I loved the thread about K-12 math plans. Now another question about sequence...

[Jennefer@SSA]

What is the best order to complete upper level math courses?

When I was in school I did

PreAlgebra
Geometry
Algebra 1
Algebra 2
PreCal
Cal (if I would have made it that far!) :)

Is this the standard order or is there a better way?

TIA,
Jennefer

[OneRoomHomeSchool]

We did it like this in school:

PreAlg
Alg I
Geometry
Alg II
Pre-Calc
Calc

[Darcy from LWM3B]

We did Alg, Geometry, Alg 2, Trig/Anatlytical Geometry, then Calculus at my public high school. I dropped math at the semester my senior year because I only needed 3 credits of math to graduate in Illinois high schools, and no one told me it was a bad idea. In fact, they said it would be better to maintain my GPA and "worry about math in college" than tarnish my high school GPA and class rank with a C.

I plan to get my kids through Alg 1 and turn it all over to my hubby, who happens to have a strong math background.

I can only think through Singapore 6b right now. My mind can't wrap itself beyond that. ;)

[OneRoomHomeSchool]

I am thinking that getting geometry completed sooner (right after Alg I) was supposed to be better for SAT purposes...hopefully a more exprienced mom will chime in. :D

[Karen in CO]

Whatever the sequence, you will probably want to plan to have completed geometry by the end of tenth grade. It is part of the SAT and ACT.

Most of the non-engineering schools we looked at required 3 credits in math with Alg 2 as one of the required maths. Engineering, math,and science fields required more math.

[Jann in TX]

Most Geometry programs have the prerequisite of Algebra 1.
Most students understand Algebra 2 better after taking the 'year off' learning Geometry.

If Geometry is taken after Algebra 2 then the student will need to review Algebra 2 concepts before jumping into Pre-Calc (College Algebra and Trig)... I know this one from personal experience!

[Janice in NJ]

I did:
Algebra I in 9th
Geometry in 10th
Trigonometry in 11th
Pre-Calculus

Depending on the publisher you chose, there is a whole host of titles. :D
Many show:
Algebra I
Geometry
Algebra II
PreCalculus
Calculus

So where is trig? It gets handled in pieces throughout the sequence.

Honestly though - I was an engineering major in college and we did NOT do this much "application" back in the early 80's in high school. There is a LOT more focus on problem solving and function manipulation in these texts that we're using now than the ones I used in high school. I know; I have copies of my old books. (I found them at a garage sale. They are almost useless unless I want to pull them out to really drill a particular type of skill. Then they're great. They are full of pages of drill!) *We* had to spend SO much of our time cranking out the arithmetic; I remember. For example - when we did "real" problems with the quadratic formula, they were so much more contrived. Our teachers couldn't assign loads of word problems that weren't easy to factor. It just took us too long: -b +- the square root of b squared minus......... Doesn't it bring back memories????? It took forever to write all of that out - and then you had to do each step on that big clunker of a calculator that sat on your dad's desk - the one with the red LED numbers - you know, the one that DIDN'T have a square root button? There were tables in the back of the book for that!!!! :rolleyes:

My son has taken the time to program his graphing calculator. It prompts for A, B, and C and dumps out the two solutions. NOW the assignments can focus on more difficult set-ups with tricky ranges and answers that need to be understood rather than cranked out. Come on! How often did they ask us to throw away an answer?!!!??? We worked hard to get that answer and we were NOT going to toss it! Even if it meant that instead of the ball resting on the SURFACE of the ground, it was going to stop ten feet under the surface. X is NEGATIVE and I DON'T CARE!!!! Get a shovel; dig a hole! I worked hard extracting that value and we're keepin it!!!! :p

It's a bit of a shift.

Sure I make SURE that my kids can crank that stuff out on paper without the little black wonder-machine. But we only do one or two and then we have to grab the gizmo if we are going to keep up! Learning to understand formulas and how they express and predict data and then REVERSE it - how to fit data to formula types complete with an understanding of the range and domain of the data - now THAT'S the name of the game!!!! And that's as it should be - now that we have the ability to DO the arithmetic quickly and easily. (Just make sure your kids can do the arithmetic - no small task, I know! But they really have to be able to do both.)

