I just wanted to say Thank you to all the parents who have enrolled students and made this program possible, and for all your patience and understanding while I learned how to run the program and troubleshoot problems. We now have 60 students and are continuing to grow.

Are you still accepting students into your fold?

Our school initially said they would cover EPGY, but are now back-pedaling a bit... so I may have to foot the bill myself.

Is there any functional difference between going through your group and paying the $$$ to go direct through EPGY? I understand the no direct tech support, but is the content, pacing or general functionality any different?

If there's a thread that already discusses this, please feel free to point me in that direction.

Yes, I am still taking students.

The online material is the same as used in the individual program. The difference is that you are the teacher versus paying for one of their "tutors" to be available to you. I am then the liason between you and EPGY. So you email me first and if needed I will then in turn forward the problem to the right person at EPGY. There are two settings of instruction available, and some individual settings based on the student.

The original thread http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/52282/1.html

Melissa,
I PM'ed you. Thank you.

Have others been enjoying EPGY as much as we have? Thanks again to Melissa, et. al. for making it possible! Our DS5 gets basically no math in Kindergarten, so this is really the only place he gets to learn math at all formally. He plays a lot with various math games outside of EPGY too, but that's always so hit-or-miss. I love the idea that he's learning a full curriculum so that we'll have some idea how to place him next year.

So a question: Does anyone know how the EPGY math curriculum relates to what gets taught in schools? The emphasis on set theory seems a little odd, and not really what I remember from my childhood. But I may just be out of touch. If he's finished with Grade X in EPGY, do you suppose he should be prepared for Grade X+1 in the regular classroom? Grade X? Grade X+2? The Kindergarten teachers have been very supportive, and they seem simply to assume that he will be subject accelerated in math next year. But it would be good to have some idea what grade to recommend.

BB

We really like it too. My DS is also 5 and gets no math in Kindergarten and loves to play his math game (that's what he calls it:) ) at home. He does love the Language Arts as much but I think he needs a little more teaching in that area before he truly understand what they're talking about.

I have no idea if grade 1 corresponds to 1st grade or not.

what is the cost for this Math? Is everyone taking the same grade of Math or class? How do I find out more?

I don't really know how to answer your question but you might consider looking at your state dept of education and see if it is the same information. Will you get a report of your son's EPGY math mastery or testing so the school has a guide for placement?

Look for the EPGY thread on here. There's a group that you can join if there are spaces for $135 per school year. So much cheaper than doing it on your own.

We're really liking EPGY too. I also wondered how it compared to since DS has progressed from the K stuff to 2.6 already. He does 1 session a day for the most part and is loving the math races he has to do before each session (started at gr 2 lvl)

He only does the language arts about once a week. He doesn't like it as much but it starts at grade 2 and that seems about perfect since he's high 80s/low 90s on it.

DS is also about the same range for the language arts. I realized that he figured out that the topic sentence is usually the first one in the paragraph so I'm not sure if he really knows what it means or not

Here is the link to EPGY's answer to that question: http://epgy.stanford.edu/overview/faq.html#other

I am being told by other parents that it really depends on the program. For most it is at least the same as the school level, many above. I have heard that it is a little behind Singapore Math at the 5th grade level for the standard edition. Then again, Singapore math has always been ahead of US classes by about 1/2 a year in the younger years and by about 2 years by the time they reach 7th. I do believe this is beginning to change, it also depends on the edition of Singapore you are comparing.

The biggest advantage I see is that it is considered a rigorous program, and by many a complete math program, that allows the child to move at their own pace. I know of parents who use it alone and many of us who use it in additon to other programs. I am of the philosphy that their isn't one way to teach math, so my kids all use, at least , two different math programs.

Another thought, and this is personal opinion only so feel free to step in here anyone. I think that it is prudent to supplement the EPGY program, especially in the early years, to keep concepts current and fresh in kids minds, especially those that build on others. Not to say that can't be done in many different ways. It doesn't have to be redundant, repetative or boring.

Very useful, Melissa - thanks. Do you have any recommendations for particularly successful supplements? Our DS has recently re-discovered Timez Attack and now is absolutely addicted; last year, by contrast, he was too scared of the troll even to concentrate on the questions. So I know that these things are pretty personal. But if anything leaps to mind I'd love to know.

BB

My dd uses Singapore Standards Edition and EPGY. Singapore is matched to CA state math standards, which is supposed to be advanced compared to other states. It does seem to run about 1/2 year ahead, as has been mentioned. EPGY seems to be about at level, though that would depend on your state. (The two areas that EPGY seemed to introduced earlier were set theory and variables)

Gamewise-
My DD used Thinkmath! to play around with in K. It's Harcourt's website, so you can select your state and the games will appear in grade level order, correlated to your state standards. He/she can work at any level up through grade 5. There's a great variety of games in all areas of elementary math.

http://www.hbschool.com/thinkmath/choose_state.html

Curriculum wise, Miquon math and cuisennaire rods laid the most thorough understanding of the relationships in mathematics I could ever hope for. We did that before Singapore.

I wanted to add one impression about EPGY. It seems to be a gifted program in flexibility, rather than in covering material at earlier grades, assuming that your state has solid math standards.

EPGY may cover a few things before the ps, but it's greatest advantage to the child is the freedom to work at his own pace without excessive repitition, and being allowed to progress to the next level, regardless of age, once mastery is attained.

IOW, completing EPGY level "Q" at home would prepare a child for level "R" in ps next year. BUT, being allowed to master "Q", "R" and "S" (or whatever his capabilities actually are) with EPGY this year will prepare him for "T" in public school next year.

