Homeschooling Parents

Rico · #1 05-24-2008, 11:52 AM

Gang, I have a problem I am hoping you homeschooling parents can help me with. My middle daughter is having some serious issues with math. Basically, she is flunking math in a big way. I've thought about pulling her out of school to homeschool her, but that isn't feasible for us, either financially or timewise. However, I thought I could take advantage of the summer break and give her some additional instruction here at home. What do y'all suggest? Math has been an issue for her since day one. Do I go back to the beginning, and get 1st grade materials and work up from there? She is going to the 4th grade next school year. Also, what math program would be a good one to work at home like this? Thanks.

Sherri · #2 05-24-2008, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico

Gang, I have a problem I am hoping you homeschooling parents can help me with. My middle daughter is having some serious issues with math. Basically, she is flunking math in a big way. I've thought about pulling her out of school to homeschool her, but that isn't feasible for us, either financially or timewise. However, I thought I could take advantage of the summer break and give her some additional instruction here at home. What do y'all suggest? Math has been an issue for her since day one. Do I go back to the beginning, and get 1st grade materials and work up from there? She is going to the 4th grade next school year. Also, what math program would be a good one to work at home like this? Thanks.

A Beka and Saxon math are both excellent, but are pretty hard. It might make sense for you to just go to Walmart and get some of those math workbooks for the different age groups and start from the lower levels and work up this summer. Math was always an easy subject for Zac, but a difficult one for Ashley to grasp. They are just wired differently.

MrsMcD · #3 05-24-2008, 12:00 PM

Rico,

When my son struggles with math, I look online for instructions on how to work out the problems and I get work sheets. It really helps me to be able to explain it to him. One site that I really like is www.aaamath.com.

Pressing-On · #4 05-24-2008, 12:15 PM

Rico,
The best thing to do is get a refresher book to pinpoint what concept/concepts she is found to be weak.

I have this book by Steck-Vaughn. They are an awesome company. My mother was using this company when it was illegal to homeschool.

http://www.valorebooks.com/Search/ISBN/9780811452243

It is only $15 and well worth it. I would suggest copying the lessons so that you can use them again.

Found it cheaper here. You'll have to read the reviews to see what condition the books are in.

http://www.alibris.co.uk/search/book...her%204th%20Ed

If she doesn't get a concept then you need to present it to her in the form of some type of game you can play together. That always works.

Here's the Table of Contents

Unit 1: Whole Numbers
Unit 2: Whole Numbers
Unit 3: The Meaning and Use of Fractions
Unit 4: Mulitiplication and Division of Fractions
Unit 5: Working with Decimals
Unit 6: Percents
Unit 7: Measurement
Unit 8: Solving and Using Equations
Final Review
Mastery Test
Answer Key

This is the best part:

Where to go for Help.
The table below lists the problems in the Mastery Test and the pages on which the corresponding skills and concepts are taught and practiced. If you missed one or more problems, find the page number or numbers that correspond to the number of each problem missed. Then turn to these pages, review the teaching, and practice the skills by doing one or more of the problems. Then correct the problems that you missed on this test.

I think this book will be a huge help and if your public school taught her to count numbers by counting dots - they are idiots!!! That is what our public school did in Kindergarten - I pulled my daughter out. They also were giving her words to memorize and not teaching phonics. I asked them about it. The teacher said, "Oh, we should get into that next year."

WHAT? You are teaching her to memorize words and not teaching phonics now?!!!!!!!!!! Lord, my tax dollars have been wasted!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't get me started!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pressing-On · #5 05-24-2008, 12:39 PM

Rico,
Another thing you can do, which is even less expensive. Use this book by Peggy Kaye. You can get it in your local library or order it on inter-library loan. Being that you want to do this on her summer vacation, I think going the game way would be more productive and she won't feel like it's work. Try this first!

It is excellent. When my kids were the age of your daughter we played all the games in this book. My daughter is 21 and operating her own Boutique - pays cash for all merchandise and nobody can walk into her store and talk that blonde haired, blued eyed girl into anything. She's sharp as a whip!

I believe her math skills are attributed these programs that we used. I also used Math-It, which is expensive, but a fun Math game program.

Anyway, I'm on a roll!!!!

Here's the book by Peggy Kaye. You can purchase this at Amazon if you want. Only $10.

Tina · #6 05-24-2008, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Rico,
Another thing you can do, which is even less expensive. Use this book by Peggy Kaye. You can get it in your local library or order it on inter-library loan. Being that you want to do this on her summer vacation, I think going the game way would be more productive and she won't feel like it's work. Try this first!

