Planning for your math subject is simple since you will follow a lesson by lesson curriculum such as Saxon Math. You should follow the curriculum in order with little flexibility. You can be flexible in how much work you require, the pace for the student, whether you test periodically, and so forth.
Most math curriculums are arranged in 4 or 5 lessons a week for the typical 36 week school year. Saxon Math generally follows this plan. 8th graders will typically use Algebra 1. It’s not important that you start with lesson 1 of Algebra 1 on day 1. Your student may be ahead or behind by as much as a year and all will work out just fine. Your student may be continuing Saxon Algebra 1/2 from 7th grade or may be transitioning from another math curriculum. If you follow our year round approach, you will have completed Algebra 1/2 late in 7th grade and then immediately started Algebra 1 near lesson 15 or 20, skipping the first lessons which are reviews of Algebra 1/2. Continuing math in the summer, you’ll find the student well into Algebra 1 at the start of 8th grade. Our Month 1 Lesson Schedule follows this assumption as we start week 1 on lesson 57 of Algebra 1.
Our 8th grade math plan mixes in part of the Consumer Mathematics (CM) course from Abeka. This consists of 12 units on topics such as Buying a Car, Travel, Budgeting, Housing, Food, etc. Each unit averages 10 lessons for a total of 119 lessons. One lesson can be completed in a single daily math study period. This course would typically be part of a 10th or 11th grade education, but 8th grade is not too early to teach some of these units. The math is basic addition, multiplication, percentages, etc. so is easily mastered by any student who has completed pre-algebra. It’s helpful as it shows the student that mathematics has “real world” usefulness. Also, if your child is helping with the grocery shopping, cooking, or general household chores, they will have a natural interest in the subjects in the CM course. We recommend having the course on hand in 8th grade and teaching what you feel the student would enjoy. We begin 8th grade with this, alternating between Algebra and CM. Later, as the Algebra concepts get more difficult, we set aside the CM to allow unbroken concentration on Algebra. CM can be resumed during breaks between Algebra 1 and 2 if desired.
Qualified to teach Algebra?
Right about now, many parents begin breaking into a cold sweat as the dreaded “A” word appears in the 8th grade curriculum. However, it is widely agreed that Algebra is a requirement for any basic middle school/high school education. So assuming the parent is not comfortable with anything less than having an 8th grade education themselves, the parent really should be comfortable with Algebra 1 concepts. It may have been many years since Algebra was learned or used, so a little rust may need to be knocked off the brain, but Algebra is really useful and being fluent in the use of functions and lines helps round out thinking skills in our increasingly subjective and muddled world. So parents, you really need to do this yourself. Lesson by lesson, you can learn it and you need it.
There will come a point in math studies where the parent need not be proficient and can in good conscience enlist an expert or tutor for help in teaching pre-calculus, calculus, or trigonometry. These advanced math skills are helpful for all, but realistically can be ignored by those who do not like them and are not interested in pursuing a technical vocation. This is my informed opinion as a degreed electrical engineer who highly values math and science. These are helpful for all, but as the child ages he or she will necessarily begin to narrow their interests along the lines of their God-given calling. But Algebra 1 is not the time for this – this is a basic skill that everyone from the baker to the tailor to the mother needs to master.
That said, there are many teaching aids that help the struggling parent. I have not used these personally but see how they are needed for those whose higher math skills have been sealed in a time capsule for 20+ years.
The Daily Lesson
You should plan on at least 1 hour of math 4 days a week. We aim for math all 5 days but don’t get upset if a day is missed here and there. You may find they struggle for a while with certain lessons and need to go slower, have extra practice, and so on. It is far more important that time is taken to allow extra practice for lessons the student struggles with, than to forge ahead for the sake of “staying on schedule”. Math is best done early in the day. As a “hard” skill it is good training for the brain, just as stretching and running in place is good preparation for physical exertion. Success in math early in the day gets the brain ready for the more intuitive subjects to follow.
A typical Saxon Algebra 1 lesson consists of reading the lesson, working all the Practice problems (typically 4 to 10) on the lesson for the day, then doing half of Problem Set (we do the odd numbered problems which is 15 out of 30 total). The Consumer Mathematics lesson has a similar structure – the “Practice problems” section is called “Model Problems” and the “Problem Set” is called “Exercises” The CM lesson consists of all Model problems and half the Exercises. The student should then check their answers with the Solution Manual then put away the solutions and rework any they missed. Finally they recheck the rework and if they missed the problem a second time, indicate it with a “?” in the margin.
The following morning you review the student’s work and help them with the ? problems. Check how many they missed before the rework. If you see a pattern in the types of problems missed, you may want to assign extra practice for that day instead of plunging ahead to the next new lesson. Another idea is to stay on the same lesson and assign the even-numbered problems. This gives them more practice without introducing any new concepts.
Saxon reinforces each new concept for several weeks in the Problem Set, so you don’t need the student to have flawless mastery of a concept before going on. However, Algebra lessons will build on previously introduced concepts, so the student need not be a world master on all concepts, but must feel comfortable before moving on.
In the provided daily plans for month 1 you’ll see examples of how Algebra 1 and Consumer Mathematics lessons are mixed each week. The Month 6 lesson plan shows the end of Algebra 1, a short break where Calculus concepts are introduced, then the beginning of Algebra 2 – again skipping many of the first lessons as they are a review of Algebra 1 material. The calculus introduction is from a Teaching Company video course on Introductory Calculus. This is a wonderful introduction that the freshly minted Algebra 1 graduate can easily comprehend. It shows why functions are important and the power of mathematics to solve real, complex problems that basic arithmetic cannot handle. We found this at our local library and it was a good “break” from daily equations while being useful to encourage continued mathematical excellence.