Posted by My daughter asked me the other day, to explain to her further her math lesson, as she said she could not fully understand it. Most of the time, she works on her math work book on her own with very little help from us. This time, she hit a snag, and needed more explication.
We are homeschooling our kids since Grade 1, and are planning to continue maybe until they finish middle school or up to early high school. Then they may go to a “real” school for a few years of high school before they embark to college.
My wife had delegated me to teach math and science to our kids since she said I was the “best in math and science” (and I have medals to prove it), when I was in high school. My daughter now is doing pre-algebra. Many times if she had questions on the math problems, it took me only one look and I could figure it out and could explain the problem to her. Her current lesson was how to solve square root by long hand.
I read the teacher’s manual (yes, their books comes with teacher’s guide), I even watched the DVD that comes with it where a math teacher explains the concept, but for the life of me, I still could not understand how to solve square root manually. I guess that is what calculators’ square root function is for, made for people like me. I end up calling my friend, who is a math major for help. I thought to myself, Ms. Faderogaya, my high school math teacher would rescind my medal!
Now I am having apprehensions if I can tackle teaching algebra, geometry and calculus. Though I still feel confident teaching science (maybe not that confident in chemistry), including the experiments, as long as we don’t burn our house down.
But I am determined to re-learn all these subjects so I can help my children as they continue in their home education. I believe that if I we parents invest ourselves, our efforts, and our time in teaching our children, it is not just math or science that they will learn from us. It would be way much more. Yes, the more important things that are really needed in life.
In the mean time, I’ll help her solve the square root of 15,625. If I can figure it out first……..without using the calculator.
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