Beast Academy - My New Favorite Math Puzzle Workbook

Way back in The Before Time (2017), I started this newsletter because I had lots of my friends asking my advice on ways to help their kids with math.

Put simply, I wasn't impressed with most of the stuff I had seen out there. And I still contend that 95% of the math workbooks that you can order online are dull, dreary affairs, both for the kids and for the parents who have to cajole the kids to complete them.

I wanted to find interesting, playful math activities that kids wouldn't mind exploring on their own. I wasn't opposed to workbooks per se, just the dozens of workbooks I had seen so far.

Well, I finally found a math workbook that I can honestly say I love: the Beast Academy puzzle book (Amazon affiliate link).

What is Beast Academy?

I learned about Beast Academy from Michael Pershan, a friend and fellow teacher from New York City. It's developed by the great team at Art of Problem Solving.

The Beast Academy program is actually a full series of guide and practice books that take kids through many of the most important concepts from 2nd-6th grade. I ordered the 2nd grade books, as well as a new puzzle book based on the topics in the 2nd grade series.

My son and I haven't dug into the main course materials yet, but we are both obsessed with the puzzle book! I have to say that I've never seen so many interesting, inventive games that help my son practice math skills and creative problem-solving at the same time.

Check this one out, for example: Sum Blobs. To answer the question, you have to circle "blobs" of numbers that add to the target sum. In the sample problem, the top row adds to 70, but the remaining numbers won't fit into blobs of 70. So your kids will have to take time working through their options before arriving at the final answer.

There's another game that I loved: Measure Mazes. All you get is a bunch of dots on a paper, and a list of measurements. You have to figure out how to connect the dots using lines of the specified length, in the specified order. My son really had to learn how to use a ruler to solve these. He even started to get cocky and try to guess without using the ruler, but don't worry - I went back through to double check.

The topics that the puzzles focus on are very appropriate for 2nd and 3rd graders: Addition and subtraction of multidigit numbers, multiplication, measurement, place value.

But the quality of the puzzles means that there are some extremely tough puzzles, even for older kids and adults. So if you have a 4th or 5th grader who is looking for a challenge, they could skip to the harder problems in the book and try their hand.

It seems that Beast Academy is intending to publish more puzzle books in the future, but for now they've just got this one. You can also check out their full sets of guide books and practice books. From my initial impression, they seem to be very good, but they're a lot more expensive. I'll let you know in a month or so how those look from the parents' perspective.

For now, you can get the Beast Academy puzzle book (Amazon affiliate link) or through the Art of Problem Solving website.