With the shift to Common Core, it gets less clear. In our district, they are shifting the material from the class that used to be called "Algebra" to be included in the class called "Common Core 8"and the class called "Algebra" now contains most of what used to be called "Algebra II"-- but it is still called Algebra.
AFAICT, our district is moving to Common Core. There's a lot more algebra-looking material in the general math classes.
EPGY Math for grade 1 has very simple algebra problems. My 5yo daughter has solved problems such as
n - 3 = 5
n = ?
but I won't say she can do algebra until she can solve
2*n - 3 = 5
I wonder if presenting arithmetic problems as simple algebra problems helps students in a real algebra course later on.
