You know I loved this video!! We are still going strong & the girls are now in Epsilon. I loved what you said about slowing down and camping out when you hit a glitch. We have hit several of those along the way but we have done as you described...I sit there and we do the Build-Write-Say method TOGETHER and eventually, they master the concept and we move on. It is truly a beautiful process and the deep understanding my daughters now have with math is astounding because it is not something we could ever reach with any of the other math curriculums we have tried over the years (and we have tried many!). MY views of math in general have changed since starting Alpha with my girls who at the time were in 6th and 8th grades. We do deal with some special needs but their progress has been remarkable. I am seeing math in a whole new light....a light that I LOVE. Math is so logical and the process of problem solving is so satisfying! I NEVER saw math in this way as a child or in college. I HATED math. My children have always historically hated math. My younger daughter has changed her views of math now and my oldest did a couple problems today that weren't required of her "just for fun". It IS fun. Problem solving is fun and we MUST teach our children problem solving skills so they can THINK for themselves. I've never made this connection with math before but now that my skills have become SHARP after going through this mastery program with my girls (yes, I am learning right along with them and seeing these concepts in a whole new light and it has been such a fun, fascinating journey for me!) I have the bandwidth in my brain to be able to see math in this new light. This is ALL because of Math U See. I love how you are using other resources for math as well. And.....when you said, when math gets hard, we tend to look for an "easier" approach and we don't need to do that, I couldn't agree more and I am guilty of doing that with my girls! Math is such a wonderful subject to teach us to DO hard things and put our brains to work to solve problems based on information we already know. I absolutely love teaching math lessons to my four kids. My younger two boys are using Math U See, too (Primer & Alpha). Thank you for this wonderful video!
I had told Morgan yesterday I wish I had been homeschooled and she said matter-of-factly, "You are. Here with me." And that just struck me like a lighting bolt. She is right. And with math, we are in it together. If she gets to Calculus, I get to calculus. Not quitting is half the battle won. I'm just so determined to show Morgan it's ok to be average AND win. It's also pretty amazing how many moms before me, like you, took their kids back several steps and used MUS to move them forward. You know what's annoying is that this is probably a real common thing but none of us knew it when we were doing it.
@ Morgan is so right!!!! I love learning right along with my kids in every subject. I love what you said…it’s okay to be average and win. There is not much MUS content on TH-cam.
Thank you so much for these videos. ❤ We are too a Math U See family after a couple of failed attempts at different spiral curriculums. I have Grade 4 & 2 boys who I took right back to Alpha at the start of the year and they both have moved quickly and with confidence (until they hit a hump like Morgan 😊). My 9yo has moved through 2 books this year, filling all those gaps as he went. Like you, I really have found that my boys need mastery programs for both Maths and Reading. I really want to say thank you for how in-depth your videos are and how you explain your thought process. I have a deep love of homeschooling and finding the best outcome for my 3 boys. I spend an inordinate amount of time researching, understanding and planning our short and long term goals and I appreciate seeing and hearing from someone who is as dedicated to their child education outcomes. So thank you for putting your life on TH-cam and always encouraging me to question if there's more I can do to better my children's education.
Well, your note made my morning. I think it would be wonderful if all of us who connect because of this channel lived within a few square miles of each other. Then we could all have coffee and actually talk. I've found my videos are getting longer and a bit meandering. Perhaps I am getting bolder, but I am so interested in discussing home education in more depth than we really are allowed to ever have in person. This channel at least lets me find women doing or struggling with the same things and loving it all the while. I think it is so interesting you went all the way back to Alpha. At the time we switched to MUS, I felt like I was jumping off a cliff and hadn't checked for the parachute. What a risk it felt like starting with Beta and redoing everything. But then, I didn't understand the power of mastery and self-paced work. Strangely, for an adult, of course I understand it. I do it all the time. I don't know why I didn't equate it to Morgan as an option. I suppose in my defence, it only took me three months with Saxon 5/4 before we took a right turn and left it. But three months felt like an awfully long time. I admit that occasionally I feel slightly annoyed with my predecessors for there not already being a video on this kind of thing. But then, I also get annoyed there is so little information and so few studies on home education. Who are we? What do we look like? What happens to all the kids? How can a woman homeschool and work if she wanted to? There is only one video I have found that reasonably discusses a study on homeschool moms and their kids. I keep meaning to bring it up on a video. Here is the link if you haven't seen it. It's 11 years old: th-cam.com/video/AGp4KFLuQNc/w-d-xo.html Thank you for your comment and I wish you a wonderful school year. Let me know how you progress with math and if you make any changes or additions. I'd be very interested. All my best!
