing the concept and how it works as we go. Just because it's written to be done independently doesn't mean he's ready to learn every concept independently. Usually it would click within a few problems worked out step by step with me and he'd just walk away with the tablet to finish on his own. Other times I would have told him to actually watch the video, or start at the end of the solution and work it backwards. It sounds like you may be book only though. (The online version gives a full solution when you get a problem wrong.)

We had loads of conversations about how getting stuck occasionally is super normal though. I often gave him suggestions for how to help unstick himself and let him decide how to attack it. He became pretty good at recognizing "I need Mom" vs "I can get this if I push through" after awhile.  

Edited February 1, 2023 by SilverMoon

[SilverMoon]

His first year with Beast though, there were a few times he was in his head and beyond stuck. He's a bit of a competitive perfectionist. 😜 When that happened we'd take a Beast break and go all Singapore for a couple/few weeks, just working through a level and making no attempt to line it up with the Beast concepts. When he went back to Beast his head was clearer and it wasn't as hard as he thought. 

[UHP]

1 hour ago, Clarita said:

Beast Academy people. When your child gets stuck on a Beast Academy concept/problem what do you do or how do you help them?

What concept or problem is troubling them lately?

I found BA's introduction to fractions to be really dismal.

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, SilverMoon said:

His first year with Beast though, there were a few times he was in his head and beyond stuck. He's a bit of a competitive perfectionist. 😜 When that happened we'd take a Beast break and go all Singapore for a couple/few weeks, just working through a level and making no attempt to line it up with the Beast concepts.

Yup that's us 100%. We've been doing Singapore for a few days but he also keeps asking to go back.

7 minutes ago, UHP said:

What concept or problem is troubling them lately?

It's just 2 digit subtraction. He can do any sort of number below 20 but when he sees a number bigger than 20 he is freezing up. Beast Academy is assumed he can make the leap because he can use the same techniques. 

[desertflower]

Honestly, I was not impressed with BA 2A and 2B.  Or was it just 2A?  Anyhow the addition and subtraction part was what I wasn't thrilled about. 

Sorry no advice.  I hope he gets through it.  I really like BA. 

[Xahm]

We have Math Mammoth that I pull out when we need more/different practice. We also circle back to earlier Beast chapters and repeat some things. Online makes this easy. If you look at the chapter overviews in the planning documents section of the website, there's a flow chart that can be helpful to see where to go back to for more practice. Sometimes, I do have to tell a kid, "it's obviously not math time. Go think about this while playing/eating lunch/taking a shower/doing handwriting and we'll try again together later "

[purpleowl]

I ask guiding questions.

I write the problem on a piece of scratch paper so work can be done there and will not "mess up" the workbook pages (this has been important to two of my kids).

I allow the use of a different strategy. If 33-15=x feels impossible but 15+x=33 feels solvable, I let the kid solve it that way. Then I say how great they did figuring it out, and I say, here's another way we could have done it, and quickly walk through my steps of solving the other way. I want them to understand that the strategies are related, and near the end of the page I might say "this time I want to do it the adding way and you do it the subtracting way!" 

I tell the kid I will write down whatever steps they want to take, so they don't have the challenge of physically writing it as another obstacle to deal with at the same time. That also lets me see how the kid is working through the problem, and I can say "can you tell me why you think we're doing this step next" or "how did you come up with four as the digit that goes there," etc. 

I declare math done for the day, if needed. 😉

Only my youngest did level 2 (it wasn't out yet for my older two), and he needed some extra practice on those concepts, if I recall correctly. I used Math Mammoth for that. 

Oh - I remember also drawing blanks or boxes for ones, tens, hundreds in the answers for him, a lot longer than the book gives them. He needed to see that clearly as he worked through the problems.

[SilverMoon]

17 hours ago, Clarita said:

Yup that's us 100%. We've been doing Singapore for a few days but he also keeps asking to go back.

I would let him go back. It's okay to keep trying if you're stuck. Sometimes it's the pushing through that gets us there. 

After your last explanation I'd toss some manipulatives into the mix. If you don't have blocks that can build tens and hundreds you can make bundles of toothpicks taped into tens and hundreds and easily break them apart again, so you can physically act out the addition and subtraction.