As promised, here are our current math picks.

The biggest fear of mine upon taking the homeschool leap was teaching math. I barely scraped by with a tutor in my own math classes, so the idea of guiding my children through their studies was overwhelming, and it almost prevented me from keeping them home!

Then a wise homeschooling veteran introduced me to Teaching Textbooks. The program is completely online. It’s fun and engaging, easy to understand, and slowly progressing.

We do 2 lessons a day, 2-3 days a week, year round and this system works well for us. Right now, my 5th grade son and 7th grade daughter are each going through TT level 6 and it feels like a good fit for their individual abilities.

The best part is, I’m not involved AT ALL! Teaching Textbooks takes care of all the teaching, quizzing, and grading. This provides me with free time to take care of my own responsibilities.

A huge part of home educating is incorporating real world lessons into our studies. This is my favorite way to teach! And there are so many opportunities to do this with math. We weigh fruits and veggies at the market. The kiddos calcluate tax on purchases and figure fair tips at restaurants. They help me to make wise purchases by calculating the best deal per ounce when we’re bulk shopping. Fraction work abounds when we bake. Allowances and savings, as well as paying off personal debts that they’ve accrued (we charge a percentage for cavities that need fillings, medical bills that arise from foolish decisions, replacement of lost items, and damages caused by carelessness), are more ways we do real world math.

We also keep a stock of fun math workbooks. These are handy to have around for when laptops aren’t working and for days when I have appointments out of the house. I try to bring my children with me most everywhere I go because I think it’s good for them to learn the sacrifice of being part of a family and that it’s good to be bored! We pull out workbooks at the carwash and the doctors, on long drives and when I need to meet with a friend.

In my next post, I’ll have a small explanation of each additional math resource we use.