Next year I volunteered to lead the math class for a group of 6th graders (ages 11 - 12). Here are the pertinent details:

• About 5 - 8 (U.S.) students, for about 45 minutes, 3 days a week (they'll meet with the regular teacher the other 2).
• These are the "advanced" students. This year, as 5th graders, they are in the 6th grade math class. The school (small, private) only goes up to 6th grade, so taking math with the 7th graders isn't really an option.
• All (or almost all) of them have completed Khan Academy's 6th grade curriculum, most have already made significant progress through Khan Academy's 7th grade curriculum. (This is probably what they'll continue to work on during the 2 "off" days.)
• In addition to Khan (mainly as homework), their current teacher uses a lot of inquiry-based and group work approaches in the classroom, so they should already be relatively comfortable with loosely structured lessons that involve exploration. In general the school uses the Singapore/Eureka Math curriculum.
• The minimal goal would be to prepare these students to enter Algebra 1 in their 7th grade. But since a lot of them are close already, it seems like an opportunity to do more.
• I am a college math professor, but I don't have any Math-Ed experience/training at this level.
• Yes, my son is one of the kids. And if my daughter continues her trajectory, I'll be doing this again in 2 years.

So here are the main questions: What would you do? What topics would you cover? Is there a collection/book of interesting problems/topics we could work through? Any other advice?

A couple of notes:

• While one or two ideas of what to do for a day or week are appreciated, I'm more concerned about having/creating enough material to last 3 days a week for the whole year. I'm looking for a larger resource or coherent theme that can generate a wealth of math topics.

• One idea that's been suggested by a colleague is prepping for and doing various math competitions for this age group. Most of them do compete on the school's math team. But, prep specifically in this direction is usually considered an after-school activity and probably wouldn't be appropriate. Perhaps, though, the topics for such competitions might be a good starting place for ideas.

Next year I volunteered to lead the math class for a group of 6th graders (ages 11 - 12). Here are the pertinent details:

• About 5 - 8 (U.S.) students, for about 45 minutes, 3 days a week (they'll meet with the regular teacher the other 2).
• These are the "advanced" students. This year, as 5th graders, they are in the 6th grade math class. The school (small, private) only goes up to 6th grade, so taking math with the 7th graders isn't really an option.
• All (or almost all) of them have completed Khan Academy's 6th grade math curriculum, and most have already made significant progress through Khan Academy's 7th grade math curriculum. (This is probably what they'll continue to work on during the two "off" days.)
• In addition to Khan (mainly as homework), their current teacher uses a lot of inquiry-based and group-work approaches in the classroom, so they should already be relatively comfortable with loosely structured lessons that involve exploration. In general the school uses the Singapore/Eureka Math curriculum.
• The minimal goal would be to prepare these students to enter Algebra 1 in their 7th grade. But since a lot of them are close already, it seems like an opportunity to do more.
• I am a college math professor, but I don't have any Math-Ed experience/training at this level.
• Yes, my son is one of the kids. And if my daughter continues her trajectory, I'll be doing this again in 2 years.

So here are the main questions: What would you do? What topics would you cover? Is there a collection/book of interesting problems/topics we could work through? Any other advice?

A couple of notes:

• While one or two ideas of what to do for a day or week are appreciated, I'm more concerned about having/creating enough material to last 3 days a week for the whole year. I'm looking for a larger resource or coherent theme that can generate a wealth of math topics.

• One idea that's been suggested by a colleague is prepping for and doing various math competitions for this age group. Most of them do compete on the school's math team. But, prep specifically in this direction is usually considered an after-school activity and probably wouldn't be appropriate. Perhaps, though, the topics for such competitions might be a good starting place for ideas.