When we used Singapore math, I found the A levels tended to be heavy with arithmetic calculation, which made them hard slogging, while the B levels often had more interesting topics and went quicker. We often worked in more than one place at a time, to balance the work level. A little of this, a little of that. With the really difficult topics, we let them sit for a few weeks or a few months. They were often easier after a break when we came back to them fresh. And you might find my Cookie Factory Guide to Long Division helpful.

JUMP Math -- excellent program! You don't need to buy anything, though they do sell optional workbooks for extra practice. Everything you need is in the teacher resources, which you can download from the website. Free registration required to log in.

It may be helpful for you and her to work together through Jo Boaler's class on How to Learn Math. After that, you might check out AdjectiveNounMath.com, Herb Gross’s high school site with courses on arithmetic, algebra, and calculus. Many of the videos are old-fashioned and slow, but the teacher builds on student intuition to promote understanding better than most of the flashy new sites I’ve seen.

If he gets easily bored with math and hates having to write things out, I don't think Saxon will make him happy. I haven't used Jousting Armadillos, so I don't know whether that would be better, though I have heard a lot of people like it. It's so frustratingly hard to find a math book that fits both the teacher and the student, isn't it? My daughter thought she hated math, but she really enjoyed the AOPS Prealgebra book. It's a very algebraic prealgebra -- lots of thinking involved. I don't think it would have worked for me to just give her the book. But we did it buddy style (like in this blog post) and worked on a white board (lots of room for messy thinking, and mistakes just wipe away). We had a great time -- she especially enjoyed the times when I got a problem wrong and she figured it out. In homeschooling, you have to choose which battles are worth fighting. I think the habit of working neatly is not worth fighting for at this age. I'd rather work on developing the habit of reasoning, by working through a lot of tough, multistep problems in whatever way the kid can figure out. (And they often think of very creative methods, which is fun for me because I learn as much as my student does.) AOPS was wonderful for that. But then, I have the advantage of homeschooling all through high school, so my kids don't have to show their work to a non-Mom teacher until they've matured quite a bit -- if your kids will be going to a classroom high school, then you may need to fight that battle now.

How frustrating! I hope the testing will give you some guidance in how to proceed. Fractions are tough for any student. Sometimes, taking a completely different approach to the topic will help it stick. I like the way James Tanton presents things: Pamphlet on Fractions "Fractions are slippery and tricky and, in the end, abstract. It is actually a bit unfair to expect students to have a good grasp of fractions during their middle-school and high-school years." --James Tanton

For math, I would start by playing games that build mental math skills over the summer. I give the rules for several of these on my blog. Whatever math program you use, be sure to work together, buddy-style. Don't just send her off to do a lesson, and then you'll tell her what she did wrong. Work side by side, doing as much as you can orally, with a whiteboard and colorful markers for "scratch paper". Most new homeschoolers plan too much at first. Take it easy while you get used to a new lifestyle, then gradually add in more resources as you find you have the time.

Doing math buddy-style helps a lot. Playing math games to build mental math skills. Doing as much as possible orally, with a whiteboard and colorful markers as needed for scratch work. Set aside one day a week to do interesting math, like the stuff on this resource page, or this one, or this. Or ideas from the relaxed math thread mentioned earlier. With most math programs, you can skip one day a week without doing much damage. There's a TON of repetition in elementary math!

My favorite way to practice math facts is by playing games. There are several posted on my blog.

First, I would not take a casual comment as truly representative of her knowledge. She may not have done much schooly math, but life itself forces humans to develop many informal math skills. Second, if she really is interested in learning, then she needs a curriculum that builds on those informal skills. I would suggest Herb Gross's Adjective Noun Math.

Lots of math games.

We did Math Mammoth orally, with a white board and colorful markers for scratch work. It's a simple tweak, but much less intimidating! See my description here: Buddy Math.

Another thought: Each of us learns in fits and spurts, and it's often valuable when we hit a snag to step back and take a break. She's in a good position, having already finished level 6. She has time to do something else for awhile. I have a lot of free resources listed on my blog's reference pages. You could have her browse through there and click on anything that sounds interesting. There are so many mathy riches on the web! Then after she's had a refreshing math vacation, she can come back to the tough topics ready to fight for understanding...

