Thank you so much everyone for all of the help and suggestions.
We do have some Beast Academy stuff already and DS loves the guidebooks, but the workbooks have been kinda mixed for him. Certain sections he loves and others he finds boring/tedious or even difficult. Today he needed my help on book 3D in the rounding/estimating chapter. He can round just fine, but the questions are kinda open to interpretation and he likes to get things "right." Estimation is not really his thing! Plus there are a lot of "pencil questions" where they ask the student to write out why or how they answered something. This is like torture for DS
He totally loves certain sections of Beast Academy though, especially the ones that are presented as puzzles or games. It seems like there is less and less of that as the level of the books increase.
I also am bad enough at math that I don't always get the explanations in the back. There have only been 2 sections so far I didn't understand (I recall one related to making equations near the end of the chapter on variables and the other I think may have been in perfect squares), but as this is apparently third grade stuff I felt pretty bad about it.
I looked up ken ken and it seems like something made by an evil group of people tasked with giving me a permanent headache. What if DS were to ask for help with one of those awful things? We both love Sudoku, so maybe we should stick with that
I'll likely introduce these puzzles to DS when his dad is here to help, he might actually enjoy them too.
I'd love to get him a tutor, but that is not in the budget. Sometimes I think the best thing for him would be to spend time with an adult who loves math and could really share the passion with him. I try to pretend that math is like a fun puzzle to solve and that I really love it, but no way I can fake true passion... especially since I absolutely hate math.
I think we will definitely try AOPS and continue with the Beast Academy guide books. The only workbooks we have that we haven't done yet are 4A and the end of 3D that we didn't finish from last year. A lot of the problem is that DS is so lazy with writing. He loves Khan because I read him the question and he can run around and answer it. He gets so much more done that way (totally counter to what should improve performance IMO). I wouldn't mind reading him the workbook questions and doing the writing for him, but that sort of defeats the purpose as far as prepping him for school next year!
BTW, I looked at the preview of that practice counting book and hurt my brain. Seriously, by page 10 I'm out. I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm bad at math. Yesterday DS was quizzing me on the multiplication table (because he is sweet and wants to help me improve). After I got up to 12x12 (and a horrible headache) he started giving me bigger numbers like 17x19 and would not let me use paper. I got 2 answers by closing my eyes and using every ounce of math brain I have available to me. I ended up with a huge headache and DS explaining to me how to break it down into 4 multiplications that you can then add up. He just can't seem to understand that I know that, I just can't hold the numbers in my head to do it. I do think it's cute that he wants to be my teacher though. I ended up having to go to bed early because my headache was so bad. I absolutely hate numbers and math
