BEAST ACADEMY MATH vs. SINGAPORE MATH | 3RD GRADE MATH CURRICULUM FOR HOMESCHOOL COMPARISON REVIEW!

what's up my knockouts this is nikki with that homeschool life in today's video i'm going to be comparing homeschool math curricula for third grade that will be beast academy and primary mathematics also known as singapore math stay tuned [Music] hey guys welcome back it's nikki and if you're looking for real honest and practical homeschooling information you're in the right place now with this comparison between beast academy and singapore math aka primary mathematics i'm going to focus on several areas i'm going to focus on price key features pros cons my recommendations and teacher involvement so what is that six um areas now before we get started i do have a math playlist and i have more videos on beast academy and singapore math where i go more in depth over each program so you might want to check that out watch this video first and then go check out those other videos for more detailed information okay let's go now let's flip to the table of contents to see how primary mathematics starts off versus beast academy there's your table of contents for singapore on your left and the table of contents for beast on the right so let's look at the breakdown of the table of contents now you'll see here that singapore divides the book up into units so there are five units for singapore okay and then you have your chapters within each unit and then you have a unit review beast has three chapters per book let me just get pulled out beast has three chapters per book so you have chapter one it's on shapes chapter two skip counting chapter three perimeter and area okay now singapore has five units numbers two ten thousand and then you have your unit review and then unit two addition and subtraction and then you have your unit review and then you go into multiplication and division unit review and then unit 4 multiplication tables of 6 7 and 8 and 9 and then your unit review and then unit five data analysis your fifth unit review that's for the first semester now for b's this would be half of your first semester that was 3a let's get 3b so you need two beast academy books to equal one book for singapore so we had to refresh we had chapters 1 chapter 2 chapter 3. now let's continue we're in 3b now okay we have chapter 4 multiplication chapter five perfect squares chapter six the distributive property now let's compare multiplication and division with these two books okay so let's turn to singapore or primary mathematics this is our yellow book that's page 68. we're just going to compare how they introduce um well i'll be doggone the page is torn out what i'm sorry guys the page is torn out all right well that was the introductory page i have no idea why that page is missing but it is so let me just show you the rest of the chapter though so for beast this is the breakdown for chapter four going into multiplication okay that's what that looks like now one of the key differences between beast and singapore is that beast academy is a comic book style or graphic novel style textbook that's the big difference between the two now singapore this is what it looks like for multiplication now this is the textbook but my uh last child i had i let them write in it because i don't have any more children so that's what that looks like for singapore this is singapore primary mathematics these are the first couple of pages for multiplication okay i want you to see how it looks and you see these orange squares that's where you write your answer so if you did not get the workbook for singapore math you could have your your child right in the textbook okay that's the multiplication and then you you see you start getting your word problems singapore does lots of word problems as does beast okay tells you right now more word problems okay and then you start getting into your rods okay rods are a big part rods are really like the foundation of primary mathematics and people sometimes call them cuisinart rods okay and then you have your practice review what you see you have a lot of review okay you could always print this out and have your child work on it or write this on a whiteboard okay and then it continues on okay but you see how they break it down they have kids talking it out lots of opportunities to work the problems on the page in the textbook okay now and then the pins just show you where to go in the workbook to do additional problems okay that's what those pins are for now let's hop on over to beast i'll just finish flipping through here that's the multiplication and you see here how they break it down okay and i'll just get you to the end of this chapter or the end of this review okay and that's what multiplication looks like in singapore math now let's move over to beast which is easy to to see because it's the comic book style so this is your multiplication and it starts off with the story i might have to go it starts off with a story okay and it eases into the math fairly quickly you see here by the third panel they're already talking about uh repeated edition so they slowly go into it and just so you know there are seven characters i think seven characters and beasts and they all have different levels of learning ability and you have the super super smart and then the child who just never gets it you got the average student and so there's always the smart child you know saying stuff off the top of the head and then grog who was like what oh good he breaks it down and then everything comes together so i like that they have the different characters with the different math ability so your child could see him or herself as one of those characters okay so we're still talking they're still talking about multiplication but it revs up okay we're still going still going still going okay so they're giving they're giving you multiplication and a real world delivery format okay now we get some extra information here in the gray box the gray boxes gives you additional information then we move over to where we start to do work work and whenever you see a red bar that's giving you information in this case it's saying print a blank times table at beastacademy.com and you're going to start writing doing the work okay you see how they start