Mommyfaithe Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I am swimming in Algebra choices...Larsens, Lials, Foersters, Jacobs??? Gelfand?? Dolciani??? Math Relief?? Chalkdust??? EWWWWW Not Saxon!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dvd's...dvts....cd-rom....online course?? correspondence?? are there teacher manuals?? solution manuals answers to odds only?? step by steps?? OK...and what the heck is a quadratic equation.... and why do they need a graphing calculator...and when do they need it.... Proofs...oh...that is geometry...right??? :chillpill: You would think I would have this all down for now since this is my yearly rant!! OK....if you were a Mom...and you homeschooled...and you took a business/accounting track.....and your only contact with upper level maths were 2 graduated dd's who somehow taught themselves....one ds who would rather have his teeth extracted..or get a haircut:tongue_smilie: and now you had a ds who is math/ science oriented....and you wanted to learn these high school maths in order to teach these upper level maths.... AND you were NOT a genius...or a math guru like Adrian (whose math posts always inspire...but totally confuse me because I have no idea what the heck he is talking about...even though I really believe math is beautiful...if you speak "math-ese"...) WHAT WOULD YOU DO???? OK...ds is gong into 9th grade and will have completed Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 & 2...(which I used as his light intro to upper level math and a 2 year stalling...so I wouldn't have to make this decision...but here I am making this decision.....) OK...YEARLY MATH RANT IS NOW FINISHED!!!!!:auto: OH>>>>ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELP!!!!!! ~~Faithe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim in Appalachia Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I know nothing about the other programs you mentioned, but I will say that Lial's has been great. The concepts are well explained. You don't need the DVTs, but if you child does better hearing the information it could help. If you have already finished Algrebra 1 and 2, I'm not sure what you're looking for. I might go staight to geometry, then do Lial's Intermediate Algebra, followed by PreCal course and then Calculus. Why do you want to do Algebra again? Did your ds struggle with it? Math has driven me crazy for years. Switching to Lial's for HS and using Rod and Staff for 1-8 has been great. And I agree, anything but Saxon.:D Kim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoggirl Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 It is DVD-based, the text is solid, and you can contact the teacher anytime you have a question. Love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharon in MD Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 We've been going the Foerster route for the higher courses, Al II and Pre Calc. We did Jacobs for Al I and Geometry and then used Foersters for Al II with a smattering of Thinkwell just to try it. I feel your pain....golly, after today especially. While I LOVE Foerster, there are times when I would really like to throw in the towel, or perhaps drop kick the calculator across the fence. I really identify with where you say you are personally coming from in terms of your experience. I've learned alot myself with using the Jacobs then Foerster route. I feel like I've managed to stay up on it and been able to keep up and just barely ahead of ds till this year. Now....true confessions....I'm at the end of me. I can barely keep up. I do understand it, and I like it, but would really need to sit and do each and every chapter and assignment fully to stay on top of it. We are managing, but it has really, really convinced me that we need to outsource math for next year when we do calculus. Today, we beat our heads against section 8-5 in the precalc book....trying and trying to figure out what we needed to do to make the Ti-84 do what it was supposed to do. The instructions we could find were sadly insufficient and lacking in a critical step or two. (And I mean to tell you I really researched how to do it too!). I finally got ds to call a friend in PS who is in AP statistics to see if he could help. We finally got the help we needed. And we all could speak the same language to each other, which for me as a paranoid homeschooler, was a blessing. All this is I guess meant to say, I think that you should go forward with a strong curriculum that fits together well and that you, as mom-teacher are comfortable with. If you are learning it too, or at a min. relearning it, it has to work for you too. I hate changing directions in mid-stream. I also would suggest that you prepare yourself to admit you may need help as you go. For me, this is tough. I have a pride issue in myself to deal with there. I always think I'll be able to do it, able to handle it....well, maybe not this time. The good side of that is that by the time I find the answer I've been searching for, I know a whole lot more....the bad news is I'm mentally exhausted. I just don't know. I almost didn't post this because I didn't want to discourage anyone. And yet, that would be so dishonest. Upper level math can be tough. But, I've manage to make it pretty darned far. So you should be able to too. And by the way...yeah proofs are in geometry....but if you go with Foerster, they are in Al and everything else too....which is not a bad thing. It makes sure that you know why things work the way they do. Sigh, I need to go to bed...my brain is fried. .....Aruba anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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