Grade Accomplished: Algebra 1A: 97%; Algebra 1B 100%
Ahhh… Algebra, the bane of my existence last year.
When you are homeschooling, you learn right away that certain curriculums work better than others and that everyone learns differently. Perhaps there is no better example of this than with my year of Algebra.
Christa McAuliffe School of Arts and Sciences offers a standard online textbook, Holt: Algebra 1. I struggled with the online version of it for several weeks. If you’ve ever tried to read an online textbook, you might know why my eyes were crossing; the version I had required me to keep scrolling up and down and left and right. It wasn’t like reading a Kindle where you are reading a format that is actually made for an e-reader and adjusts to the size of your display. Instead, it was like a huge photo of each page that you couldn’t quite fit on any screen.
It was one serious headache.
We purchased the textbook itself on Amazon just so that I could save my sanity. It’s a good textbook, and included some access to videos to explain the concepts, but there was one key component missing:
A teacher.
Yes, that’s right. Mom and Dad just couldn’t cut it. Dad with his Mensa-IQ and Mom with her Magna Cum Laude degrees discovered that Algebra seemed to have seeped out their ears one night when they were sleeping these past decades. And while Christa McAuliffe School provides someone to assist from time-to-time and the videos that accompanied the text were wonderful, the two together weren’t sufficient for teaching a full course of Algebra in this house.
Make no mistake: There were still questions I needed answering.
So we tried three different tutoring programs. Out of the three, the winner for me was Yup, but they all are worth a try.
You can read more about my Algebra tutor reviews by clicking this link.
For Algebra 1A, I completed 50% of the Khan Academy Algebra Course.
Then, because I didn’t want to close out my freshman year without having Algebra behind me, I took a summer semester of Algebra 1B at my new school, Clonlara School, and completed that glorious circle of happiness bestowed upon me by the magnificent Khan Academy!
The best thing about Khan Academy Algebra is that it doesn’t let you move forward until you’ve mastered a skill. There’s no such thing as a “B” grade or even an “A-” … you are in it to win it!
I look forward to using Khan Academy as well as Yup tutoring to continue my math journey into Geometry for my sophomore year.
Nix The Norm 