Solve Your Math Problem with SchoolhouseTeachers.com

So, high school is underway… again. My daughter seems to be juggling everything okay except for one subject: Algebra. Entrepreneurship (which she is doing through SchoolhouseTeachers.com), literature, geography, history, French—no problem. But those subjects don’t require a lot of abstract thinking.

At first, I was also concerned about the literature class because my daughter struggles with inferences and symbolism sometimes. But a fellow homeschooling mom teaches it (and has been for at least 10 years!) with all my daughter’s friends, and the group setting helps her with these challenges. The girls also signed up for the community French class together, which will, of course, help them all practice and learn.

But all of that doesn’t help with the Algebra problem.

It seems I forgot the specific needs of children with Asperger’s when teaching math. I had hoped that I could get away with just giving her the textbook, but it was not to be. My eldest son breezed through the entire Algebra textbook in four months, so he spoiled me. I didn’t want to try one math program after another and waste precious time and money, so I decided to check out SchoolhouseTeachers.com to see what they offered.

Doodles Do Math

I scrolled the numerous math courses on SchoolhouseTeachers.com (there are 26 of them!) to find this course. It says it’s for grades 4^th-6^th, but it’s basically Algebra problems presented as “math problem of the day,” just like I used to do! When presented this way, yes, children as young as age 10 can learn Algebra. Coupled with the ideas I include in “Some Tools to Make Algebra Fun” in The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, I will probably put the Algebra textbook aside for a while. I will have to return to the methods I used with my older two when they were in middle school. Otherwise, I doom my daughter to math phobia. And it’s important to overcome that hump because I want her to succeed in Geometry!

Geometry and More

When I learned that Mr. D Math authored the SchoolhouseTeachers.com Geometry course, I got excited. I have heard so many good things about this video-based program. I hope that Mr. D continues to offer this course next year when my daughter is ready to take it. And while I don’t know if my daughter will take more advanced math courses in high school, my younger son might. He has an engineering bent and seems to intuitively understand math, much like his older brother. I was pleased to find Precalculus, Trigonometry, and Statistics in SchoolhouseTeachers.com. No matter what careers my last two children decide to pursue, they will be prepared without enrolling in the public high school to gain access to these types of courses.

Fun Stuff for Younger Children

While my children are all age 12 and up now, sometimes lessons for younger children give me new ideas for what to do with my teens. Two offerings stood out to me: Let’s Do Math Outside for grades 1-4 and the World Book enrichment offering of kids’ math games. Access to World Book resources is a unique partnership that brings added value to SchoolhouseTeachers.com members. The world of possibilities offered overwhelms this homeschool mom, but I’m glad it’s there.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com really does have something for every subject, every grade, and every student, even for my more relaxed style of homeschooling. Check it out!

Julie Polanco is a 16+ years veteran homeschooling mom of four challenging, artsy kids. She is the author of two books for moms–God Schooling: How God Intended Children to Learn and 100 Ways to Motivate Kids–and the high school botany instructor for www.SchoolhouseTeachers.com. She teaches live middle school science workshops for her local homeschool co-op and is actively involved in her church’s women’s ministry. You can find her at www.julienaturally.com where she offers natural learning & living solutions for challenging kids and their families.

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