Homeschooling is a wonderful way to give your children a great education. However, teaching math to homeschool children can be challenging. We want to help you to make an informed decision about the best math curriculum for homeschoolers.
Consideration before Choosing a Math Curriculum
- Homeschool math can be challenging to understand. You need to teach math in a visual way so that a homeschooler doesn’t get overwhelmed. Once you decide on a curriculum, make sure you communicate it the right way; a curriculum must be compelling and easy to learn.
- Keep homeschool math short: Do not waste your time teaching homeschool math for 16 or more lessons. If you do need to figure out precise arithmetic, there are comprehensive counting curricula that can be taught at home.
- Carefully select your teaching method. Most homeschooling methods put the burden of memorizing math on the homeschooler. Take time to assess the impact of your method on your homeschooling family.
Math for visual learners
Homeschoolers can be expected to understand math when presented in the auditory format of songs, stories, and exercises. For students who may be better math thinkers in other ways, such as visual learners, music is a wonderful way to implement math. One idea is to have a “musical interactions” or “musical formulas” section, where the teacher is required to instruct the students in a musical formula to solve a problem. For example, “light squared + log x + light * log” is a formula that can be used to solve for dimensions. This allows math instruction to be blended with other enrichment activities.
Reading List This method is great when your students are visual learners. Using stories or images that have meaning can be a powerful way to teach them numbers in a visual way. You may find that your students enjoy stories when there’s a teacher’s sermon involved, though.
Math tactile and kinesthetic learners
This kind of kids will absorb information better from visual aids or movement than from written text. For these individuals, movement works best when you are trying to convey a feeling. Try doing handstand pushups, throwing a baseball and counting at the same time.
These types of math curricula focus more on using hands-on creations through such activities as jigsaw puzzles or building clay birds. These opportunities are geared at enhancing fine motor skills and thus are not traditional homeschool math.
What is self-paced math education?
Homeschool math education or self-paced math education is a style of education where the curriculum is in the hands of the students. Instead of the teacher having to schedule and administer tests, homeschooled students create their own curricula, watch videos about math processes, ask questions, solve solutions, and so on. Self-paced math is relatively easy to digest for children. While children learn better if they receive constant feedback and praise, from a self-paced homeschooling math program, the learning curves really start coming into focus at a young age.
Homeschool math education can come with its own set of difficulties and obstacles that some families may face. I think it is the responsibility of your homeschooling to make sure you are doing all you can to make the homeschool math education as easy as possible for your child. It’s easy to think that math is too hard for homeschooled children.
Here you can find a collection of math educational toys that can be helpful in your math homeschooling curriculum. Math educational toys