@@ThePattersonHomeschoolAcademy Oh yes! I have often wished for people to chat to close by, who are as passionate about homeschooling as me. :) Sometimes, when I find something interesting while researching, excitement just explodes out of me and I just need to tell someone about it - ha ha. Going back to Alpha was a huge leap of faith for me for my eldest son. But we were having so much struggle with memory work of basic maths (addition & subtraction) and the spiral programs were just brushing over everything so quickly, that I really thought we needed to. I often think of spiral programs as an inch deep but a mile wide. I found it really interesting when looking into our states curriculum requirements for maths, that they have the same approach as well, covering a lot of very broad concepts, very quickly. Thank you for your video recommendation, I haven’t watched it before, so I’ll check it out. I agree, a study on homeschooling and family dynamics would be interesting. I would love to see what the breakdown of hours between roles would be, for example: jobs of the home and outside of the home, homeschooling, research/planning, and home making. I’ll be interested to see the progress you make this year in maths too, there’s so much value in what you are sharing with us. Who knows maybe you’ve inspired me to share our homeschool journey on TH-cam. Chat soon and have a lovely year as well. :)
@@rowanmac I felt driven to start a channel because while every homeschool mom on TH-cam was and is doing a ton to share, no one's voice really matched my own and I was curious to see if there was anyone out there at all like me. And if there was, then they could have a channel to watch. You should absolutely consider it. At first it's arduous and awkward but very quickly gets to be part of a routine. I am trying to see if I can publish one video a week at the same time, noon on Mondays, for the whole school year, to make myself consistent. But I don't want to burn out so I will take maybe 3 weeks off for Christmas when people are usually too busy to watch anyway, and the whole summer off. I think homeschool moms on TH-cam get burned out doing too many videos and everything else in their lives. I really am interested in seeing if I can continue this all the way through to graduation because there is so little out there on the upper grades and virtually nothing of substance because so much is out schooled. That's not a bad thing, it just doesn't provide a lot of content for someone who might be seeking to keep the majority of studies at home and would like some help or ideas. But if I find I can't or don't want to vlog anymore, I'd like to find a way to keep in touch with some moms and have a community from which to draw and ask questions of. People I got to know along the way who think sort of like me. And looking ahead, while I am already outsourcing French, I keep a close eye on it and develop it and plan for it beyond just the course Morgan is taking. I also know, for instance I will outsource electronics in Morgan's senior year to my husband. He is a HAM radio guy with a little studio inside our farmstead's shop. He likes to rebuild radios so he is more than happy to teach an electronics course. So certainly things will change but I would like to still be there and create the course out of sheer interest like you -- and likely be a student right along with my kid. I just love the research, course building and then guiding a student. I can't read enough books! I've been training myself to speed read and practicing memory retention (always a challenge for me) and keeping books and books of notes. And everyday, I think about how it could be possible for a mother to teach her children and earn a living wage. I think it would be a dream if there was a degree program in college for it where a mother could somehow be paid for being a part of a strong future generation -- a fast degree later in life when a woman wants to have kids. It just seems like a whole bunch of smart women would be able to figure that out if we were joined in some way and not fractured all over the globe. Anyway... here's to dreaming! But we are living in a dream doing this I think. It's wonderful.
I just watched one of the videos and looked through a lesson and some of the tests. This looks really goos. I saved the website. Thank you mentioning this. Have you been using it? I don't think MUS will ever have us generating our own equations as much as this. This is super useful.
My kiddo is only a 1st grader, so I hope MasterMath is still available when we hit 6th grade. I’ve heard lots of good things about it and it’s free, kinda hard to beat!
You know I loved this video!!
