Our sequence was SG Maths K thru 5 (she skipped the 4th grade one because she passed the final test). Then she did Lure Of The Labyrinth for fun. About a month after her 9th birthday she started AoPS PreAlgebra. I worked with her for the first couple of weeks because stood in stark contrast to SGM and her B&M public school 4th grade curriculum. It is dry and rigorous but very engaging nevertheless because there are no frivolous distractions to be found here.
After the first fortnight she hit her stride and was able to teach herself from the book, she enjoyed the tutorial session but felt that was not necessary if she had done the prep beforehand. The real value was in the set challenging questions and in the one written question set each week. The feedback on the written problem proved to be where the true value of taking the actual online course was for my DD it has taught her the value of showing her work as the articulation of a logical train of thought somebody else can followinstead of being an onerous chore.
The only downside (and this would not apply to a homeschoolers) is that it took its toll on her time in addition to regular homework so we got her Maths teacher in 4th grade to agree to let her do the week's bookwork in class time after the group work was done. She still did all of the regular class work but during the individual work/practice time she did the AoPS work. This way the teacher was assured that she would do well on the EOY test while we in turn were reassured that our DD was still being challenged. We photocopied the weekly chapter sessions so our DD didn't work on AoPS too conspicuously.
My DD will be taking the Algebra1 next week. We had the meeting with this year's Maths teacher last Friday and she was very supportive of our DD doing the AoPS work in class time. This was primarily because last year's teacher had already briefed her and was positive about how things had gone last year. Reading some of the horror stories here showing how some (bad) teachers deal with gifted kids makes us realise just how lucky we are to have had teachers that have not battled us or our DD. God willing, long may this last!
I hope this helps.
Sorry to leave this incomplete earlier was waiting for a tow truck that arrived so I had to cut it short earlier.
Last edited by madeinuk; 10/18/14 06:47 PM.
