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TracyQ
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| Posted: March 12 2005 at 8:33am | IP Logged
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 Ok......this is my 10th year homeschooling, and you'd think I'd have this down by now. 
But I'm having trouble a bit, and I'm not sure quite what the best thing to do is at this point. I thought that maybe one or more of you may have come across this problem in your homeschool, and can help possibly???
My 9yo (almost 10yo) daughter is in 4th grade. She hates math, I mean detests it! My boys are both pretty good in math, and have had no troubles moving into the Saxon textbooks starting with Saxon 54, and up. My boys are also using the DIVE CD Roms, and love them!
Sarah, on the other hand, has always hated math, no matter what I do. I decided as was planned, I'd move her into Saxon Math starting in 4th grade, with Saxon 54. I even bought her the DIVE CD Rom, expecting that because she hates when I teach her math, that it would help. She hated that even more than me teaching her.
Sarah is EXTREMELY, and I mean EXTREMELY hands on. She is a whole body learner in fact, needing to dance, and move her whole body, and she sees absolutely NO reason why she has to learn math because she wants to be a professional singer when she grows up. (Yes, I did explain that you use math in music, but she didn't believe me. 
She is at that age, and a bit difficult. We've been working on attitude, and believe me, she has one!  But actually, her attitude for school is improving quite a bit, I do think Math is just extremely frustrating to her. She has trouble understanding it, it seems. And she's extremely bright, and understands many other things, it's just math that's the problem.
So I don't know now if at this point I should be looking for something different to use for her? She's very different in this area than her brothers, and so I'm at a loss as to what to do here.
Has anyone run into this problem????
Thanks for any insight you may be able to give me.
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Blessings and Peace,
Tracy Q.
wife of Marty for 20 years, mom of 3 wonderful children (1 homeschool graduate, 1 12th grader, and a 9th grader),
 homeschooling in 15th year in Buffalo, NY
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lilac hill
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| Posted: March 12 2005 at 4:13pm | IP Logged
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Tracy,
We have had great luck with MUS. Laurea, a very visual learner has had success, even as a math hater. It took about 2 1/2 years for her to be comfortable. she is in Algebra I this year. Because I liked the program, we switched DD#3 to MUS. She is not a math phobe but did have a dislike of math learned form her sisters. For DD#3 we reviewed the concepts in the Foundations book (the old program) and flew threw the multiplication book and now are in the division book. Not sure how this stacks up to other math programs but it has been workable. wiht our 4th grader we have her work for 20 minutes. I guess she figures anything is doable for 20 minutes.
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Viv
Wife to Rick (7/83), Mom to dd#1(6/87), dd#2(1/90), and dd#3(6/94) in central PA.
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juliecinci
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| Posted: March 12 2005 at 4:26pm | IP Logged
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I've had the same struggles with my two daughters. I'm sure my math phobia and failures in school are a part of it. We're all such language nuts in this family that math just didn't click as quickly for the girls. We used Miquon in the early years for my older daughter, which finally helped me "get" fractions for the first time in my life.
For my daughter, we used the Keys To series in Junior High and then took a year off of math.
Then last year (midway through her freshman year of high school) I found a math tutor for her (a homeschooling mom, in fact). Within two months of tutoring, the tutor greeted me at the door and said, "Your daughter ought to be a math major."
Knock me over with a feather.
Apparently I just wasn't able to help her get over the hump with math. You see, I only know one way to explain math. If you don't get it, I'm out of ideas. But this tutor is to math what I am to writing. She has endless ideas for explaining math and enough of them connected with my daughter that she is whizzing now.
Also, age made a difference for her. She needed time and space away from math to regroup—to not hate it so much (and just to mature a bit, too).
We did very little math in junior high and yet she got a straight A in Algebra I, Geometry and is now doing really well in Algebra II. She's moving quikcly through the material. We use Saxon. (And she even admits to liking it a little bit.)
Not sure this is helpful, but thought I'd share our experience as support for your frustration and as an idea of how one family solved the problems we were having.
Julie
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Julie
Homeschooling five for fourteen years
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Cindy
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| Posted: March 12 2005 at 4:56pm | IP Logged
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Julie.. How would one go about finding a *good* math tutor to look and see? How did you find your gem?
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Cindy in Texas
It Is About The Journey
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Liz D
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| Posted: March 12 2005 at 9:30pm | IP Logged
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Hi, Tracy,
I have heard lots of good things about MUS on the CCM loop and from a neighbor who has a 9 yo girl. Both of her sons do well with Saxon but the daughter was struggling. They been soimpressed with MUS. Don't think it's cheap unfortunately. Blessings, Liz
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Liz
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juliecinci
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| Posted: March 12 2005 at 10:02pm | IP Logged
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I found my tutor through our homeschool co-op. She teaches the upper level math there. But my daughter needed the one on one so even co-op wasn't right for her. This tutor is also someone I've known for five years. She majored in math and is really sharp.
I also used a math tutor for my son for geometry—he was tutored with the son of the mom who taught him. This went pretty well for him. She was another homeschool mom. I found her through our co-op too.