their multiplication and then it goes on and they practice multiple times how to do the multiplication chart okay and here they give you tips and the red stop signs gives you tells you the red stop sign gives some kind of command something that you're going to do okay or something to print out or it'll just tell you hey work this problem come up with it what do you what do you got see here what other easy rows and columns can you find okay so those are additional prompts to get your child thinking and doing the work okay i think we're still on multiplication there you go look it continues and the the characters they're talking this out so i don't know if you guys know this but um math conversations are very key talking things out aloud seeing how you seeing the process of how you arrive at an answer okay this is going to be a long video guys so i'm just going to focus on one segment which is the multiplication i don't want this video to be too long we're still on multiplication okay it gives you lots of ways lots of ways for to practice okay and they always present the problems with multiple ways or rather they show you different ways of doing the problem and that i really like not everybody can do you know a problem one way so you'll get multiple ways that's why there's so many pages okay and once you're done with that um section it tells you the practice page to go to to work okay okay so i just really wanted you to see how multiplication is taught in beast academy and how it's taught in singapore math okay so i know that segment was a little a little long but i wanted you to kind of see the thought process and for each book the approach so then you can kind of see how that aligns with your child's learning style and with your teaching style so key features now beast academy is a comic book graphic novel format that's pretty obvious okay that's the main uh differentiation between the two right but primary mathematics is no slouch it has color it has students all throughout and they talk they have dialogue boxes right and it's for it to be a very challenging program it doesn't look challenging okay this looks very uh friendly okay very friendly so both programs are visually appealing they have characters or children that talk and that makes it more um at the level more friendly toward your your child your student okay now one key difference between the two is that beast academy is not teacher-intensive you can give your child the guidebook also known as the textbook and beast even recommends this you could give your child this guidebook and they can read it from front to back before they do anything in the practice book okay and then after they read it they can go work the problems in the practice book you know at their own pace okay so conceivably you could just have your child read this and then sit with your child just to kind of go over some of the practice to see how much they've retained from reading now with singapore it is teacher intensive okay and why i say that is because with bees it's this and then go do your work but with singapore it has and this is what singapore is known for manipulatives okay and you use the milita you use the manipulatives through its three-step approach which is called the concrete pictorial abstract um approach which is here at the beginning of the book they go over that and what that means okay so concrete is just another way of just saying things you hold in your hot little hands okay singapore math has in the home instructor guide it has a list of all the manipulatives that you will need for the semester and then for the entire year and for the beginning of 3a you're going to be using these base blocks you can see mine are pretty worn been chewed on by by the dogs uh cuisinaire rods they come in different different sizes come in different colors there are 10 of them i'll just show you a couple and you'll be using uh cubes cubes you'll be using a place value chart and a disc okay now i do have a link um in my playlist where i talk about math manipulatives and i talk about that in more depth but the key difference between the two is that beast academy is open and go and singapore you're going you the teacher you're going to have to look in the home instructor guide and see how they're using the manipulatives and then teach that to your child especially if you're new now once you get used to the program sometimes you won't even need the home instructor guide unless you just want a different ideal or something to kind of you know teach something or if your child is going through some challenging concepts or problems you might want to check out the home instructor guide for some ideals using the manipulatives but just know you will as the teacher be putting some work in with singapore math if you want to get the full benefit of the cpa approach okay now one key feature that beast academy has for the practice book and this is what they look like the practice book for each they're both black and white but the one thing that i really like about these is that the practice book summarizes key concepts the characters are still there and there's and the characters are still talking to the children okay and the problems are presented in very creative ways very creative ways if you recall the first chapter in 3a is on shapes okay so again you have your characters and they're reviewing those key concepts and then you start your problems down here now with primary mathematics it's black and white it doesn't give you any review of any of the concepts that you were just reading about and working on in the textbook but they do give you lots of practice problems to work on you can see here it does give you lots of variety for how to work the problem okay so you see here all the different ways to work these problems i guess it would have been better to compare the multiplication let's say we're going to compare the practice books so let's look at multiplication hopefully the pages aren't ripped out now okay one of the things that i love about these is that each section in the practice book reviews the key concepts for that section or that chapter the characters are back and they have a dialogue and then you have your problems so that's multiplication that's the first page of