I want to share my school resources (for free) with you all. If you have a student who needs help, I might have some resources for her or him. I wrote my own curriculum for many subjects over the years when I was teaching, and prior to that, substitute teaching and tutoring. Sometimes I felt the text books did not offer enough explanations or they scattered essential information across too many pages.
This is an introductory post to let you know I will gradually share these school helps in my future posts (in the “school” heading under “posts”).
My B.A. is in writing. But one of my 2 credentials is in math. This is a strange combination, and the reason I was a successful math teacher is because I was good at math but not excellent. The brilliant math teachers got frustrated with their struggling students, even the bright students if they asked too many questions. But when I was working on my credential and substitute teaching I discovered the math books skipped steps. For example, they assume all students know a number with no sign in front of it has positive value. If it is a variable, it has a coefficient of one, and it is to the power of positive one. I include a graphic to show this concept:
This is what the book shows:
A
This is what the book means
+1A+1
That info may have bored you, but to a math student in pre-algebra, it can be a terror. So I explained these concepts and worked with students who did not understand this. It was so much fun for me to break all the steps down. I took complex math equations and did not directly teach them to my special needs students (my 2nd credential was special ed.), if they did not understand. Instead I figured out pre-requisite math skills (needed to do that equation) that the text book assumed the student had mastered. I created math equations to teach the “prerequisite skills” the harder problems assumed students had mastered.
When California required a high school exit exam, I helped my special needs students master the math portion using my pre-requisite teaching method. I think any student struggling in math may need the “prerequisite skills” to be taught. Furthermore, did you know that word problems are actually a foreign language? There are math terms (add, subtract, multiply, divide, etc.) that have to be translated from commonly spoken words (per, less than, of), and most books do not have a “dictionary” with the translations. So I created charts (my own math dictionaries) to help my math students know what the commonly spoken words meant in math language and thus which math technique to use to answer the word problem.
I had so much fun seeing students who once hated math get excited and even fighting over who got to come to the board to solve an equation. In fact, I MUST share a tip with you, whether you are a parent or grandparent helping your student, a home school mom, or a teacher. It relates to the first time I made a mistake when I was doing a math equation on the board, and a student noticed. I said, “Oh, wait a minute.”
As I walked to my desk, the other students said, “You’re in trouble now!” But I was not writing the student’s name in my book. I was grabbing a piece of candy.
I walked back to the board and tossed the candy to the student who caught my error. The other students gasped. One said, “But when Mr. D. taught us, he got so angry with us when we caught him making a mistake.” I was a long term sub for Mr. D’s class (I won’t give his full last name).
I was shocked. “If you don’t catch my errors, you might learn the wrong skill,” I told them. I had no idea the impact this had on my students. They actually sat up straighter and began to watch me in case I made a mistake. Eventually I came up with the idea of picking a few equations for the entire class to solve on the board, and if they got it right (they had to hold up their paper so they did not call it out and someone else would copy it), then they got the candy. I still use that technique with my daughters for math. They love the reward, and I mix in some naturally sweetened (but no refined sugar) candies too. When students are involved and rewarded, they get excited.
I hate to see school being so hard a student gives up. I admit that as a home schooling mom, I can tailor my teaching to my two very different daughters’ styles. But I did my best to do so in the public school setting too (maybe I would get fired today for my unusual techniques).
I also tutored students (while I worked on my teaching credential). So I have charts for Spanish and French (not a ton, but some essentials). I have math lesson plans I had to create for my Master’s program (special ed, but also lesson plans from my math credential work). I don’t want to over load everyone, so I will add these school helps over time. Furthermore I have some (not tons) of language arts helps too. These are the main subjects I still have, but please let me know if there is a subject where you need extra help and I’ll look into my archives (I even have floppy disks with material that I never loaded onto my hard drive, so there is a lot of material), and I’ll see if I have it. I am sad to say I did delete many files, so I do not have everything I created, but I am happy to share (for free) whatever I can find in my files.
May the Lord bless you, whether you are a student or a teacher or a family member helping your student. I am so glad I can share what I have learned and created!