Will Beast AoPS or Russian School actually prepare kids for advanced SCHOOL math

[Anonymous]

Will either prepare your kid from 3rd-5th to be able to join advanced math levels in 6th-8th at school? Which course will better prep the kids for math in high school?

My impression is that Russian School is its own curriculum that's really focused on algebra, but not the way you would take Algebra I or II in school. And Beast Academy seems to like puzzles and dimensional thinking, and will not teach you ALL of geometry and prealgebra ... so in order to be able to seamlessly joined advanced math at school it seems like kids would need to take more "Traditional Textbook" math.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the classes will prepare a child for math acceleration, especially if your child is in the honors class. RSM focuses on teaching math the way it is taught in Eastern Europe, probably closer to how we learned in the 80’s. RSM starts a geometry class that is a separate class in 6th grade so that there are 3 years of geometry. They encourage kids to take the regular class plus the geometry class. I am pretty sure that Pre Algebra is taught in 6, Algebra in 7, and Geometry in 8.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will either prepare your kid from 3rd-5th to be able to join advanced math levels in 6th-8th at school? Which course will better prep the kids for math in high school?

My impression is that Russian School is its own curriculum that's really focused on algebra, but not the way you would take Algebra I or II in school. And Beast Academy seems to like puzzles and dimensional thinking, and will not teach you ALL of geometry and prealgebra ... so in order to be able to seamlessly joined advanced math at school it seems like kids would need to take more "Traditional Textbook" math.

Go with RSM. They reach concepts and core content. plus they have 3 levels and serves all kids.

AOPS moves fast. They introduce concepts and expect you to get it right away and then dives right away into complex problems. It’s more challenging math for kids who are really good in math and want more. It’s not so much to learn and reinforce core concepts.

[Anonymous]

RSM is better for acceleration as the lower two levels more closely match the school curriculum

[Anonymous]

You could also check out mathacademy.com for some online and self paced

[Anonymous]

Kumon is very good for this.

[Anonymous]

RSM teaches school math at high quality.

Kumon drills practice at self-pace. It pairs well with Khan that explains material but isn't great at extensive drilling.
IXL is also good at drilling school math practice.

AoPS is for kids who don't need to be "taught" school math, but get it at first glance.

An important question is what level of advanced you are looking for. (What year for Algebra 1?)
The more advanced you go, the more shortsighted drill practice is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the classes will prepare a child for math acceleration, especially if your child is in the honors class. RSM focuses on teaching math the way it is taught in Eastern Europe, probably closer to how we learned in the 80’s. RSM starts a geometry class that is a separate class in 6th grade so that there are 3 years of geometry. They encourage kids to take the regular class plus the geometry class. I am pretty sure that Pre Algebra is taught in 6, Algebra in 7, and Geometry in 8.

RSM family here. My kid is enrolled in the 'advanced' class (middle level).

In RSM, 6th graders take prealgebra & geometry 1, 7th graders take algebra 1 & geometry 2, and 8th graders take algebra 2 & geometry 3. Geometry 1-3 cover the HS level geometry class. So, in theory, in 9th grade, students should be ready for pre-calc. The reality is that what they cover in RSM is quite a bit, but not all of the curriculum.

Example - my kid is in 7th, in algebra 1 in school and in RSM. RSM goes much deeper/more practice on some topics, but school covers topics RSM so far hasn't touched. For example, in quadratics, school class has kids move between standard form and vertex form and do graphing. That is not happening in RSM for us in the 'advanced' class. So some aspects of school are easy for my kid because he has covered it, but others aren't and he really needs to focus to learn the school-based material. I would not be comfortable putting my kid in pre-calc in 9th. RSM has been good to develop strong math skills, but my kid will be following the "advanced" track in MCPS and enrolling in Algebra 2 in 9th. It's not required and you can request testing out and going straight to precalc, but I am not comfortable that all the algebra 2 standards would have been covered in RSM.

May be different with the honors version of RSM, which moves faster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the classes will prepare a child for math acceleration, especially if your child is in the honors class. RSM focuses on teaching math the way it is taught in Eastern Europe, probably closer to how we learned in the 80’s. RSM starts a geometry class that is a separate class in 6th grade so that there are 3 years of geometry. They encourage kids to take the regular class plus the geometry class. I am pretty sure that Pre Algebra is taught in 6, Algebra in 7, and Geometry in 8.

RSM family here. My kid is enrolled in the 'advanced' class (middle level).

