Beast Academy: A Fun Math Curriculum for Kids Who Like Math

Math has never been my thing. In school I went to ridiculous lengths to avoid the subject and since then my attitude hasn’t much improved. Six years ago, when I began homeschooling my oldest son, I vowed he would never feel that same dread for any subject that he studied—especially math! 

From the start I was stunned by my little boy’s enthusiasm and desire to go deeper into the world of numbers, tables, formulas, and graphs. Finding a math curriculum to satisfy his curiosity was difficult. Frankly, the first few years were a disaster, and, despite my best intentions, my son began to share my dread of math. Thankfully, I discovered Beast Academy—a curriculum that could both excite and satiate my math-loving son.

The moment we opened up the new math books we knew that we’d stumbled onto something special. Full of colorful comic book-style pages, the Beast Academy Guides tell the story of four lovable “beasts”—Lizzie, Alex, Grogg, and Winnie. Loaded with appealing kid-humor, the Guides follow the four young beasts as they attend math classes and attempt to solve challenging equations, puzzles, and games.

Replacing the textbooks found in most traditional math curriculums, the soft-cover Guides are divided into three long chapters, with each chapter further divided into shorter sections. The Guides rely on lots of visual representation to explore concepts and to inspire analytical thinking.

Corresponding black-and-white Practice books accompany the Guides. Though not nearly as colorful as the Guides, the beasts make plenty of appearances here as well, and the text is pleasing and easy to follow. These Practice books contain more than one hundred problems to solve. Each page presents questions ranging from easier to double-starred and triple-starred problems requiring multiple steps.

My son enjoyed the fact that each practice page contained far fewer problems than he was accustomed to in his old math workbooks.  Rather than repetitive drills, Beast Academy provides fewer but more complex problems requiring the application of the newly acquired skills. “Mathy” kids are likely to view these exercises as games and will find them far more rewarding than repetitive drills.

Beast Academy’s curriculum does not come with a teacher’s guide, but I was (very) relieved to find that both the Guide and the Practice books provide some support for parents. At the front of each Practice book appears a recommended sequence briefly explaining how to use the Guides and the Practice books intermittently. The Practice books include an answer key at the back of the book and I won’t lie—I refer to it constantly!  Hints are also provided at the back of Practice books to help get kids started on the trickier starred and double-starred challenge problems.

“‘I have more tools now, mom,’ he told me the other day. ‘I have more ways to think about numbers and more ways to solve problems.’”

Beast Academy’s materials are eye-catching and fun, but this is also an accelerated, ambitious math program. Among the things my son has appreciated most about this curriculum is that he is learning to approach math in new ways.  “I have more tools now, mom,” he told me the other day.  “I have more ways to think about numbers and more ways to solve problems.”

Subject matter is covered earlier here than in other math programs. While working through a different curriculum, my son was using a program several years ahead of his actual grade level and was quite bored. When it came time to take the free assessment test provided on Beast Academy’s website, he came out at grade level. Although he did wind up reviewing skills he’d already acquired, we were both pleased to see all of the new ways that he learned to approach these familiar concepts.

Beast Academy is a comprehensive program and does not require any supplementation. The company accurately states that “Beast Academy is loosely based on the Common Core standards. However, it covers the key grade-level standards but in greater depth and with more opportunities for problem-solving and logical thinking than other curricula.” 

Beast Academy is for enthusiastic math students. It is for children who are sailing through traditional math courses and yearn to go deeper. It will reengage students who have grown frustrated and bored with repetitive drills.

Aside from being familiar with the concepts being studied, very little preparation is required from parents. Just be aware that the problems on the bottom of the workbook pages are far more complex than those at the beginning. I find that sitting beside my son helps him to stay focused and to maintain patience as the problems grow more difficult.

If I had one suggestion for Beast Academy’s publishers, it would be to develop a teacher’s guide.  I am fortunate in that my oldest son prefers working independently on math and, for the most part, is able to do so. If my son needed more help from me, a teacher’s guide would be very handy and almost essential as the teaching methods used by Beast Academy are so different than those most of us grew up with.

A fairly new curriculum, Beast Academy is not yet completed. Eventually the program will cover grades 2 to 5 with four guides and four practice books per level. For now grades three and four are available and a portion of the fifth grade set is completed as well. The rest of the fifth grade books should be available by the winter of 2016/17 and the full curriculum will be available by fall of 2018.  A complete year-long curriculum containing four guide books and four practice books sells for $108. Each book can be purchased separately as well.

I highly recommend the Beast Academy program for children with a fondness for math and the antics of funny furry beasts. I can tell you from personal experience that even the most math-phobic parents among us will find much to enjoy in this unique resource.

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