Letter from a Homeschooling Mom

Greetings!

 

I hope this email finds you well. I know you don’t know us, but I wanted to personally thank you for your math books. I cannot express how helpful your books have been, and the relief I have knowing there’s something for at least a year for my gifted and math-enthused child.

 

For the last few years I have been on the hunt for accessible algebra and geometry for my wiggly but gifted 11 year old. Every single course I could find focused on the abstract, the algorithms, and using them to solve problems.

 

However, for a wiggly boy who is often doing his math upside down, on the trampoline, or wiggling about the house, that math is not accessible. He’s not going to sit and read large chunks of math and then sit to do the math. I don’t want math that excludes the geometric applications, and it’s a shame so many on the market do so. In addition, he can brute-compute equations faster than I can write, but I also want him to see the numbers and what is happening with his equations.

 

We have used Montessori method for lower elementary, but he quickly outpaced what I could prepare. We moved him to a gifted math program (Beast Academy), math games galore, chess, puzzles, and now Zearn. He’s completed middle school math several times over as I searched and searched for a math program. He’s the kind of kid sneaking math at night or swinging from a chandelier yelling out equations. He once woke me asking “what is 8/25ths times 11…. IN DECIMAL FORM!” Then ran off yelling numbers before I could process what happened.

 

We’ve used your Working with Pentominoes, which then led to the discovery of Algebra Lab. We have recently discovered your Geometry Labs and Algebra: Themes, Tools, and Concepts.

 

I know we’re a few years late from time of publishing, but thank you. We have been using all three texts the last few weeks and THIS is the math I have been wanting — concrete explorations, investigations and problem solving without outright giving the equations, while also weaving the geometry connections.

 

He’s been happily working through your textbooks, and to my surprise even my art-enthused/math-resistant 8 year old has joined in many of our geometric lessons!

 

Thank you. Truly. This math is accessible for him without sacrificing the rigor or challenge he deserves and needs.

 

Thank you for your time

 

Alicia – a homeschooling mom who just wanted math

 

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Dear Alicia,

 

Thanks for writing! I was especially pleased that you appreciated my general approach: from the concrete to the abstract, from the informal to the formal, and my emphasis on visual grounding and problem solving throughout.

 

I’ll just add that in addition to the curricular materials in the books you mention, I’ve shared a lot of enrichment stuff throughout the site. I encourage all homeschool parents to click around and see what they find that might be of interest to their kids. Also, some clarification for other readers of this post:

• The Algebra Lab book is intended to be used with the hands-on Lab Gear materials. Many of the same ideas are presented in a better sequence and more accessibly in the Algebra Lab Gear books from Didax.
• The Geometry Labs are intended to be used with various manipulatives, including the CircleTrig Geoboard, the Geometry Labs Template, pattern blocks, mirrors, tangrams, and more.
• I’m pretty sure that Algebra: Themes, Tools, Concepts contains much, much more than one year’s worth of materials.

In any case, good luck! And to other users of my website, especially teachers: I’d love to hear from you.

 

— Henri