Homeschooling Help

Math is one of those subjects that seems to get a lot of attention.  In my experience, parents are concerned for one of three reasons:

• Math is a struggle for my child.  I just don’t know how to find the right homeschool math curriculum that will help him or her understand. 
• My child is very strong in Math–how quickly to I move him or her to an advanced homeschool math program?
• My child can do math, but he hates it.  How far do I really need to take him?

If your student struggles with math, your approach will be very different than those whose child excels.  Because it is a skill course, the key to remember in math is not to push through material that your child does not understand.  Take the time to review, to reteach if necessary, to approach it from a different angle. 

Technorati Tags: Homeschool Math Programs--How to Select the Right Math

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Diagramming, identifying sentence patterns, finding parts of speech . . . every student’s favorite element of grammar, right?  How many times have you heard your child ask, “Why do I have to learn this?” As a writing teacher, I loved that question because it was always the perfect lead in to a unit on the value of sentence patterns in writing.

Using each of the different sentence patterns adds an incredible amount of interest to what you are writing.  Most children tend to stick to the same pattern: subject, then verb.  However, by simply varying those patterns, your child can turn a rather dry piece of writing into something that makes the reader want to keep reading.

Have your child try fit all six of these sentence openers into their next piece of writing and be prepared for instant improvement!

1. Subject then Verb 
   1. i.e. Hannah jumped the fence.

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Someone asked me today what the difference was between Saxon Math and Singapore Math.

The difference is fairly simple.  Saxon’s instruction is cyclical.  It provides instruction, gives clear examples, then gives plenty of practice.  It will then cycle back to review the concepts again later in the course (often with practice).  Saxon does include some critical thinking skills, but its primary goal is to help students learn the skills involved in math. Therefore, you will find a lot of repetition in Saxon Math.

I usually recommend Singapore for students who have strong math skills. Singapore approaches math with the goal of developing mental math skills.  It begins by teaching a concept, providing some practice, then taking the concept further with mental math activities.  With Singapore, you will see a lot of  word problems as well as graphs for analysis, etc.  

Technorati Tags: Homeschool Math Courses - Saxon vs. Singapore Math

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