multiplication for the workbook or your practice book this is beast academy this is singapore math so singapore doesn't tell you any review or doesn't like give you a hint over what you learn no nothing it just says here right start working write the numbers so this is the difference let me just show you so b's you have your characters the characters are reviewing the key concept from that section and then you always have here on this side you have what you're working on right there and then you have your problems and then for singapore you just jump straight into the problems straight into the problems okay so that's the main difference let's turn the page on beast remember we're comparing multiplication so and one thing also that i like about these is that the problems are so creative you're not going to get bored doing the same thing over and over this is multiplication okay you still have your characters talking to you you still have your characters talking to you and it's still you still have you know the next section in the book is up here they're giving you some more tips or hints and then you fill that out and then it starts to ramp up and then your child says i don't want to do this but he did finish and then for singapore now singapore does give you lots of different ways to do multiplication okay you see here so you have lots of different ways to do the multiplication and show you another page so that's singapore now let's go to the challenging word problems okay now beast does have challenging problems they are the problems with stars by them in the practice book this is what the challenging word problems look like okay it's just a it's um you have very few problems because they're quite challenging and you're going to spend quite a bit of time working on them okay so that's the multiplication section in the challenging word problems so just to give you an idea and this is if you want to challenge your your child okay okay so i hope that gives you some kind of idea what the practice books look like and then the challenging word problems if you want to go further with that and so those are the key um differences and the key similarities between the two programs now just so you know beast academy does have an online version i have a video that talks about that and i also discuss how you can use the books and the online version that's another video okay pros both programs are very challenging they are richly illustrated lots of color and they approach difficult concept in a very laid-back non-threatening manner so those are definite pros beast has the comic book graphic style approach which will appeal to a lot of students okay um singapore math has the manipulatives which appeals to a lot of kids who like something that's hands-on something something they can see and feel and manipulate so those are great options for each program you can't go wrong another pro is that would be your teacher manual okay your teacher guide your home instructor guide whatever you want to call it so beast academy doesn't have one that you can buy you're going to have to become macgyver and do some jedi mind tricks to make your own teacher guide for beast academy but since they don't have one let's start with singapore math i love this book it really goes over so many ways on how you can teach the singapore way basically now i do have a video on the home instructor guide so i'm not going to spend too much time on this just watch that video it's in my math playlist and i specifically show you how to use that but just know that with the two programs singapore math is teacher intensive if you want it to be why do i say that you have lots of manipulatives that you're going to use throughout the year this is for 3a these are your manipulatives now you not only need to know what they are you need to know how to use them okay so that might require some time on your part and then you have to teach using those manipulatives this is for uh 3b these are the materials that you'll need okay and just so you know a lot of a lot of these manipulatives are in the back of the book and you can just print them out and and keep rolling i personally like something more durable because i got three boys so i i prefer something hands-on now for beast academy you're going to have to go to beastacademy.com head over to resources click planning and then scroll down and click three different sections the chapter overview the standards and the sequence those three areas that you're going to three sections you're going to print to get your teacher guide okay so we're going to compare the multiplication section in the home instructor guide for singapore math and then the bootleg macgyver version i printed out online from beast academy but nevertheless they did put something out there so this is what it looks like for primary mathematics so you're going to have your objectives vocabulary notes and then you'll have some kind of illustrations so you can see visually what you're going to be doing or teaching and then you have your answers to the textbook and the workbook then you go into the teaching and it's given you all kinds of examples things to watch out for you'll have some vocabulary words highlight it okay so this would this is all just going into multiplication okay also have materials now i'm just showing you all the pages for multiplication okay this isn't like one day or one lesson this is all of the the multiplication stuff for that chapter or unit okay so you get an idea it really really is thorough you have your activity all of that okay so that's for singapore math that is the teacher guide and then for beast you know they try you know they have um don't worry about the sequence i covered that in a different video they give you the overview they give you some visual some illustrations some key vocabulary words some tips to get you going but just know they don't do this for every chapter it's slim pickings for a number of chapters and i do believe they said they were going to they are working on expanding more information for all the chapters but you see here this is only wait that was one two it's only two pages so two pages for the educator to get the information they need to teach and then singapore had eight nine ten eleven twelve it had