"Short-Cut Math"

This is a wonderful book aimed at grades 4-8.

The greatest advantage of home schooling is the freedom to use whatever method, products, and books that will do the job and do it in such a way that your child will gain knowledge and feel successful at the same time.

I first discovered this book with one student in our Christian school who could not - no matter how hard he tried - get math concepts in his head. He was in the 9th grade and was functioning on a 4th grade level in math at the time. I gave him a copy of the book and promised him that if he would read it and just do one section at a time he would be amazed. I even told him that there were sections he wouldn't need at all. This encouraged him as it wasn't "another book he had to read".

He took the book and "went after it". It wasn't very long until he was getting better grades and he told me he had read certain parts of the book. That's the beauty of it. He went to the area that was hard for him and he was successful at it because he tried it. He found confidence to go after knowledge because he found hope that he could obtain it through something so simple and very inexpensive!

Success is contagious. Others soon wanted it to become better at math. It became a competitive thing to see who could do more in their heads or faster on paper than the others. Competition is not necessarily bad. It worked in a Christian school and it certainly can work for your Home School and your students will have fun with it! Making math fun is important! This was definitely a win-win situation.

Trudi