I ask them things like:
How would that look if we extended the graph (on the calculator)? Graph the function and see.
OK. Predict a value for the function if x = 30. Why? What is happening to the curve? NOW think. about. real. life. What is being modeled here? Why does y do that when x = 30?
OK. Cool. Now go get the computer and pull up a blank Excel document and generate some data tables that will allow us to manipulate the formula with different y intercepts.
Call me when you are ready.

This is a LOT different from math class when I was in school.
Interesting? Yes. But very different - especially when all of the Excel data and charts have to be in pink because my dd is 12. If it's not pretty, she's not interested..... sometimes the geek in me has to wait patiently for the artist in her. sometimes...

I loved arithmetic and so I loved so much of high school math. But much of that has changed. A strong foundation in arithmetic is still VERY important, but my kids don't need to use their arithmetic as much as they need to push hard to get past it. I didn't really do that VERY much until I hit calculus in college (fall 1984). I got to spend a lot of my high school time getting really good at complex arithmetic manipulation - number crunching. That's getting compacted quite a bit.

Has anyone else noticed just HOW much the graphing calculator seems to have shifted that focus?

We did both - the arithmetic and the "thinking." It's just that the arithmetic still needed so much of our time that studying the models didn't get as much of our time.

Hmmmm... that's been my experience... so far....

Peace,
Janice in NJ

Enjoy your little people
Enjoy your journey

[Janice in NJ]

Oops. Should have been under the original post. Sorry!

[Stephanie in FL]

This is what I followed when I was in school:

6th grade - pre algebra
7th grade - algebra 1
8th - geometry
9th - Algebra 2
10th - trig at school and prob and stat at the community college (dual enrollment)
11th - Pre calculus
12th - Advanced Placement Calculus AB

What I did with my oldest son (using Saxon) is:

7th - PreAlgebra
8th - Algebra 1
9th - Algebra 2
10th - Adv Math

then he went on to public school for 11th and 12th grades.

[cajun.classical]

I followed the standard Math sequence.

Pre-Algebra (Saxon)
Algebra 1 (Saxon)
Geometry (Bob Jones)
Algebra 2 (Saxon)
Advanced Mathematics (Saxon)

However, I'm really drawn to the suggestion of doing Algebra 1 and 2 back to back. If you started early enough, Geometry would still be completed in time for the SAT and ACT.

[Lori D.]

Not all math programs have Geometry as a separate math year -- for some it is interwoven into the Algebra 1 and 2. The most common math sequence (if you are doing a separate geometry year of math) for the non-math or science major student tends to look like this:

9th gr. = Algebra 1
10th gr. = Geometry (or Algebra 2)
11th gr. = Algebra 2 (or Geometry)
12th gr. = * Pre Calculus (I believe this is "the new Trigonometry")

* = or, possible Consumer Math option

Math/science/engineering minded students will most likely have completed Algebra 1 in 8th grade, and their schedules tend to look like this, making sure that the highest level of math was completed in 12th grade (closest to college entry):

8th gr. = Algebra 1
9th gr. = Geometry (or Algebra 2)
10th gr. = Algebra 2 (or Geometry)
11th gr. = Pre Calculus (or possible Consumer Math option)
12th gr. = Calculus (or Pre Calculus, if 11th gr. = Consumer Math)



The things to keep in mind in scheduling:

1. Most Biology classes prefer the student to have completed Algebra 1, or to be taking Algebra 1 concurrently.

2. Most Chemistry classes require completion of Algebra 1 prior to taking Chemistry.

3. Some states have requirements about when/what math that homeschooled students must take.

4. Most universities require 3 years of math for entry (Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 being 2 of the 3 required years). Most community colleges do *not* have these same math requirements for entry.

5. If your student is going into math or science fields, then 4 years of math is very preferrable for university entrance -- and if the student was able to complete Calculus prior to university entrance, so much the better. Also, what "looks more inpressive" on a transcript is to have taken the highest level of math in the senior year of high school, closest to college entry.

6. If your student is not necessarily college-bound, or going to go into math or science fields, he/she may not need to take all of these levels of math, or take math in a particular order.