a lot so that's just something to be mindful of okay now the cons beast academy has no teacher manual and for the most challenging math curriculum out there math curricula it should have it should have something for the parents or the educators and the little bit that beast does make available is hidden on its website a lot of parents don't know it exists and then once you find it you have to print it out and figure out what order you want to put everything together you know it's it's it's no it's not going to work they actually need something tangible that a parent or educator can actually use that's my first con my second con is there are no assessments no tests i think for solid strong challenging programs really any program you want to see how much your child is retaining that way you can see if there are any gaps along the way so if there are no reviews or no assessments you're you're just wondering or you're having to cobble your own um assessments together by you know trying to recreate problems from the book which is what i had to do for beast academy um so that is the second con okay and the third con and it's a small one but um a lot of people i would say the entry point for beast academy is three beasts academy three and because beast academy two came is only recent so most people kind of start with three or three you know three a and three a the first chapter is the hardest chapter in the whole curriculum for that year beast um acknowledges that and even says if your child is having problems with shapes that chapter on shapes then skip it and come back to it later because it's really really challenging so not something you kind of want to start off with with your child to get them into the program where the first thing they see is like crazy stuff so that's a that's a small con because you can skip it and come back later but just so you know you've been warned okay now for singapore if you don't have a lot of time to devote to teaching math this might not be a good fit for you if you want to use the concrete pictorial abstract method that singapore primary mathematics is known for so you might struggle throughout the book off and on because you're not using the manipulatives now you can get by without using the manipulatives the rods you really need the rods are a cornerstone of this program and you'll see the rods from the beginning of the program to the end which is six singapore math six so you're going to be using those rods those cuisinart rods all throughout and if you don't really know how to use them you're going to struggle teaching your child some of those concepts in the book so the con is you got to put some time in to learning how to use some of the manipulatives and reading the home instructor guide if you want to get the most out of the program it's a very challenging program so you want to put that time in so you can avoid frustrating your child and yourself also another con if you're jumping into singapore um late in your child's academic career say fourth or fifth or even sixth grade there's going to be a learning curve because they really need to know how to use the rods the rods are very key with singapore so could they get by without that i don't think so because it's already challenging and not having a concept for how to use those rods it's a different kind of spatial awareness or thinking if they don't if they haven't been exposed to that for a while uh it might make it harder for them to use the book but they could you know you could you know spend some extra time getting them caught up with how to use it and um and then they can you know they could be successful with the program program but that's just something you want to keep in mind recommendations now both programs are very solid programs they're very challenging programs and if you complete the series uh beast academy five is the last in the series and primary mathematics uh in that six um if you complete the series especially if you've gone through the whole series with bees you can go straight into pre-algebra you're done with primary mathematics six you are i think you're a year ahead so you conceivably you know pre-algebra but definitely for beast academy when you're done with these you can go into the art of problem solving's pre-algebra program and i will have a review on that recommendations if you are short on time or energy or patience primary mathematics is probably not for you just yet okay beast academy will work just fine because all your child has to do is read the guidebook and then go to the practice page and the practice page summarizes what they read in the the guidebook or the textbook and they can get started doing the problems so a lot of reintroducing of the topic that the child is learning so it's constant reinforcement so so instead of the parent reinforcing what they just learned you have the characters in the book reinforcing that so for some children they could do beasts on their own and then just you know you you could help them out with the start problems or they hit a hiccup with one of the problems but there's lots of help involved throughout so they could do this on their own if anything it's minimal um help on the parents part unless your child is just not grasping a key concept also and if you have a child that is like i just want to do the bare minimum with math i just want to just get it done um well my middle child is like that and he actually likes beast because he likes the comic book format it doesn't feel like he's doing math and then the workbook he still has the characters talking to him and there aren't a lot of problems on the page but they're challenging but he's a quantity person he sees four problems on a page and he's like score but if you feel your child can be pushed a little then i would definitely try these i would probably start with beast academy just because it's reading i personally like story story based uh learning so that's just my opinion but it definitely if you have a gifted child if you have a child that really really loves math you can't go wrong with either one it's just a matter of the preference how it looks and how much time you want to put into it but even if you have a child that's kind of struggling i don't give up on any child i just i'll