Hi again! I appreciate the replies!
I'm curious how you skipped into pre-algebra... Was your son at a computation and that allowed you to skip so much computation? ... Oh and what pre-algebra program did you decide to use?
To skip him up I gave him random pages from 6th grade books for a few days. He easily made 100% on everything and was still acting bored, so, I tried 7th grade material and had the same reaction. So, I moved on to 8th grade-- he's still easily making 100% on everything but he is actually challenged. The first couple of days with pre-algebra he pounded his head on the table and whined that his head hurt while he worked. I told him it was no big deal-- we can back off and do something easier, but he insisted on finishing the work and afterwards told me it was "kinda fun". He doesn't do the head pounding thing anymore and looks forward to math for the first time in his life. I think his head hurt because he had never actually had to think about math before; it was a new feeling for him.
Skipping him up meant that he missed the introduction to some basic concepts, but he seems to be doing alright. For example, last week he was doing fraction/decimal/percent conversions such as convert 7/9 into a percent. He hadn't done any division with decimals before-- only long divison with remainders. It didn't cause a problem though. He set up the division problem, wrote the 7 as 7.00, and then proceded to divide it by 9. Since he had never before encountered decimals in division, I asked him how he knew to use a decimal. He just looked at me like I was dumb and said, "7/9 is less than 1 so of course the decimal answer has to be less than 1". We also never covered lessons that introduced negative numbers was or how to add/subtract them, but he recently completed some lengthy order-of-operation problems that resulted in negative numbers, and he got them all correct and didn't seem alarmed. My point here is that skipping him up meant that he missed some background lessons (like using decimals in division or learning what a negative number is) but it didn't stop him from being successful with more complex math problems that required that skill.
We are not using a specific curriculum right now. We had been going back and forth with Singapore Math and Horizon. I'm just using random things right now (different textbooks, online worksheets, etc) as I determine where he is with math. The pre-algebra is engaging him, but it's still coming easily. I think he'll have all the concepts down in a month or so and be ready for algebra. At that point I will get him a set curriculum and work through it sequentially. Right now, he keeps his sister's algebra book next to him while he works his pre-algebra. It's a motivator for him to finish pre-algebra-- all those algebra problems seem like candy to him and he can't wait to dive in and learn the secret of what all those letters mean!
