Math Tears to Math Cheers

This year began a bit rough, but slowly we are finding a rhythm.  I changed many things, a little at a time, and am still tweaking.

Megan's math was torture for her.  After years of watching my older daughter struggle and develop a intense math hatred, I knew I didn't want that same path for my younger daughter.  

My 14 year old is at level, and I can honestly state that it is because I picked the curriculum that reviewed a lot and just took it day by day.  But the math-resistance is there, ingrained since the days of drill and kill multiplication worksheets.  I think she still has nightmares. 

My seven year old was developing that same resistance.  I was repetitively hearing, "I'm not good at math."  When the sight of math workbooks brings a child to tears, I knew it was time to find a new direction. I immediately stopped all workbook work in math. 

Megan working on Easy Peasy Math

I first hopped on Easy Peasy Homeschool. I back-tracked to Math 1 and found where I believed was a good spot for review but not be too simplistic.  Easy Peasy is wonderful with all the math games and videos.  My seven year old asks to do Easy Peasy math first before other subjects.  That is wonderful after hearing, "I don't like math" for weeks! 

Next I pulled out her flash cards. I put them into fact families and split the easy ones up so we are reviewing those less often.  Then, from the +3s and up, we are learning a new fact family every couple days, reviewing daily the ones we learned more recently.  I printed out a couple fact family worksheets from the internet that I have her fill out.  This all takes about five to ten minutes.  So far, my Megan is liking the new process. 

Life Of Fred, Lesson 1

My next step was to cater to her learning style, reading. My daughter lives reading and is advancing quickly in her reading skills.  I decided to purchase the first Life of Fred, Apples, and see how that went over.  She loved it!  Again, the lessons are short.  Life of Fred is also funny. 

Megan's Life of Fred work

My next step will be to scale back just a but on the computer games and do some hands-on, living math.  I've been impressed with the samples of Math Lessons for a Living Education by Queen's Homeschool.  I am planning to start Megan in book 2 after she masters a few more of her fact families. 

Megan working out the Your Turn to Play Section

I see my daughter not only learning math, but enjoying math.  To me, this is a breath of fresh air after her tears and dread and complaining.  I just wish I been brave enough to branch out more with my older daughter.