We are still going strong & the girls are now in Epsilon. I loved what you said about slowing down and camping out when you hit a glitch. We have hit several of those along the way but we have done as you described...I sit there and we do the Build-Write-Say method TOGETHER and eventually, they master the concept and we move on. It is truly a beautiful process and the deep understanding my daughters now have with math is astounding because it is not something we could ever reach with any of the other math curriculums we have tried over the years (and we have tried many!).
MY views of math in general have changed since starting Alpha with my girls who at the time were in 6th and 8th grades. We do deal with some special needs but their progress has been remarkable. I am seeing math in a whole new light....a light that I LOVE. Math is so logical and the process of problem solving is so satisfying! I NEVER saw math in this way as a child or in college. I HATED math. My children have always historically hated math. My younger daughter has changed her views of math now and my oldest did a couple problems today that weren't required of her "just for fun". It IS fun. Problem solving is fun and we MUST teach our children problem solving skills so they can THINK for themselves. I've never made this connection with math before but now that my skills have become SHARP after going through this mastery program with my girls (yes, I am learning right along with them and seeing these concepts in a whole new light and it has been such a fun, fascinating journey for me!) I have the bandwidth in my brain to be able to see math in this new light. This is ALL because of Math U See.
I love how you are using other resources for math as well. And.....when you said, when math gets hard, we tend to look for an "easier" approach and we don't need to do that, I couldn't agree more and I am guilty of doing that with my girls! Math is such a wonderful subject to teach us to DO hard things and put our brains to work to solve problems based on information we already know.
I absolutely love teaching math lessons to my four kids. My younger two boys are using Math U See, too (Primer & Alpha). Thank you for this wonderful video!
I had told Morgan yesterday I wish I had been homeschooled and she said matter-of-factly, "You are. Here with me." And that just struck me like a lighting bolt. She is right. And with math, we are in it together. If she gets to Calculus, I get to calculus. Not quitting is half the battle won. I'm just so determined to show Morgan it's ok to be average AND win. It's also pretty amazing how many moms before me, like you, took their kids back several steps and used MUS to move them forward. You know what's annoying is that this is probably a real common thing but none of us knew it when we were doing it.
@ Morgan is so right!!!! I love learning right along with my kids in every subject. I love what you said…it’s okay to be average and win.
There is not much MUS content on TH-cam.
Thank you so much for these videos. ❤
We are too a Math U See family after a couple of failed attempts at different spiral curriculums.
I have Grade 4 & 2 boys who I took right back to Alpha at the start of the year and they both have moved quickly and with confidence (until they hit a hump like Morgan 😊). My 9yo has moved through 2 books this year, filling all those gaps as he went.
Like you, I really have found that my boys need mastery programs for both Maths and Reading.
I really want to say thank you for how in-depth your videos are and how you explain your thought process. I have a deep love of homeschooling and finding the best outcome for my 3 boys. I spend an inordinate amount of time researching, understanding and planning our short and long term goals and I appreciate seeing and hearing from someone who is as dedicated to their child education outcomes.
So thank you for putting your life on TH-cam and always encouraging me to question if there's more I can do to better my children's education.
Well, your note made my morning. I think it would be wonderful if all of us who connect because of this channel lived within a few square miles of each other. Then we could all have coffee and actually talk. I've found my videos are getting longer and a bit meandering. Perhaps I am getting bolder, but I am so interested in discussing home education in more depth than we really are allowed to ever have in person. This channel at least lets me find women doing or struggling with the same things and loving it all the while.
I think it is so interesting you went all the way back to Alpha. At the time we switched to MUS, I felt like I was jumping off a cliff and hadn't checked for the parachute. What a risk it felt like starting with Beta and redoing everything. But then, I didn't understand the power of mastery and self-paced work. Strangely, for an adult, of course I understand it. I do it all the time. I don't know why I didn't equate it to Morgan as an option. I suppose in my defence, it only took me three months with Saxon 5/4 before we took a right turn and left it. But three months felt like an awfully long time.
