Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy What's your school's math order?

Removed

My kids are too young to have this discussion yet, but I had no acceleration opportunities before high school. So I took Geometry and Algebra 2 the same year. If I remember correctly, it was totally fine to do them together and it would have been fine to do them in either order as well. I went on to get a BS in math (and comp sci) so I wasn't too scarred from that experience (I am a bit scarred by my whole elementary school experience, but that's another story!)

We're not even trying to go in the "right" order, so take this with a grain of salt, but the geometry we've done so far (and what I remember from my own education) requires only the most minimal of algebraic skills. I mean that it is of the 2x+1 sort that most HG+ kids understand innately, without any real teaching, even from a very young age. DS7 has had no trouble with the algebraic parts of the geometry we've done so far.

Theorems and proofs require logic and problem-solving skills that algebra might help to develop, but I don't think there's any general necessity to have algebra 2 before geometry. I think that's just a personal choice or the choice of the school system.

I freely admit that I could be wrong, however!

Another caveat: I'm sure it is possible to introduce more algebra into geometry, especially in terms of area, circumference, etc. So if your school suggests taking alg 2 before geometry, I think I would respect that unless you have a good reason not to. Better safe than sorry.

Well, I'm pretty sure this meandering post doesn't help you at all. Sorry!

kriston: what geometry have you done so far? have you put this together or are you using a currciulum?

Dazey

Like Kriston, we're not even trying to do the standard math order... so maybe two grains of salt

To start with, the curriculum we're using (as a "spine" -- not as our be-all-end-all), is Singapore NEM. The pattern they follow is two years of alternating Algebra and Geometry (approximately a half-year of each, each year), such that at the end of the two years you've finished Geometry and something close to Algebra 1 (their algebra sequence isn't quite the same either... so there's a little Algebra 2 in there, and also a little Algebra 1 missing). Then we complicate it by supplementing with a bunch of other stuff and messing about with whatever we feel like, so our sequence so far has been:

2007-08 Algebra 1 (using three different sources - eek! and skipping around in NEM 1 & 2), a little geometry (reading Euclid, playing with Zome), and dabbling in statistics and programming.

2008-09 Statistics (and some SAS programming), a little geometry (Zome with a group), and dabbling in Algebra 2. Wish us luck on this one -- he's been playing around with Statistics long enough and he's solid enough in the rest of his math that I think we can do it, but it sounds ridiculous, even to me.

2009-10 (subject to change of course!) finish formal Geometry and Algebra 2, and maybe do a little more with the Stats depending on what he thinks of it all at the end of next year, or maybe a little programming.

2010-11 ...uh.... good question. Probably something that would count as Algebra 3/ Trig/ Precalc. Maybe some more Geometry too...

All this is colored by his being ridiculously young for any of it, and IMO too young to "specialize" for a whole year in a single topic. (Not that there's a magic age for that, just that I think he's not ready yet.) So we dabble. And although Statistics isn't traditionally part of the whole curriculum (and definitely not usually done before Algebra 2), the "dabbling" contingency means anything that turns up in Statistics that he can't do with what he already knows (and my recollection is that there isn't a ton...) we can remedy on the side.

It's not something that I would necessarily recommend if I weren't homeschooling, just because of the dozen ways it could go wrong if you're not on top of it to anticipate issues. For instance I would hate for him to find himself adrift in Statistics because there was one little quibbly point, formula, or vocabulary that didn't make sense because of a gap in his earlier math education. But because we have the flexibility to change courses mid-stream, or to take a week off and remedy a gap, this way has been great fun in a flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of way

Our school allows alg 1 in 7th, geo in 8th and then alg 2 in 9th. This is for kids who pass a test in 6th to be able to start this sequence in 7th. That is the class order they always go in no matter when the sequence is started. I think Dottie is right that geometry seems pretty stand alone, so I'm not sure it matters where it comes in.

We usually have Alg 1 in 8th or 9th, Alg 2 in 9th or 10th, Geometry in 10th or 11th. I like E&C Mom's earlier start order.

I'm using Painless Geometry by Lynette Long. I have no idea if it's hated or well-respected or what; it's just a book I found on the library shelves among lots of other books when I was looking for geometry materials. I flipped through the armful of stuff that I found, and I liked this better than the other stuff. It seemed to fit where we are.

It is more experiment-based than the other materials I found, so DS7 can see that what the book is teaching is true. I like this problem-solving approach. It is real geometry, not the "this is a triangle" stuff that passes for grade-school geometry. It uses theorems and even proofs, but it doesn't get bogged down with them, as I remember geometry doing in my jr. high class. It's more gentle. (And BTW, I liked proofs, but I can't imagine asking a 7yo to slave away over them!) It moves at a fairly easy pace. It doesn't have much arithmetic or algebra (we're on page 95 of 300 or so), so I don't have to require that he memorize his times tables yet. If there is a workbook, I didn't get it, so it doesn't require that DS7 do workbook problems. That's a plus right now. It has challenge problems fairly regularly spaced through the chapters that stretch logic and make him really think about how the figures work, what the rules are.

I'm babbling a bit, but for a 7yo visual-spatial kid who is ripe for math but not loving arithmetic right now, it's been an astonishingly good fit.

And I'm with Erica: I like that we can jump around and follow our noses, weird though it may seem. I know we'll have some gaps as we go along, given that we're doing geometry before we do long division. (!) But we have plenty of time to spiral back around and fill the gaps in as we need to. I'm not worried about it. Heaven knows, DS7 is learning and loving to learn! What more can I ask for, really?

Does that answer your question, Dazey? I feel like I'm just rambling incoherently...

We have an "integrated" curriculum where they do some of each every year. So my son is in the first year of the 4 year high school sequence and he has done some algebra, some geometry, some statistics, some probability, some trig. They will go into more depth on each of these and add other topics for each year. In some ways it isn't a bad idea, except it really causes problems if you move in our out of the district because the kids are way out of sync with the rest of the world!

My dd's school offers the following sequence after lower school math: pre-algebra, algebra I, algebra II, geometry, pre-calculus, calculus (the pre-calculus and calculus are usually a class of one or two students that are really advanced in math) in that order. We have excellent math teachers in the middle school and are getting a math specialist in the lower school for next year. Kids are also allowed to choose Math as their LEAP class (Every wednesday children decide what subjects to study and they spend 4 or 5 hours of the day in their chosen subject).