Radical Math Advice

A friend on AOL's Christianity Online's Unschooling message board responded to a question of how one might unschool math, and what texts or resources can be used.
I enjoyed her reply so much that I asked her permission to use her post.


  Well, we're having wonderful math days here in our house, so I felt inclined to post about my view point concerning math resources. Now, lots of you have had your chance to post about your favorite math texts, can I take a turn to add some radical suggestions?

Here are some resources that my kids are currently working with:

Mathlab by TOPS. I'd suggest this for ages 12 and up. It has activities that you would find in Math: A Human Endeavor, just addresses them in project format. I'm looking forward to doing the last card in the book - it's all about how to decipher those postal bar codes.

How Math Works by Reader's Digest. I know I've mentioned this book before, but I just love it! My son and I are making projects from this book every morning.

I found a workbook on math last week at Barnes and Noble. The company that published it is American Education Publishing. Half of it is math, the other half is reading skills. We've just worked in the math section so far, but my son really likes this book. The odd numbered pages seem to be puzzle/code/workbook type pages, the even pages are hands-on activities and games to make and play to reinforce the skills on the previous page. Yesterday we made cards and played a concentration type game to match improper fractions with mixed numbers. Today's game used equivalent fraction conversion skills. My son has been reluctant to learn these concepts in the Key to books, but he quickly grasped what he needed to do to play these games! I was surprised at how much he likes this book. The title is Enrichment Math and Reading, we have the grades 5/6 book. It was only $12.95.

My oldest used Saxon and burned out on math. My other two have not had any formal math curriculum, other than the Key to workbooks - which are parked on the shelf next to all the other math resources. They choose what math resources they will work with - and sometimes it may be a project of cooking or carpentry or art design or music theory instead of a workbook or software game or the Key to's.

How will I know they have learned all they will need for algebra? Well, I know they will need to understand addition, subtraction, multiplication, measuring, ratio, fractions and proportion and problem solving. They will need to know about decimals and the base 10 system. But they have learned all of these things from various math resources, games, and experiences. My 13 year old is having no trouble with algebra - unlike my oldest who was absolutely confused when she first attempted algebra. She was the one who grew up on textbooks and Saxon, remember.

If you're unschooling or a relaxed unschooler - I'd really like to encourage you to deschool from the idea of having to use a textbook curriculum for math in the early and middle grade levels. It has worked amazingly well for my two younger children. I think they have a much stronger grasp of concepts than my oldest daughter did at their ages. They are able to arrive at solutions to math problems from many different angles. It seems like such a paradox, but I've seen it with my own eyes!

Oh yes, here is a fun book about math that we pull out and read from time to time. It is like a children's picture book, it's entitled Math Curse, by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. The story is about a girl who is overwhelmed suddenly by the realization that math is everywhere, in everything. We love it!

Karen (Laslzm@aol.com)



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