attachmom wrote:Can anyone give me a reason not to continue with Singapore in the 7th grade? My 7th grade ds is fairly strong in math and enjoys Singapore, and my dh has his master's degree in math and is a math instructor at a community college so he can help when I encounter problems. I'm leaning toward continuing with Singapore because I think my ds might find Saxon boring and he does not like "busywork" at all (yes, he's a little lazy

). Any suggestions/reasons why that might be a bad idea? Thanks!
I am one to say anything is possible, and I can't see any big reason not to continue with Singapore if you feel comfortable with that. I love Singapore Primary, and I'm sure your son will continue to get a good education with Singapore. I admit I really missed the quality word problems, or real-life math, that was in Singapore Primary.
There are always, however, details to think through. I'll throw out some thoughts, in case it helps you think this through.
- Singapore upper levels use the "integrated" approach to math, so your student won't have prealgebra, algebra, geometry, and algebra 2; instead, he'll have 1, 2, 3, 4. My oldest son's public school had an integrated program and there were problems with fitting him into a course after he had had algebra 1 & 2 through a university program, so transferring schools or textbooks can be a risk with an integrated program.
- Although I totally trust Singapore to give you a good education, in some ways I value the fundamentals of algebra being a separate course, solidifying those skills (twice) before moving up into precalc, when everything is thrown together. But maybe that's just because I've always done it that way.
- Singapore has quite a few different high school programs, and they seem to be changing all the time, so I think that's one of the reasons MFW didn't choose to go with Singapore's upper levels.
- I actually tried a little Singapore NEM at the end of the year my son finished Singapore Primary 6B. I found it quite difficult to plan out. My son did need to adjust to the usual huge jump to an hour or more of math a day, whatever program we used, but NEM didn't tell me how many problems should be assigned or how much of a lesson was expected in one day. (I've heard that Discovering is the one with the most homeschool support now, although there are rumors the support is switching over to the new Common Core version.)
- Because MFW uses Saxon, there is a lot of support behind it -- lesson plans, telephone help, and a community of online MFW users who might chime in when you hit a bump.
I think if I were just heading into upper math for the first time, I might choose to stick with MFW for the support. But maybe your dh can be that resource for you. I'm always in favor of kids getting to work with their dads.
HTH,
Julie