Math and Tears Happy Ending!

For today, anyway! That dear daughter who was so frustrated and so self-convinced she couldn't do this and continued to put off taking the lesson and unit tests until I again put my foot down today--that daughter got a 90 on the lesson test and, after reluctantly taking the unit test today, got a 95 on the unit test! Onward and forward! 

Now for one more gush on Math-U-See. I can't say enough about this math program! I never cease to be amazed at the wonderful ways Mr. Demme designed this program to complete full circles. (for any fellow math geeks reading, pun unintended). Concepts are taught as just part of the process long before they will be introduced as full subjects. One of my girls had been in public high school and had not been doing well at all with geometry, when we went back to homeschooling. She complained through MUS Geometry because he wasn't teaching it "like they did at school!" (music to my ears since she was barely making C's and D's) Steve Demme's geometry teaches students the process behind the theorems and then the theorem names. I insisted she stay with it and, as she hit about halfway through the book where the names of the theorems came in, SHE GOT IT! She was able to then know the theorems because she already had the processes and concepts of theorems down.

While learning long division with remainders, students are taught to express the answer as whatever the remainder is, over the divisor. In other words, it is written as a fraction before Math-U-See students are officially introduced to fractions. Fractions came along for one daughter and she had completed a long division problem on a systemic review page. I got to have one of my favorite moments (seeing the "I GET IT"'s happen!) as she looked at the remainder she had written and saw it not just as a fraction but saw it also in the big picture; meaning, she fully grasped that the remainder is a part of the whole. Is my daughter smart? Well yes. Am I a FABULOUS teacher? Duh, of course! ;) However I owe the math moments like these to Steve Demme. So many people avoid Math-U-See because they believe it doesn't keep kids parallel (yes yes, another unintentional geometric pun) with same age peers in public schools. I have personally seen that as the Math-U-See kids progress into higher maths with this program, not only do they "catch up" they fly ahead! Why? Because they understand not just how they solved the problems, but WHY. 

In case you thought I'd forgotten, I didn't--curious about Math-U-See? Go to www.mathusee.com and check it out for yourself.