A Minor Victory, or So Far, So Good

Sarah is currently working through Saxon's Algebra I text.  She's doing well.  It's one of two courses she's taking this year that will earn her high school credit.  Whew!  It's started!  Kind of daunting!

I loved Algebra in school.  I was pretty smart in math, getting bumped up a year ahead at some point in my schooling (don't remember what grade that was).  So when I was an 8th Grader, I, along with three other students, got bussed to the high school to take Algebra with the 9th graders (back in the day, Algebra was a 9th grade subject; seems like everything has been bumped up a year nowadays).  I loved it!  Fun, like a game or puzzle.

One big question that comes up when discussing homeschooling high school is how I might manage the upper level subjects (chemistry, calculus, trig).  I always say that my desire to homeschool the kids through high school is not a declaration of my possessing infinite stores of knowledge; I don't pretend to know everything about every subject they'll encounter through high school.  However, I can help them find the answers, or reach out to people who do know those subjects.  But one day, and it will be sooner rather than later, I will have to throw up my hands and say, "That's it.  I don't know this stuff.  Let's go find someone who does."

Well, I'm many years removed from my math successes in junior high/high school!  Before Sarah started Algebra this year, I admit to being a bit nervous and queasy about fielding a question to which I didn't know the answer.  But, boy oh boy, did I hope and pray that I could at least get her through this year's math!  As a fallback, though, we do own the Saxon Teacher DVDs that will work out every problem in every lesson and test.  So far, we have not had to pull those out!  :)

So my minor victory occurred on Thursday morning, as Sarah was reading her Algebra lesson for the day.  She looked up, had a bit of a frustrated and blank look on her face, and asked if we could go over the lesson together; she wasn't understanding one particular concept of the lesson.  Well, my heart kind of skipped a beat, and my mind reeled and queried, "Is this the moment?  Will I get this stuff?  Will we have to get out the DVDs?  Or, even more drastic, will we have to call someone and get help?"

I read the text, looked at an example, looked at the answer to the example, looked at the example again, pondered, thought, panicked, thought some more, and then the light bulb went off!!  Aha!  I got this!  I can do this!  But, wait......I still have to "teach" this to Sarah, I have to explain this in a way as to get her 13-year old math light bulb to go off.  Aha!  I did that, too!  Whew!

Yes, so far, so good, indeed.

P.S.  In case you're wondering, and want a heads up on what you're in for when YOU have to teach Algebra to your child, the concept was adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, with the unlike denominators being unknown terms with exponents (having to determine the LCM of those algebraic terms).