In RSM, 6th graders take prealgebra & geometry 1, 7th graders take algebra 1 & geometry 2, and 8th graders take algebra 2 & geometry 3. Geometry 1-3 cover the HS level geometry class. So, in theory, in 9th grade, students should be ready for pre-calc. The reality is that what they cover in RSM is quite a bit, but not all of the curriculum.

Example - my kid is in 7th, in algebra 1 in school and in RSM. RSM goes much deeper/more practice on some topics, but school covers topics RSM so far hasn't touched. For example, in quadratics, school class has kids move between standard form and vertex form and do graphing. That is not happening in RSM for us in the 'advanced' class. So some aspects of school are easy for my kid because he has covered it, but others aren't and he really needs to focus to learn the school-based material. I would not be comfortable putting my kid in pre-calc in 9th. RSM has been good to develop strong math skills, but my kid will be following the "advanced" track in MCPS and enrolling in Algebra 2 in 9th. It's not required and you can request testing out and going straight to precalc, but I am not comfortable that all the algebra 2 standards would have been covered in RSM.

May be different with the honors version of RSM, which moves faster.

How do you know the RSM curriculum? I assume this is just the middle level. Do you know what topics are covered in the other grades?

DS is in 2nd grade level 3 and they have done simple equations with variables, multiplication, area, and perimeter. I would like to know what they cover in 3rd-8th each year. The school has seemed really secretive with their curriculum and it’s hard to get answers.

[Anonymous]

Take this as just anecdote but our experience with RSM has been poor. Bad teaching, felt like a factory. Have also used beast academy materials at home, liked them.

[Anonymous]

To PPs with kids in RSM: is the jump from Advanced to Honors pretty significant? Our DS is in 2nd Advanced, and they are recommending that she move to Honors next year. They also tried to get us to do it for 2nd (move from 1st Accelerated to Honors).

She is good at math / top of her class, but she 100% needs to be taught everything (can't self teach) and needs repetition. She's not a gets-it-at-first-glance kid, the way I've seen some people describe RSM Honors and AoPS. Should I be worried about moving her up to Honors?

I know you can always move down, but since you have to plan your fall schedule around this two-hour block, it's nice to get it right the first time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To PPs with kids in RSM: is the jump from Advanced to Honors pretty significant? Our DS is in 2nd Advanced, and they are recommending that she move to Honors next year. They also tried to get us to do it for 2nd (move from 1st Accelerated to Honors).

She is good at math / top of her class, but she 100% needs to be taught everything (can't self teach) and needs repetition. She's not a gets-it-at-first-glance kid, the way I've seen some people describe RSM Honors and AoPS. Should I be worried about moving her up to Honors?

I know you can always move down, but since you have to plan your fall schedule around this two-hour block, it's nice to get it right the first time.

How is she with puzzles, shapes manipulations and logic? Plenty of kids in honors 2 don’t get placed into honors 3 because the expectations are much higher in 3 (even 3 advanced). As a parent who has had kids in advanced and Honors, Honors requires a lot more math competition type of logical and multi step thinking. IMO the Honors kids should be kids who problem solve in different ways and try different formulas and strategies and don’t get discouraged or put off my wrong answers. They should be comfortable with abstract thinking. Should definitely know their multiplication and division facts down without having to think.

[Anonymous]

RSM Honors is comparable to AoPS classes. My kid did both of the classes. He had no problem in AoPS and had no problem in RSM Honors. He ended up in the Math COmpettiion program and loves that. He dropped the grade level RSM.

[Anonymous]

Doing Kumon from preK - 3rd/4th grade or even 1-4th really is beneficial in getting down all math facts and computational addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Kumon emphasizes speed and accuracy. My kids did Kumon up through level E or F which is fractions /decimals.

Becoming fast and accurate makes doing extra math work a breeze because school math takes only a few minutes to do. Being able to instantly reduce fractions , change between decimals and fractions, and quickly add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions makes algebra so much easier.

Then one of my kids who loves math moved in to AOPS pre algebra and continued through the series (doing the books not the classes).

The other moved through Singapore math then took online algebra and higher level classes. This child was a string math student but doesn’t love math. There is no point in doing AOPS with a child who doesn’t adore math and want to think about math problems. It was much more efficient to directly teach math so math at school was never new. Teachers saw those children as amazing at math when in actuality child was a good math student who was accelerated due to all the work. Sibling is the one with the real math talent.

We aren’t white or Asian but I grew up in CA with many Korean friends. I learned getting ahead and being exposed to new concepts allows you to be a top math student. So I did the same with my kids who are now in high school easily getting A’s in most advanced math classes. Being told all your life how good you are in math builds confidence.

[Anonymous]

Yes, of course. They teach your child to think mathematically. I prefer Beast Academy. More fun.