Just ask around for a mom who loves math! Maybe you can find one who will do math with your daughter when she gets to Algebra age. In the meantime, I would probably just keep math simple—fractions, division, percents, multiplication, measruements... that kind thing. Let her mind grow.
My daughter's goal is to do enough math for the SATs and high school transcript so that she can go to any college she chooses. That meant for her that she is just going up through Algebra II and then will be done.
She mentioned the other day that she is glad she took time off of math between eighth grade and the start of algebra I. She didn't go right into it in 9th grade. We waited until the spring of that year and she actually got a good head start by doing math in the summer when she had no other stubjects to prepare. That seemed to be the key in kick starting her success.
Hope you find what works for you and your daughter!
P.S. I know we have a good tutor when the kids are happy and making progress. It seems like anything—trial and error.
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Julie
Homeschooling five for fourteen years
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Kathryn UK
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| Posted: March 13 2005 at 3:51pm | IP Logged
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TracyQ wrote:
| She is at that age, and a bit difficult. We've been working on attitude, and believe me, she has one! But actually, her attitude for school is improving quite a bit, I do think Math is just extremely frustrating to her. |
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Tracy, my dd is the same age and sounds very similar. She is actually good at maths, but thinks she isn't and dislikes it. Her attitude to school has always been very negative - her things are dance, sport and music, and she simply isn't interested in academic subjects. Like your dd, her attitude has improved a lot recently - even to maths  . Part of the improvement in attitude has been because I limited my expectations. We have taken maths very slowly over the past year, since she hit a wall with decimals. Admittedly it was easier for me to be relaxed about this as she was working ahead of her age level and we have simply pulled back to where she "should" be, but I like to think I would have done the same even if it left her "behind". Finally we are having very few meltdowns over maths - we still have them occasionally, but I trust her to try, and if she does blow a fuse, we just put it away. She rarely spends more than 10 minutes a day on maths, but she is now making steady and reasonably painless progress.
I don't know what programme - if any - to recommend. We have switched to the new Singapore maths, My Pals Are Here, which my dd much prefers to the old Singapore edition we used to use. We did try Saxon, but only lasted 6 weeks before a combination of the Saxon spiral approach and division amnesia sent us up a painful dead end. I would suggest that you pull back from what you are doing and give your dd a chance to get back onto an even keel. If necessary take a complete break from maths for a few months. Maybe read some living maths books and do some informal maths (www.livingmath.net is good). Then start back into a programme slowly, with short lessons - say 10 minutes a day. You would be surprised how much can be done in this time, just working through a few examples. Short lessons can move maths from intolerable to bearable. The minute frustration hits: stop. Try again the next day. The chances of her learning anything become little more than zero once she is feeling frustrated. Believe me, I've put myself and my dd through that pain barrier too many times and learned the hard way. 
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Kathryn
Dh Michael, Rachel(3/95) Hannah(8/98) Naomi(6/06)  (11/07)
The Bookworm
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jdostalik
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| Posted: March 13 2005 at 4:00pm | IP Logged
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Tracy,
I would recommend giving MUS a try. My dd, a 4th grader, is good at math, but dislikes spending an inordinate amt. of time on it. She spends about 10 minutes a day on her math and is progressing very well with MUS. She is in the green division book--Delta. It is a good, hands-on program. Steve Demme makes learning math as fun as possible (and I am a former math hater!).
We have been happy w/MUS for 3 years and I plan on using it through junior high and perhaps beyond! If you have any specific questions about MUS , I'd be happy to address them!
Best of luck!
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God Bless,
Jennifer in TX
wife to Bill, mom to six here on earth and eight in heaven.
Let the Little Ones Come
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TracyQ
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| Posted: March 21 2005 at 3:15pm | IP Logged
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Thanks everyone.
Sarah and I started some test preparation books, as she'll be taking her first standardized tests this year. Since beginning them, she's really shown me that she's doing very well in math, she just wants to be able to SEE it, she's very visual.
She seems to like the format of the test prep (mulitple choice), and is getting quite good and weeding through answers to try to get to the correct one.
So we're learning some of what she'd be doing in her book now anyway (fractions and decimals) as we go along in the test prep. I think she just needed some change.
Consistancy is good for her, BUT also to change it up at times, as she gets bored. So I bought a few extra math resources so that I can use her Saxon TEXT as a guide, and will use it mostly with her, but then we'll also use some different resources as well to learn the concepts, and to play math games and read stories, and do math lapbooks, etc., so that we can bring fresh ideas and new ways of learning it into her math throughout the year.
I hope this is the key for her, and I think it'll just take some extra work on my part to hopefully see her change her thoughts and thrive in math!
__________________
Blessings and Peace,
Tracy Q.
wife of Marty for 20 years, mom of 3 wonderful children (1 homeschool graduate, 1 12th grader, and a 9th grader),
homeschooling in 15th year in Buffalo, NY
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4Real Forums : Living and Loving Numbers
Topic: Need advice on math for 4th Gr. daughter
