Nice to get some confirmation

So I'm going to admit here, if no where else, that yes, I do get nervous sometimes with Christopher since we are now totally free of any state-governed oversight for his education. For the most part, I think we are doing well with him but as a parent, I think there is always that niggling doubt when you do anything outside of societal norms and you have to admit, that homeschooling definitely counts (even tho it is thankfully getting to be more acceptable).

So it was really nice to get some confirmation today that things are going well with him. I finally found my Algebra test solutions manual and got to grade his last three weeks of Algebra tests. Last year, this was a huge problem as he was struggling so badly with that material. This year? What a turn around! The most he missed was 3 out of 20 and only one of those was a problem with his formula (he forgot to account for one side when figuring out surface area and mismeasured another side). The other two were simple errors in computation. Wow! Talk about a major difference! He'd never really struggled with math until he started pre-algebra and I admit that part of me chalked it up to him being such a literature brain that maybe it was just a harder concept for him to grasp but now this year, Matthew who is a total math and science geek is struggling with pre-algebra as well! The curriculum choice for K12 is very awkward to navigate and there is NO review of previous concepts so if you aren't working on something for a unit or two, you literally do not see it until they bring it back again by which time you've forgotten it because they don't keep repeating it to make sure it's well into your brain.

Since getting Christopher out of CAVA and the K12 curriculum, we have switched over to Saxon Math which is highly recommended in the homeschooling circles we frequent. It's also the math curriculum recommended by the TJEd book I love so much. I was thrilled to find it was exactly what we were looking for. Small incremental steps in each lesson with each problem set containing review. Christopher has gone from hating geometry to needing my help with the 1-2 problems he did every day, to getting almost all of them correct! What a difference this curriculum has made for him! We just picked up Matthew's level from the same friend who loaned us the stuff for Christopher and I'm so excited for Matthew to try it and see if we can get his love of math back. It was so sad to see him start actually hating math when before it had been one of his favorite subjects.

If I ever doubted that we made the right decision with Christopher, this has confirmed that we are currently on the right path. I hope this holds true with Matthew as well but I really think it will.