The problem isn't really finger-counting per se, but finger-counting in inappropriate ways. Fingers are great for keeping track of simple but confusing situations like 29 + 3, where your mind has to juggle the change in decade (from the 20s to the 30s) as well as the basic sum of 9+3. Using fingers to keep your place frees up mental space. Fingers are also good for keeping track in simple skip-counting situations, like 7 x 5. If I try to have my mind do the 5-10-15... part and at the same time count how many skips I've counted, I will get messed up. So I let my fingers keep track of how many skips I've made. BUT if your child is using fingers to keep track of anything that requires cycling through the hands more than once, that's inappropriate. Now the mind has three things to keep track of: the counting or skipping, where we are on the fingers, and how many times we've cycled through the hands. That's a guaranteed recipe for confusion. Memory is not the answer, because memory so easily fails. You need to learn and to teach your child mental-math strategies that will give her support when she can't remember what she needs. Strategies use less mind-space than keeping track of the fingers (except in a few instances, as I mentioned above). And even more important, most of the mental-math thinking strategies are based on fundamental principles of math like the commutative or distributive properties. That makes them an excellent way to build understanding of how numbers work and a wonderful preparation for algebra (which relies on those same principles). I share several mental-math strategies in the following blog posts: PUFM 1.3 Addition Mental Math: Addition PUFM 1.4 Subtraction PUFM 1.5 Multiplication, Part 2

Or maybe she will connect better when it's explained in a different way? After you take a break and let the emotions settle, you might take a look at this blog post on converting measurements: How Old Are You, in Nanoseconds?

You almost never use mixed numbers beyond elementary school. They are too hard to work with. Middle school and up, just leave everything as a fraction, no matter whether the top or bottom number is the bigger one. By the time you get to algebra fractions, you will often not know which is bigger anyway...

Upper-elementary math is hard. The topics get more abstract, and the rules for solving them have more steps (example). It's normal for students to struggle. But you don't want to let the struggle build into full-blown math phobia. Does your daughter work alone on most of her math, or do you work through it with her? I found that doing Buddy Math really made a difference for my daughter at this age. Do you think her struggles mean she has missed out on (or not fully mastered) some of the earlier foundational concepts? Try playing math games together, so you can see how well she handles numbers on the fly. Math games can also be a good substitute for daily lessons, if you decide she just needs some time off to regroup. Speaking of time off, it can really help a student's attitude to take a break from schoolish math and explore some of the wilder topics that catch their imagination. Whenever my kids had a rough time, we'd take a couple weeks away from the textbook and play around with enrichment topics --- then we could come back to the bookish work refreshed. And sometimes, the topics that they had struggled with seemed suddenly easy, because the concepts had continued to simmer in their subconscious mind while we were doing other things.

Be very careful with the idea that some people are "mathy" and others are not. It can easily become an excuse for giving up when things seem hard, or even a self-fulfilling prophecy. People learn differently in all topics --- at different rates, with different levels of interest, and with different levels of ease. But everything in school-level math is within reach of *every* student, as long as you don't open the door to math phobia. For your own sake as well as for your daughter, click over to the YouCubed website and browse the research and activities they've put together. You might even want to work through the free How to Learn Math course over the summer. Also, as Jess mentioned above, play math games. Make them a regular part of your school schedule, even more important than the workbook lessons. When children meet math on a workbook page, it often seems abstract and meaningless. When the same children meet math in a game, they can enjoy it. The numbers have meaning, the context is social, and there's ever so much less stress/frustration involved. I have posted several math games for free on my blog. Or sample some of the games from Peggy Kaye's book. Try to play at least one math game every week for the rest of the school year.