I admit that occasionally I feel slightly annoyed with my predecessors for there not already being a video on this kind of thing. But then, I also get annoyed there is so little information and so few studies on home education. Who are we? What do we look like? What happens to all the kids? How can a woman homeschool and work if she wanted to? There is only one video I have found that reasonably discusses a study on homeschool moms and their kids. I keep meaning to bring it up on a video. Here is the link if you haven't seen it. It's 11 years old:
th-cam.com/video/AGp4KFLuQNc/w-d-xo.html
Thank you for your comment and I wish you a wonderful school year. Let me know how you progress with math and if you make any changes or additions. I'd be very interested. All my best!
@@ThePattersonHomeschoolAcademy Oh yes! I have often wished for people to chat to close by, who are as passionate about homeschooling as me. :) Sometimes, when I find something interesting while researching, excitement just explodes out of me and I just need to tell someone about it - ha ha.
Going back to Alpha was a huge leap of faith for me for my eldest son. But we were having so much struggle with memory work of basic maths (addition & subtraction) and the spiral programs were just brushing over everything so quickly, that I really thought we needed to. I often think of spiral programs as an inch deep but a mile wide.
I found it really interesting when looking into our states curriculum requirements for maths, that they have the same approach as well, covering a lot of very broad concepts, very quickly.
Thank you for your video recommendation, I haven’t watched it before, so I’ll check it out. I agree, a study on homeschooling and family dynamics would be interesting. I would love to see what the breakdown of hours between roles would be, for example: jobs of the home and outside of the home, homeschooling, research/planning, and home making.
I’ll be interested to see the progress you make this year in maths too, there’s so much value in what you are sharing with us.
Who knows maybe you’ve inspired me to share our homeschool journey on TH-cam.
Chat soon and have a lovely year as well. :)
@@rowanmac I felt driven to start a channel because while every homeschool mom on TH-cam was and is doing a ton to share, no one's voice really matched my own and I was curious to see if there was anyone out there at all like me. And if there was, then they could have a channel to watch. You should absolutely consider it. At first it's arduous and awkward but very quickly gets to be part of a routine. I am trying to see if I can publish one video a week at the same time, noon on Mondays, for the whole school year, to make myself consistent. But I don't want to burn out so I will take maybe 3 weeks off for Christmas when people are usually too busy to watch anyway, and the whole summer off. I think homeschool moms on TH-cam get burned out doing too many videos and everything else in their lives. I really am interested in seeing if I can continue this all the way through to graduation because there is so little out there on the upper grades and virtually nothing of substance because so much is out schooled. That's not a bad thing, it just doesn't provide a lot of content for someone who might be seeking to keep the majority of studies at home and would like some help or ideas.
But if I find I can't or don't want to vlog anymore, I'd like to find a way to keep in touch with some moms and have a community from which to draw and ask questions of. People I got to know along the way who think sort of like me.
And looking ahead, while I am already outsourcing French, I keep a close eye on it and develop it and plan for it beyond just the course Morgan is taking. I also know, for instance I will outsource electronics in Morgan's senior year to my husband. He is a HAM radio guy with a little studio inside our farmstead's shop. He likes to rebuild radios so he is more than happy to teach an electronics course. So certainly things will change but I would like to still be there and create the course out of sheer interest like you -- and likely be a student right along with my kid. I just love the research, course building and then guiding a student. I can't read enough books! I've been training myself to speed read and practicing memory retention (always a challenge for me) and keeping books and books of notes.
And everyday, I think about how it could be possible for a mother to teach her children and earn a living wage. I think it would be a dream if there was a degree program in college for it where a mother could somehow be paid for being a part of a strong future generation -- a fast degree later in life when a woman wants to have kids. It just seems like a whole bunch of smart women would be able to figure that out if we were joined in some way and not fractured all over the globe. Anyway... here's to dreaming! But we are living in a dream doing this I think. It's wonderful.
Great video-thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
Another math supplement for 6th-Algebra 1 is MasterMath. Free teaching videos and worksheets plus answer keys.
I just watched one of the videos and looked through a lesson and some of the tests. This looks really goos. I saved the website. Thank you mentioning this. Have you been using it? I don't think MUS will ever have us generating our own equations as much as this. This is super useful.
My kiddo is only a 1st grader, so I hope MasterMath is still available when we hit 6th grade. I’ve heard lots of good things about it and it’s free, kinda hard to beat!
@@rachelembree6175 it’s so well organized for something that is free. And with videos.