7. If your student is a "late bloomer" in the math field -- or hasn't really decided what field he/she is interested in pursuing -- he/she can often wait and take any math requirements until late in high school -- or even after high school graduation -- through a community college and transfer that math credit as a college level credit. (In other words, there is no such thing as a "math disaster" in scheduling -- lol.)

8. Consider including a year of Consumer Math in your math sequence to prepare your student for all the many (and complicated!) real life math situations they will encounter when they are on their own.

[Sandy in Indy]

My ds did Alg 1 and 2 back to back. The first half of Alg 2 was review, so he saved a lot of time as he was able to skip a lot of the book. Then he did geometry and will do pre-calc and calc.

[cajun.classical]

That's encouraging. Thanks.

[Sylvia in CA]

DD did

Alg 1
Geom
Alg 2
Trig (cc)
Pre-Cal (cc)
Cal 1 (cc)
Cal 2 (cc)
Our cc required a full Trig course before the Pre-Cal, instead of the "typical high school Pre-Cal course with Trig."
Will probably follow the same sequence for ds.

We found that there are
two ways to think about this:
Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 is a nice continuation of Algebra, but
Algebra 2 then Trig is a nice continuation also.
Geometry, being an isolated math discipline, can fit anywhere in there, but we need to consider the PSAT/SAT. So as mentioned before Geom should be completed before those tests.

Well, that's been our experience.

[angela in ohio]

When I was in school (late-80s), it was:
8-Algebra
9-Geometry
10-Algebra II
11-Trig/ pre-Calc
12-Calc

My dds will do it in the same order, but they will tentatively finish the sequence a year (or 3 years, for one of them at least) earlier than that, so I plan to send them off to the CC for some more math there.

[karensk]

8th: Algebra I
9th: Geometry
10th: Algebra II
11th: Trig/Pre-calculus (1 semester ea.)
12th: AP Calculus-AB (1 semester of college calculus; they also offered AP Calculus-BC for 2 semesters of college calculus)


My plan, for now, for ds10 is:

7th: Chalkdust Pre-algebra; supplemental problems from NEM-1
8th: Chalkdust Algebra I

And for 9th-12th, we'll probably do one of the following:
(1) If we're still homeschooling --

9th: Chalkdust Geometry
10th: Chalkdust Algebra II (or community college class)
11th: Chalkdust Pre-calculus (or community college class)
12th: Chalkdust Calculus (or community college class)

(2) If he's attending private school --

9th: Geometry
10th: Algebra II
11th: Trig/Pre-calc
12th: AP Calculus, either AB or BC


My plan for dd8 is the same sequence but at a possibly slower pace. She may start pre-algebra in 8th grade instead of 7th grade, pushing everything back a year. Then, the highest level of math she'd take would be trig/pre-calculus. But everything else would probably be the same re. curriculum.

[mcconnellboys]

Schools here now generally do Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, then higher maths, such as trig, pre-calc, calc, etc. Because we did our math out of senquence, with both algebras first, when my older son went back to school they completely freaked out. So if you think you might possibly have a child go back, it saves headaches to follow the local sequence in everything you do. School personnel, in general, can NOT (or will not) think outside the box.....

Regena

[Julie in GA]

I did Algebra I and II back-to-back, taking Geometry in 10th grade. I got a 650 (old scoring method, of course) for the math portion of the SAT, so it obviously wasn't a problem. I'm not sure what to do w/ my son, though. We may go from Jacobs Elem. Alg. to Geometry.

[EvergreenEclecticAcademy]

...this is the order I took math courses:

7th ~ Pre-Algebra
8th ~ Algebra I
9th ~ Algebra II
10th ~ Geometry
11th ~ Trig/Analytical Geometry
12th ~ Calculus

[Sherri in MI]

PreAlgebra - 7th
Algebra - 8th
Algebra II - 9th
Geometry - 10th
Trigonometry - 11
Math Analysis - 12

I didn't take Calculus - too scared!

Sherri

[freethinkermom]

When I was in school it was Algebra 1 - Geometry - Algebra 2 - Trig - Calculus.

I have been thinking about whether to give my oldest son algebra 2 or geometry next. We will probably use Teaching Textbooks for those. I have at least 6 months to figure it out :)