I'm fortunate not to be one of those moms who is obsessed with their child's success. I want my children to be successful, but I'm not going to ruin the fun of her childhood because of it. But I like to think that I do a little more than some of the mothers in my family as far as trying to make certain that my kids are successful.
Which brings me to the obnoxious amount of information that children unlearn because of summer vacation. While my child is learning about how to get dirty and ruin her clothing I want to make certain that she goes back to school with as much, if not a little more, book knowledge. We discovered khanacademy.com. It's fantastic and I recommend it for anyone who wants to learn without having to pay for classes. Their math section is particularly impressive as it goes from kindergarten math to calculus.
I have my daughter working on the early math sections while I work on math a little every day. She gets a little bored with it, but I think that has more to do with wanting to play games and enjoy her summer vacation more than the reason I stopped wanting to do math.
Which is because somewhere along the way number began to intimidate me. I don't know what it is, but just thinking about them half the time is enough to repulse me. I am getting over the problem with the help of Khan Academy. The core standards that parents across the country are calling the devil's handiwork because they can't help their children with their math homework are what have helped me understand and build a better relationship with numbers.
Although I am still being terrorized by my nemesis, Geometry. It was the one class I truly struggled with in high school. Most other math was fairly easy to me, but geometry assaulted me to the point of giving up and needing to drop the class. I retook it but still struggled with it. It terrorized me into taking only the minimal amount of college math and being completely stoked when I was done (even though that was fairly easy for me too, the first week the professor of my college math course recommended I switch to statistics, I responed with a vehement no). The worst part is, I'm only doing 4th grade Geometry and fighting with it already.
But I will face this terror. I have begun to study its weaknesses from all angles and victory will be mine one day.
I shall smite thee, Geometry, just give me a little time.
