Val,
It makes good sense to me.
We're seeing the same problem of repetition even earlier and even with Singapore Math, which is supposed to be one of the good ones for being linear rather than a spiral curriculum. I've actually been considering moving on to pre-algebra or some more complex geometry with my DS6 while I wait for him to learn his times tables. That seems so bass-ackwards that I've been dithering over it for some time now. But for him, it seems to make sense.
If you have the grades 5-8 books, you can always use them to supplement any holes that pop up as you're doing the algebra. As long as he doesn't get so confused that you have to un-teach him what he's learned wrong, I don't see the harm that could come. It seems to me that in the worst case, where it is too hard or leaves him with too many holes, you go back a grade or two. <shrug> No harm done.
K-
HI Kriston,
I'm definitely going to mix in some of the 5-8 stuff with the algebra. I think it will fill holes nicely and provide variety too.
You mentioned that your son still needs to learn his times tables. I moved mine forward when he had about half of them memorized, figuring he would learn them by doing division. It's worked out pretty well and he knows most of them now. I reckon they're the kind of thing everyone learns eventually.
We don't focus on moving stepwise with our kids. They seem to thrive on a mix of topics. Hence, I started long division before my eldest had learned his times tables, but would still get him to do problems like 123*46 now and then to help cement multiplication concepts. Last night the idea of "Why do things float" came up and I taught him about Density and introduced D=m/v and how smashing up cotton ball into a smaller volume can increase its density. We have a lot of random stuff like that. Some of it sticks, some of it doesn't.
Val
