Math is often a challenging subject for math children in school. They struggle with not only the math concepts but also the vocabulary and steps in the process of figuring out a problem. It can quickly become overwhelming and frustrating. When you are homeschooling, the above issues are often still present. Here we share how to teach math in a homeschool setting and the strategies you can use to help your child on an individual level and guide them to success.
Strategy #1: Use the correct math resources
When you are homeschooling your child, you have an incredible advantage. You can tailor the resources you’re using to fit your child’s learning style. Often in the classroom, teachers try to include activities based around all different learning styles. However, it is not always possible. Since your child is home and you are leading the instruction. You can make sure the work is tailored to the way your student learns.
If you have an auditory learner and you are working on multiplication. You may start off with some really fun and interactive skip counting videos found on YouTube. Some favorites are the videos by NumberRock. They not only cover skip counting, but they also bring in real-world examples in their math concept videos!
It is really important to watch and learn from your child to see which way they learn best. It will make the learning process and getting through the math curriculum easier on them and you!
Strategy #2: Use games and interactive worksheets
What child doesn’t love playing a game? Bringing in different math games to help supplement your curriculum is a great way to bring the excitement up when learning new math concepts. There are some really already made math games on Amazon, but you can also create your own. Students love playing multiplication war and fraction dominos, where children compete to see whose fraction has the larger fraction. You can find tons of free math games (a lot of online games) with a Google search!
You also want to make sure you are using different math worksheets when working with your students. Some strategies may work better for your child than others. So if you have a variety of worksheets, you can figure out which ones will help your child best. When working with division, there are many different division strategies. You have the pattern strategies, fact triangles, and some strategies that even help with those special cases. It is best to have a couple of each type of math worksheet to give your student the opportunity to learn them.
Strategy #3: Supplement your homeschool math curriculum
No homeschool curriculum is perfect and you are going to have to supplement your own resources to help develop your kids’ skills! You may find some free homeschool math resources or free math worksheets. But it is best to always use products that have been proven to work for students. When we teach math in a homeschool setting we often have to spend quite some time pulling together resources so it’s great to have a list of go-to resources.
One unit children often struggle on is fractions, and it is always nice to have another fractions resource to pull from and give extra practice too. No lessons or math programs are perfect and it is always great to look elsewhere for some awesome materials!
Strategies that work
The strategies above may work for your student and they may not! But it is always important to have a bunch of different strategies in your bag of tricks to help your child through difficult math problems or concepts.
If you are interested in purchasing any resources in this blog, head over to my The Relaxed Homeschool shop and grab them!