It is excellent. When my kids were the age of your daughter we played all the games in this book. My daughter is 21 and operating her own Boutique - pays cash for all merchandise and nobody can walk into her store and talk that blonde haired, blued eyed girl into anything. She's sharp as a whip!

I believe her math skills are attributed these programs that we used. I also used Math-It, which is expensive, but a fun Math game program.

Anyway, I'm on a roll!!!!

Here's the book by Peggy Kaye. You can purchase this at Amazon if you want. Only $10.

I will say this one is great! You recommended it to me when I was having trouble getting Michael interested in doing his math. He HATES math.... but he LOVES playing math games.

It's a start.... and this book has been great! Thanks again for recommending it.

Rico · #7 05-24-2008, 01:46 PM

Wow. This book is only $11 thru Amazon. I can afford to spend around $100 to get this knocked out over the summer. I am getting worried that she is falling more and more behind because of this math thing. I am willing to entertain any suggestions from those of you who have been successful at making good math students out of your children.

Rico · #8 05-24-2008, 01:50 PM

What about funbrain.com? Have any of you checked that site out? They have educational games the kids can play on that site.

Cindy · #9 05-24-2008, 01:59 PM

Rico, she may be one of the probably thousands of kids that can't learn math the conventional way. So maybe games and internet/computer is the way for you to go for her.

nahkoe · #10 05-24-2008, 02:01 PM

For a summer enrichment thing I'd steer very clear of curriculum based homeschooling supplies. She's obviously not thriving with that approach, I'd try something totally different.

It seems to me she's struggling with concepts if it's been a struggle from day one. That's ok. Not everyone does math the same way, but everyone can do math.

It might take some time to figure out how she does math.

I would get some dominos (or you can play at pogo.com). You can play turbo 21 at pogo too, it's a card game making columns that add up to 21, a speed game. It's FUN, my kids have all loved it, and I've noticed that my brain works better with math after I play it for a few days. It must exercise that part of the brain. Or, have her play blackjack. lol I think pogo has a version of that too that's ok.

I haven't looked at the math games book mentioned, but it looks good.

Does she like to cook or bake? Have her do LOTS and talk about it while you're doing it. Any measuring is math, a lot of it is fractions. My oldest figured out fractions on his own while cutting croissants one day. (note..he's got a math brain, I wouldn't expect any child to actually work it out on their own, but the goal here is exposure...if you cut a circle into 4ths..and from there into 8ths and into 16ths...and talk about it while you're doing it, she's going to be exposed that much more to the concept of fractions)

If you can figure out what some of the concepts are that she's really struggling with (multiplication tables, fractions, addition/subtraction, etc) I may have some more ideas too.

We play math games in our heads all the time. We're geeks..go ahead, say it. We discuss probability and statistics and do skip counting when we're driving. We try to see how long of division problems we can do in our heads. We do the same thing with multiplication or division on paper. We'll estimate an answer, and then work it out and see who guessed the closest. My kids play with money all the time, both US and foreign. They have tape measures in the toybox too. And rulers. We used to do a lot of baking when I was home more. And, I do let them play computer games. ALL computer games have a math foundation, even if the game itself is not a math game. Thinking mathematically isn't all about numbers, it's very conceptual, and ART is also very math heavy. Jigsaw puzzles are good.

I think your biggest goal this summer should be to convince her she can do math, and that she enjoys it. Math anxiety is extremely real, and it will completely destroy a person's ability to do math. If you can break the anxiety and the fear pattern, the concepts usually follow pretty quickly. I'm going to guess this may be the most difficult part of helping her, finding out what her mental block is and helping her break that. It'll also go the furthest towards helping her succeed.

Oh! Get some base 10 blocks and let her play with those, they're about $20 for a set. They're really, really good for visual learners, math can be difficult to visualize and these sort of hands on manipulatives are beneficial for those who need to see it and/or touch it to learn it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico

Gang, I have a problem I am hoping you homeschooling parents can help me with. My middle daughter is having some serious issues with math. Basically, she is flunking math in a big way. I've thought about pulling her out of school to homeschool her, but that isn't feasible for us, either financially or timewise. However, I thought I could take advantage of the summer break and give her some additional instruction here at home. What do y'all suggest? Math has been an issue for her since day one. Do I go back to the beginning, and get 1st grade materials and work up from there? She is going to the 4th grade next school year. Also, what math program would be a good one to work at home like this? Thanks.