present as much as i can to see what sticks so i would probably start with maybe beats academy just the guidebook don't do the practice book if you have a struggling math learner uh build their confidence up with them reading stories about math remember there are seven characters in here i think seven you know they range from the super duper smart to the what's two plus two again so you'll your child will see the gambit of you know the different students in here and so you know he can see each of those kids thought process one the smart the smart sharp child you know he'll have his way of thinking of a problem which would be in the book and then like grog the slow one he'll have his way of thinking about the problem and solving it so your child gets to see i think this is the this is the undercover uh strength with with the beast your child gets to see the problems done different ways you know the ways from a child who doesn't like have all these concepts and they don't really get it and then the child who definitely gets it and they're like boom boom boom so your child gets to see different approaches and one of those approaches might fit your child's learning style so that's my recommendation um but if your child maybe they've had some setbacks they've had some really horrible experiences uh i would definitely start with with more gentle um math programs like matthew c or saxon math or just the guidebook just have them read the guidebook you know for fun just for fun okay or life or fred those are gentle approaches those are that's a story based approach to math you know just give a break to your child and then maybe you can come back to working uh primary mathematics or the tech or the workbook for beast academy also for recommendations now although this is teacher intensive it does have lots of assessments and lots of reviews so if you feel like you don't want to do all the manipulatives maybe for one chapter you use it another one you don't you know you go back and forth you least have the unit reviews you have the practices and you have the test to see if your child is retaining the knowledge okay so if you feel like you really like this program but you just don't have the bandwidth to really really teach everything then i would still rock with this but i would definitely make sure i use that practice at the end definitely the unit review and the test and and i have this it's in a um i do have a video where i go over the test but don't worry about the test they have two kinds of tests okay they have and i'll end with this guys so you don't want to do all this work with your kids but you want to see if they're still retaining everything and you know you want to see it through any gaps so you want to give them tests you have two tests you have an easy version usually multiple choice and then you have test b which is more open-ended problems okay so this is test day for unit one you see what that looks like and 10 12 uh problems okay 12 problems and you can always tear these out and put them in a three-ring binder now this is test b it's just multiple choice all multiple choice so if you have a child that gets anxious taking a test you can but you need to know if there are any gaps and what they're if they're retaining what they're learning give them test b it's just a multiple choice okay and then you see for test a that's your open that's your open ended test okay so a little bit more challenging okay because the answers aren't presented to be circled okay so that will be my recommendation so if you don't have time with this one but you really like it you don't want to use all the manipulatives use that unit review use the uh practices and use the test you have the multiple choice version and then you have the open-ended version okay a beast if you want this um if you're wondering how you're going to teach this because some of the concepts might be over your head then i would get a subscription to beats academy online i this is what i use i use the beats academy online version so they can work the problems they have videos they have lots and lots of help so the help online really helps to reinforce this okay so spiral or mastery what are these programs well base academy is most definitely a mastery approach program while singapore math calls itself a conceptual approach program meaning it's not spiral it's not mastery it focuses on learning concepts and theory so fewer mistakes are made but i kind of think that singapore is it's spiral is a bit spiral because there is there are so many reviews built into the program that you're just constantly going back and back um to previously learned concepts so i do think there is some spiral in primary mathematics singapore math um although the program itself says it is conceptual so there you go uh both programs are secular also neither program follows any home school approach which many i mean the programs aren't you know charlotte mason based or a classical approach you know they're they're strong math programs and that's it guys i really hope this video helps you make an informed decision if you're trying to decide on a math curriculum program for your child they're both solid wonderful programs you can't go wrong either way if these are an ideal fit for your child and for you so if you would like to download my homeschool checklist which helps you keep your day organized totally free the link is down below in the description box so i will see you guys another day with another video don't forget to like share and subscribe you know it helps me in these youtube streets bye guys love you you

Channel: That Homeschool Life

Views: 1,778

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: beast academy math, beast academy vs singapore math, beast academy review, beast academy math grade 3, homeschool math, beast academy, singapore math, homeschool curriculum, math curriculum, best homeschool math curriculum, best math curriculum, math curriculum for homeschool, homeschool mom, homeschool math curriculum, homeschool life, homeschool math 3rd grade, beast academy math grade 2, homeschool curriculum 2020-21, beast academy math 2a, homeschool curriculum 2021

Id: 4-sEq6Ko_Zk

Length: 43min 20sec (2600 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021