Ken Nelson

This is the 3rd day of home schooling Brian (7th grade).

For now we mainly are trying to sort out materials for algebra and science. Until that is sorted out he is proceeding along with algebra book from his former school.

Part of what we learned is that he is actually not as well grounded in the fundamentals needed for algebra as we thought.  I suspected this, but it was masked by the way the he could figure it out on the fly for the Algebra I course in public school.  For instance, yesterday, I asked… “Since I put in the new chip in the truck, I’m getting 13 miles to the gallon. About what percent better is that over the 12 I got before?”.  And he couldn’t solve it.

Fortunately home schooling lets us find holes AND we have the flexibility to turn on a dime and plug the holes.  First we confirmed the suspicion with a placement test and then bought materials to plug the holes. After two or three weeks remedial practicae, he will proceed on with Algebra 1 as planned, only better grounded to succeed.

Home school takes work, but three days into it we remain excited and undaunted.