Homeschool math

But what about math? (Part 2)

/ jenfletcher / Leave a comment

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.

But….math

/ jenfletcher / 3 Comments

When we started school back up after winter break, I talked to both my older kids about what they really wanted school to look like.

This is different than what I’ve always done before, which has consistently been some form of “what would you like to study for [insert subject here]?”  We’ve had a very check-the-box kind of school, and they’ve had lots of freedom inside that framework.  The framework has always existed, though.  For this round, I told both of them we were approaching our next six weeks like a zero-based budget:  if we started over, completely from scratch….what do YOU want school to look like?

My 15-year-old son’s response was immediate:  NO MATH.  All caps, at the top of the blank sheet of paper I’d set in front of him.

My daughter was less passionate as she spoke to me separately…..but sounded a bit defeated.  Well, I don’t like math, but I guess nobody likes math, right?  

So we dropped math for this six weeks.

Writing it sounds so simple, but this was hard, people.  It’s terrifying, even if I’m telling myself it’s only for this next little bit, reassuring myself we’re not necessarily committing for the long haul.

My son is currently glorying in his freedom and writing with pretty much every new spare moment he has (not that math took that much time, but still….).  Ironically, he uses math regularly as he compiles his rankings of all the things he ranks and reviews, but I’m not about to point that out.  (If I did, he’d just point out it’s not algebra.)

But my daughter…..

The 13-year-old lasted exactly one-and-a-half weeks before she looked at me and said, “I need to be doing math.”  Much to my relief, it turns out I have one kiddo who isn’t ready to buck the system quite so strongly.  We talked it over and came to a few conclusions:  No more Teaching Textbooks.  No video math curriculum.  Somehow, a book, with maybe a parent going through it with her if necessary.  I got online and looked at the Kansas math standards for 7th grade (yes, I know Common Core is the enemy, but sometimes you just need a list of “stuff they’re doing in X grade”).  Then I got on our library’s website and Amazon and just looked around awhile.

And now Winnie Cooper might be teaching my daughter math.

When she first looked at Danica McKellar’s Math Doesn’t Suck she literally made a face.  “It looks like a magazine!” she announced with disdain.  (A hardback, inch thick magazine, but…..you know.  Cover styling and such.)

I asked her to read just the intro and FAQ pages, and she was hooked.  Actually, I think she might have been hooked reading the chapter titles (“How to Entertain Yourself While Babysitting a Devil Child”).  But a few days in and this seems to be a very real possibility for getting us over the middle-school math hump.  And I am SO grateful.  It’d be nice to have at least one kiddo staying contentedly in a “check that box” mentality for high school.  It’s a heck of a lot easier.