So, Yanni has not been doing well in math.

Not a huge surprise, considering our history with math. After struggling through two years of homeschool and zero comprehension, I had basically abandoned the concept of teaching Yanni math. She had two light years of learning fractions, and basically getting good at cooking with a little fractions on the side, followed by a few years of ‘you’re supposed to be doing your algebra’–where she barely finished the first section of an algebra book.

Fast forward to this year, and we have Yanni enrolled in an algebra class at the homeschool co-op group in town. It is taught by a strict old teacher–you know the type, she takes points off for problems that leave off things like ‘ft’ after the correct number was found.

I always let things like that slide, because I thought that math should be about learning how to compute, not trying to trap children in little petty tricks.

But, alas, both Yanni and Xay are now in the world of picky math teachers.

After letting her tread water by herself for a few weeks, I got in there and did math with Yanni last week. We wrestled over problems and formulas. . . and I hope, prevailed. She has yet to receive her corrected homework from our last week of math.

Xay, in algebra 1/2 was doing ok independently, but I noticed that he had done the wrong test to turn in last week, so I caught it and had him take the correct test. His homework grade was considerably lower than his test grade for the last graded homework session, so I sat down and did math with Xay today, too. At one point, I was screaming, “it’s not fair! Why do they ask questions like this?” It’s about perimeter, and while I can do algebra and trig, I draw the line at geometry. My mind gets all mushy to even think about proofs and areas. . . and then Xay solved the problem, and all was right with the world.

And of course, I still had to teach Joy and Imani their math, too.

So, yeah. It’s all math, all the time around here.

I’ll let you know how it goes.