Understanding Algebra’s Pacing and Notes
Understanding Algebra I works well as a one-year Algebra I course. Students can complete this course any time between seventh and ninth grade. This easy-to-use book provides a high school level Algebra I credit. Author Terri Husted, an award-winning algebra teacher with 30+ years of experience, pours her teaching knowledge into this book. While a committee of authors often collectively writes math textbooks in a piecemeal fashion, many of those authors have little experience actually teaching beginning algebra to middle school and high school students. Terri’s approach presents the most essential concepts and skills needed to fully understand and gain confidence in algebra in a step-by-step fashion, teaching students that algebra is truly just generalized arithmetic.
This unique approach helps students see the connection between mathematics they already understand and algebra. This makes learning algebra easier and less abstract. Furthermore, this Algebra I course provides students with easy-to-use real strategies to utilize in solving word problems. Clear charts and easy-to-understand translating strategies practically guarantee success.
We have had excellent feedback from families utilizing Understanding Algebra with their students! For high school math credits, we typically defer to the math author’s pacing and plans. However, I thought it would be helpful to share Carrie’s thoughts on Understanding Algebra’s pacing and notes based on her experience with it with her own son!
Carrie’s Notes on Understanding Algebra’s Pacing and Notes
After Carrie completed Understanding Algebra with her own son, I asked her to share her thoughts about it. I thought it might be beneficial for the rest of you wonderful homeschool moms as well! So, here are my notes from that conversation…
- There is not an exact schedule, per se. I simply divided the plans over 140 days (doing 2-3 pages a day, for a 4-day school week, which matches our middle school and high school Heart of Dakota guides’ pacing).
- The chapter reviews start in Chapter 2. We took 2 days to do these, as they are meatier.
- I recommend skipping the Enrichment and Challenge pages.
- One piece of advice – don’t get bogged down in the More Practice areas. If your student has a good grip on the concept, you can skip these. Otherwise, pick and choose practice problems within that section to help cement the concept. Don’t feel like you have to do all of the More Practice problems. That’s where Beau and I got really somewhat bogged down when using this otherwise excellent program.
- This book only has bare solutions. However, I have good news! If you want fully-worked solutions, you can find them for free on the publisher’s website here: Fully Worked Solutions
- You will need to put the fully worked solutions in your cart, as if to purchase it. However, the cost will zero out when you proceed. It is an excellent resource!
I thought Carrie’s notes were so helpful, as usual! Other families I’ve helped on the phone have appreciated them as well. Hope this helps some other lovely homeschool ladies with Understanding Algebra’s Pacing and Notes!
In Christ,
Julie Grosz, M.Ed.