You've gotten a lot of good advice, but I want to reinforce what Texasmom said. Your daughter is still young, and there's PLENTY of time ahead. Please don't worry about grade level. Focus on building the concepts down deep in understanding, and everything later will go smoothly. But if you rush, you almost guarantee that your daughter will struggle in high school. Here are some tips that may make your lessons easier: Do the pages buddy-style, so you work just as many problems as she does. This limits the long introductory explanations that tend to go over her head, gives her time to watch your work and catch on, and it makes the whole math session feel more like friendly conversation than task-mastery. Limit the amount of time spent on math to about half an hour at a time. Don't try to finish the page if it's going slowly. Thinking hard is tiring, so don't let it go to the point of frustration. Skip around in the book. Find a topic your daughter enjoys and put a bookmark there. Do just a few of the tough arithmetic problems (long multiplication or division) and then skip to the lighter topic. Don't feel like you have to do all the problems on the hard pages. A few problems worked carefully with discussion are usually better than slogging through a bunch and getting discouraged. If you want to spend more than half an hour on daily math, do something besides the workbook. I recommend playing card games that build mental math skill, like these on my blog. Or exploring non-textbooky topics of interest like these or here. Upper elementary math is hard. And doing math with a preteen approaching puberty is hard. There will be bad days and emotional meltdowns no matter what math program you use. But by keeping the stress level as low as possible, and by focusing on making sense rather than making progress, you will give your daughter a good foundation for the future. One more point: The long multiplication and long division problems are not really that important. If they cause tears, consider skipping them or doing no more than one per day (or one each, buddy-style). Honestly, all those problems are is an exercise in following the steps of a recipe -- they do not build understanding. What is important is number sense, being able to reason flexibly with numbers.

I love Family Math and Games for Math. And thanks for sharing your Pinterest board. Lots of yummy links to explore! I'd really love to make something like this (from one of your Pins). But I think I'd use card stock and laminate it. Might not be quite as much fun to play with, but easier to make, easier to store.

The movement was vertical. Pick a point on the original image, then find the new position of that point in the reflection. It moved straight down, didn't it?

New blog post you might enjoy: My Favorite Math Games“Games put children in exactly the right frame of mind for learning difficult things. Children relax when they play — and they concentrate. They don’t mind repeating certain facts or procedures over and over, if repetition is part of the game.†—Peggy Kaye

You've gotten some good ideas here, but I'd like to throw out something else for you to consider. JUMP Math is written especially for kids like your daughter who have trouble with a traditional approach and need a confidence booster. It's an excellent program, and the free teacher materials provide all you need to use it as an afterschooling supplement. You would start with the Confidence Building Unit, which is a special series of lessons on fraction math. Teacher's Manual -- Do read all of this. The notes are very important. Student Pages If those links won't open for you, go to the main website and create a free account, then look at the Confidence Building Unit page. You want the Level C fractions unit. Then go to the 4th grade lessons here. Download the teacher's guides and blackline masters. That should give you plenty to start with, though if you really like the program, they do have books you can buy in the future. Work through the lessons in order. Don't worry about whether they match up with what your daughter is doing in school. The lessons start deceptively easy and build step by step to a deep understanding of math concepts, creating a strong foundation for future learning.

Have you worked much on mental math strategies? By thinking about how the numbers relate to each other, your son could quickly calculate any math fact he forgets. More reliable than memorization alone, and not babyish at all. Mental math strategies build algebraic thinking, making them a great foundation for future math topics. Details in my blog post series: How to Conquer the Times Table.

Here's the link to the Nanowrimo workbooks and pep talks for student writers. My daughter really liked the book Spilling Ink. Here's her review. She published her first book around your daughter's age (several years ago, now), and this year she's been running it as a serial on her blog. If your daughter likes fantasy quest stories and wants to read what another homeschooled teen wrote, start here. There's a writing blog aimed at teen writers that your daughter may enjoy: Go Teen Writers. If she likes what she reads there, they also have a book. As for counting the writing on your transcript: by all means, do! We counted the novel writing as a big part of Teresa's primary English course, and also included it as two one-semester elective courses. Creative Writing: Stories, and Creative Writing: The Novel.

I'm a big fan of slowing down and mixing resources. We enjoyed many rabbit trails away from our curriculum over the years, including Zaccaro's Problem-Solving Genius and Real World Algebra books. But for practicing math facts, our go-to strategy has always been games: Math game posts at Let's Play Math blog