BB,
Well I use a multitude of things as mentioned. My younger kids all use Singapore Math Standards Edition books as their main program. A big thing to mention there is that in order to really get the benefit of Singapore Math you really need all of it, the Home instructor's Guide is a big part of the program, the text and workbooks, as well as the Challenging Word Problems. One of my DD's also uses the extra practice and some use the Intensive Practice which I will probably add in soon. I know some get away without the textbook and I have found that true for some of the units. There are pretests for placement.

We dabble with Aleks quicktables a few times a week, since I had already subscribed before EPGY (till it runs out we use it). We might do a few Kumon pages or games on www.fun4thebrain.com or the Hartcourt site mentioned above. We also sometimes use the workbook pages from the Sadlier-Oxford CA edition books or Math Mammoth, since they are really cheap to download the book and print pages as you need them, good with more kids coming up.

My older was in public school so she uses EPGY and we are now adding in the Key to Series books, the one or two of the Decimals and Percent books she didn't test completely out of and the Algebra series. We are set to start Lial's Basic College Mathematics probably after Thanksgiving. She always used Kumon books as well.

MamaTo2,
Are Cuisinaire rods like the mathlinks rods I use from Learning Resources? Ten rows of ten that can all be interlocked on all sides? We do a lot with manipulatives in the younger years. HTH

Cuisenaire rods may be the same. They come in a set of various sizes/colors, each representing a different number. The base unit is a square centimeter, and then they increase in size up to 10cm. So, if I put two 1's together, I can see that it doubles in size to 2, two 2s make 4, etc... One thing that was very helpful was having the rod track , which is marked with cm units and makes seeing the relationships easy.

I had initially thought they would be good just for illustrating the 4 operations, but we used them for other concepts.

Showing place value: Whenever the one's column got over nine cubes, we exchanged it for a solid ten rod and put it in the ten's column.

Showing balanced equations using a balance scale: I put a 3 and 2 rod on one side, and a 5 rod on the other. They were perfectly balanced. Anything I did to one side would make the scale tilt until I did the same on the other.

Showing volume of geometric solids: I made cubes of various sizes from graph paper and filled the cubes with the 1cm cuisenaire cubes to show volume, as opposed to area.

Melissa,
I just tried to PM you but it's not going through.
Are you still accepting people into your open enrollment group? or do you anticipate doing so in the future? I was hoping to join the group when you first started talking about is last summer, but somehow I missed the thread....
Thanks.

My son used EPGY math when he was younger and loved it. It also provided me with documentation to provide the school. I was able to use that documentation to get the school to give my son the end of year test. You should be able to get the scope and sequence for each course taught in your school from your school board. You can compare that to the scope and sequence provided for each EPGY course.

The EPGY math courses for the elementary grades covers more than what is covered in most schools for that same grade. This software is designed for gifted math students so it has material that prepares them for higher level math. Sets are an example of something that gets covered very briefly in school but is covered more extensively in EPGY. Another is proofs of solving equations that you will see on EPGY but probably not at your school.

The ability to learn math though EPGY was a lifesaver for my son. He is now 13 and is about to take the Calc 2 challenge exam at the state university.

Yes! Thank you Melissa for putting up with the hassle of dealing with 60 of us to get this program going! EPGY has allowed DS to find his pace, and we wouldn't have been able to do it without your co-op.

I wish I had known about this group's EPGY group before signing on through our school district! I think it would have been more beneficial to DS5. We love EPGY as it's allowed him to set the pace and learn so many new things - while his class is working on the numbers 1-10. He loves to learn and hopefully this keeps him interested!

We are now passing 90 students and growing! It's great to see so many families being able to benefit from the program.

Wow! Are you planning on capping it as some point and are you going to do this again when it is time to re-enroll in June?

I notice that they've changed the requirements to be a group -- down to 8 and it says something about the group members living w/in reasonable geographical distance of one another. Does the geographical distance requirement negatively impact us at all?

I will cap the group when it becomes a burden on my time and responsibilities to my family. I have another parent willing to help when EPGY deems the group large enought to add an SSA. The yahoo group is run by another volunteer parent. With five children, my youngest turning two next month, I plan to be doing this for a while.

I don't know of any reason the geographical distance would negatively impact anyone in the group. It began that you could only join if you were part of a group formed by your school district and has expanded from there. I imagine it would benefit you if there was a group in your area that was active outside of EPGY. There is one really big homeschool group in the Open Enrollment that is very active within their community and has hundreds of students. You could certainly say there is more benefit to be part of a group like that if it is available to you.

I think the not to many repetions and advancing at one's level would be great for my son. Is there more depth in this math to be geared to gifted? Does this generate reports that show progress and Mastery. Is there enrichment activities to slow the advancement to the next grade, yet provide more depth?

If there is no teacher, then does it become very time consuming for the parent? Or the supervising teacher at school.

Is it correct that we could join this and do what ever grade of Math we want? Is this just Math?

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I haven't had any negative impact at all . I was more concerned that they might not allow us to do this again next year given our geographical dispersion. Their webpage now says that students in one group must all live w/in a reasonable geographical distance from one another although they didn't define what they were considering reasonable.

The policy for groups hasn't really changed. It used to be written - within a school district. The question and response from EPGY regarding our demographics is here http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/50559/1.html just page down a few responses.

Just click on the links mentioned in this thread. There are literally pages of information on the group available. Otherwise click on my name and search my posts for EPGY.