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How I'm Approaching... Geometry

N will be taking Geometry this year. 

A Little Bit of Background

His last year was split between taking his first semester of Algebra I at the local middle school as an 8th grader and his second semester being homeschooled. Khan Academy was a fantastic resource for him to make sure that he didn't have any gaps in his learning. We also used IXL to supplement. He took a math diagnostic right when we started homeschooling, and then took the personalized lessons to make sure he wasn't missing anything from even earlier math.

N likes math, but it isn't an obsession for him like it is for his brother. I'm a huge fan of the Art of Problem Solving's courses especially since we loved their elementary series, Beast Academy, when they were younger. However, AoPS is extremely rigorous and expensive if you take their online courses, so they are better suited for students who want to focus a lot of their attention on math. However, they do have a FREE online learning platform for all levels between Pre-Algebra to Calculus called Alcumus that we may use to give him a challenge when needed. Z uses this all the time, and he loves it.

Khan Academy

For N's core in Geometry, we are going to use Khan Academy's Geometry course. We are going to leave it self-paced with him working on it for about 30 minutes to an hour daily. I'm going to closely monitor how far he's getting each week to make sure we are on track, but I suspect he will finish the course well before the end of the school year. 

The Great Courses


I also want to watch what he's learning because we are also going to use The Great Courses: Geometry. There are 36 episodes in this course which are led by a college professor. If you haven't heard of The Great Courses by The Teaching Company, I highly recommend you check them out. We take advantage of our library system since they carry a lot of them on DVD as well as on their streaming device (also free) called Kanopy. 

With N's learning, I want to align the Great Courses e
pisodes with the Khan Academy lessons. There is also a workbook (you may need to log in to Kanopy for the link to work) that comes with the Great Courses class that he will work through as well. Eventually, I hope to get my teaching endorsement in middle grade mathematics, so I plan to work through the content alongside of him since I haven't taken Geometry since I was in 10th grade!

Grades

To give him a grade, I plan to use the mastery points for each unit from Khan Academy as well grading the workbook work from The Great Courses.

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