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Description

Guest Gretchen Roe from Demme Learning says that math is like death and taxes: you don't get away from either one. She urges parents not to shortchange kids in their math instruction by claim they're just not a math-family.  

Learn how a mastery-based curriculum is student-centric, allowing a child to work at the pace they need to fully comprehend the skills (instead of the curriculum determining the length of lessons and how quickly you work through them). Find out why manipulatives are key to learning math and why some kids discard them too soon. Are your math lessons too long? Discover the ideal length of a daily math lesson. The day-to-day math we encounter as adults mostly comes to us in the form of word problems.

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TIMESTAMPS



02:55 Gretchen's introduction.

05:44 Mastery-based learning, defined.

07:22 How Math-U-See is unique compared to other math curriculums.

09:07 About manipulatives for teaching math.

13:14 Teaching math to the artistic, non-mathy student.

15:17 Flexibility is a great sign of intelligence. Help your child maintain intellectual flexibility by teaching the higher math that they think they won't ever need.

18:08 Numeracy (mathematical literacy) in daily life.

21:20 The value of mental math when the cash register dies.

24:03 The ideal length of math lessons. (It's probably not 90 minutes!)

25:53 Don't let your own distaste of math color your child's experience. 

28:39 Word problems are the math of life!

29:22 Gretchen's advice to a parent who is struggling with homeschooling and considering giving it up.



Thanks to show sponsor BookShark. Request a homeschool curriculum catalog or download samples at bookshark.com.



If you'd like to share an aha moment, an inspirational quote, a homeschool hack, a book you're loving, or a suggested podcast topic/guest, leave a comment at bookshark.com/podcast. We'd love to feature your reflection on a future episode.