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Need a pep talk - feeling in adequate as I go into Foresters Alg. I....


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Math was a struggle for me as a child - though I did make in through Trig. I have to say it is easier the second time around, but I am lacking a lot of confidence as I go into 9th with my ds in Alg. I. I'm just wondering if I will be able to explain concepts well enough and with clarity. He's going to attend a homeschool high school in the fall, but we will do math at home (they are using Glencoe math). Ironically enough, I wanted to do math at home so that he would get a really good math program and good understanding. Now I wonder if I'm up to the task.

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you have more wiggle room. You can always come here or another homeschool board and ask for help explaining a given topic.

 

There are LOTS of resources online, including the Library of Virtual Manipulatives and other sites which have interactive demonstrations of concepts.

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My kids have never seen my report cards. I don't know how I will ever show them if they ask, because I demand a lot more from my kids than my parents ever did of me.

 

I found out in college that I could do math, but when it came to teaching my son algebra, I still had an inferiority complex that is carrying over into geometry. Since I made such bad grades in school, how can I presume to teach when my son gets into a jam?

 

What I have come to tell myself is that a parent who has struggled in a subject might be a good teacher primarily because she has struggled. I don't teach my kids music because that's what I'm good at, that's what I majored in, and in music I can't understand how people cannot love it and excel in it. With math, though, I not only understand what it's like to come up against a problem with no idea how to solve it, but I have personally been able to overcome my own weakness and succeed, so I know it's possible.

 

Foerster was a great book for me, a struggling math student, in that it provided great explanations from very basic instruction at the beginning of a chapter to fairly difficult word problems at the end, and because each chapter provides its own firm foundation, getting to the end of each chapter is not as difficult as you might think.

 

My son thought he was bad in math until last year with Foerster, when he got a lot of confidence, finishing some lessons more quickly than I did.

 

I think you can't possibly be worse off than me. If you desire to do it, then you will be able to succeed.

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