This year has brought a huge amount of breathing room back into my life, and I’m debating returning to this whole “writing” thing….but I wanted to make sure to write at least one more post. It’s important.

When you’re in the middle of homeschooling, there’s a massive amount of uncertainty in everything you do; the question of “Is this the right choice?” is constantly swirling around in the back of your head. About everything. With two kids graduated, I now have a tiny bit more experience with the whole “math” thing, and I wanted to write about it.

In 2019 I wrote a post titled “But, math,” where my bigs were balking at “the bane of my existence” (the name my oldest gave to the math program file on the computer). That was the year before my middle child started high school…..we finished her 8th grade year very <cough cough> loosely doing math. I would say barely doing any math. But when high school came, she decided she wanted to do more “real” school, and started at a “homeschool academy” doing pre-algebra her freshman year. (This is, technically, late for pre-algebra, but I wanted her to have that review and preparation before she got thrown into the deep end of algebra.) I remember asking before her first exam if she was nervous; she shrugged and said she didn’t really care what grade she got. I tried to swallow my panic….and then realized that, basically, I’d created this monster. We’d never done grades on anything before; why did I think she’d buy in now?

A funny thing happened after that first test, though. She got the second-highest score in the class. The fire was lit: from then on out, for all four years, her goal was always to earn THE highest score on her exams. She took pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, and algebra 2 for her four years of high school, and rocked all of it; even earning scores of over 100% in both pre-algebra and algebra 2, thanks to the extra credit that teacher always offered on tests. With her, math was no longer something I worried about.

On the other end of the spectrum: my oldest never went back to algebra. Or any math, at all. Yet during senior year, that one started taking classes at the local community college, and no algebra was required to get in. No math at all. If there was ever any interest in taking a math class, a placement test would be required. That’s it. For my oldest, math was no longer something I worried about.

Now my youngest has started 6th grade. She’s spent her elementary years playing various Dragonbox games on my phone while I do her hair in the morning; with occasional worksheets, lots of pattern block play and an assortment of math storybooks (I remember the Mouse Math books being a big hit). Now we’ve started using CTC math online for our curriculum (because, you know–6th grade and middle school means we need to Get More Serious). She’s doing great….but it’s funny; now that I’ve seen things play out with my two oldest, math is no longer something I’m worried about.