Being an enneagram three, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that I like teaching math. I have always enjoyed the subject. It’s completely black and white. There’s no gray area with math. You’re either right or you’re wrong. My mother was even a math teacher, so it runs in the family. However, I can appreciate how many homeschool parents find teaching math difficult. Just like poetry makes zero sense to me (seriously, I cannot interpret symbolism for the life of me!), I understand how math can be difficult for others.
What to do?
Now, this isn’t really something that effects a typical person in every day life. We have our calculators on our phone, and that works just fine. But what if your a homeschooling parent, and you’re now the one that has to teach all the math to your kids? What then? Well, my best advise? Fake it ’til you make it. I’m serious! Fake that enthusiasm for your least favorite subject, so it’s not your kids’ least favorite subject. My second piece of advise is delegate the hard parts to someone else. From such an early age, kids are duped into believing they are bad a math, especially girls (which is a whole other can of worms that I’m not going to get into here and now). But in reality, kids just haven’t been taught in a way that they understand.
In our family, we use a few different approaches. You can read about our main math curriculum here. We do take a pretty traditional approach to math, and that seems to be working for now. However, I was recently approached by a company who has put together a really great online math curriculum. A+ Interactive Math by A+ Tutorsoft Inc. has been a really great addition to what we were already doing. And my kids look at doing math on the computer as a fun treat.
Online Homeschool Math Option
A+ Interactive Math operates in the traditional lane of homeschooling. They actually line up their lessons with public school, so it is a great resource for keeping your kids on track if you are only planning on homeschooling for a short time (hello 2020 pandemic). We have the Family Math Package, and it allows my kids to work mostly independently at their own pace. They can work from anywhere as long as we have internet connection. I can view their progress from the parent account as well. This helps me to see where they might be struggling, and what we need to spend our time on. The Family Math Package includes up to 10 students accounts, which is perfect for Pandemic Pods or an entire family. It includes 7 different grade levels (1st-6th, Pre-Algebra) which gives you an option to place each child in a desired grade level and even change the grade level when ready. This curriculum includes video lessons, interactive review, practice worksheets, chapter tests, step-by-step solution to each problem, easy to read progress reports, automatic grading & tracking, eBooks (lessons, worksheets, chapter tests, solution guides) and much more.
I hope enjoy this program as much as my kids and I do! It has been a great addition (ha! get it?) to our weekly math routine. It fits in seamlessly to what were already doing, and my kids as to do this program literally every day. You can check it out for yourself and try one month free at https://www.aplustutorsoft.com/freestuff/family-math-package . USE MY CODE: EMILY20 AT CHECK OUT FOR 20% OFF THE FAMILY MATH PACKAGE