That Descartes' Cove looks like so much fun. Where would you put that in terms of difficulty, amount of math learned? (As reference, my daughter takes AOPS Algebra and finds at least one question a session very challenging; she usually gets level 18+ but struggles with levels 20-25).
My guess is that she'd find DC low on the difficulty scale compared to AOPS algebra. The algebra adventure specifically doesn't go much beyond quadratic equations. Some of the Hypatia's Cove questions are pretty challenging, but most of the early questions are straightforward if you already know the material. (And that seems to be the way it's intended to be used: as reinforcement for people who have already basically met the techniques, followed by more challenging problems using them than are typically met in school.) Amount learned: really depends on how much of it she knows already! The links to the NCTM grades 6-8 standards which are basically what it covers from the DC site seem to be broken but I think it's roughly the same as what is
here. DS was meeting quite a lot of stuff new for the first time as he went through, at least for the early adventures (since he was also learning stuff outside DC and going through DC quite slowly - starting when we gave it to him for his 6th birthday - he know a much higher proportion of it already at the end than at the beginning!)
Is the Challenge your Pupils the problems solving strand? I couldn't tell as the textbook also looked like it was preparation for a problem solving competition.
That's right. It's simply an organised collection of questions from the Mathematics Association Primary Mathematics Challenge, which is very similar to the UKMT JMC that he's using now, but a bit easier. Some of those questions are very straightforward, but using the book let me direct him at the harder ones, since they were grouped together! Individual papers for the challenge can be downloaded free from
here (they are likely too easy for your DD though).
