Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in
exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I
compensated in any other way.

 

Algebra Help

Homeschool Review Crew

Math Essentials

 

 

How do you teach your children math?  I personally am really good at math but sometimes teaching it and explaining what I know is hard for me.  My oldest two are doing Algebra this year and we needed a bit of algebra help.  Enter Math Essentials and their No-Nonsense Algebra book.  

 

 

About the Product

We received the No-Nonsense Algebra physical book.  This book can be used as a supplement for an algebra curriculum or as the curriculum itself.  Online there are companion lessons to go with the lessons in the book.  These are videos that explain the lessons and the whys and hows of algebra.  

 

 

Doing both the online portion and the book portion takes roughly thirty minutes per day.  This is to teach the concepts of the lesson and work problems to help solidify the learning.  As someone who went to public school and has looked at lots of different algebra curriculums over the years preparing for my children to use them, I have to say this one is very straight forward and easy to use. 

The online videos are taught by Rick Fischer who has a firm grasp of Algebra.  I found that even I was intrigued to hear how he was going to explain things.  He is also the author of the book as well. 

For the scope of this book, you’re going to start out learning the names of different tools and equations and work up to doing word problems and solving all the equations with ease. This moves forward in increments so it’s not overwhelming and also you have the videos which provide a better understanding of concepts than just reading alone. 

The author has a helpful hint that he says is the most important tip for the curriculum.  This is copying the examples on a piece of paper and then also writing out and copying all of the steps down as well.  This is a great way to learn by doing and will help make solving the problems easier. 

The Parts

There are five key parts to this curriculum and understanding algebra.  They are:

1.  An introduction and explanation of each topic.
2.  Helpful Hints which are important tips and shortcuts.
3.  Examples showing step by step solutions
4.  Written Exercises to practice what has been learned.
5.  A review selection to ensure that the concept has actually been learned and mastered. 

Within the book, there are Ten Chapters.  These chapters are:

1.  Necessary Tools for Algebra
2.  Solving Equations
3.  Graphing and Analyzing Linear Equations
4.  Solving and Graphing Inequalities
5.  Systems of Linear Equations and Inequalities
6.  Polynomials 
7.  Rational Expressions (Algebraic Fractions)
8.  Radical Expressions and Geometry 
9.  Quadratic Equations
10.  Algebra Word Problems

Within each chapter, there are several different lessons.  Some chapters have fewer lessons and some have more.  Each ends with a review. 

After the chapter, you will also find chapter quizzes, a final review, glossary, important formulas, important symbols, multiplication table, commonly used prime numbers, squares and square roots, fraction/decimal equivalents, and the solutions.  Basically, this last section is full of algebra help that you can quickly access. 

How We Used

 

For right now we started out using this as a supplement for my 15-year-old daughter who has been doing algebra this year.  Once her regular curriculum is done in the next week she will move to use this as a curriculum until it’s done.  For now, we’ve been using this three days a week.  When it’s the full curriculum it will be used five days a week. 

Our main use has just been the physical book right now.  I have a feeling we will start utilizing the online videos as she gets into things that she doesn’t understand in the near future.  This is where it’s nice to have algebra help because while it’s easy for me to do the equations it’s harder to explain why you do it this way. 

I loved the authors most important tip of writing everything out on paper.  I always have my children write out all their math questions on separate paper from their workbook as there is something to be said for actually physically doing that.  It has always made me feel more connected to the problems and helped me to solve them.  I’m glad to see there is actually some reasoning behind why it works!

Quick tip of my own.  The answers are all at the back of the book.  In order to help eliminate any thoughts of using that to help figure out the work instead of their own methods I just took those pages right out of the book!  I carefully cut them so the binding stayed intact and then took the answer key and put it in a small brad folder where we could still have it on the shelf but it was less accessible than the back of the book. 

Learn More

You can learn more about the different products that Crew members received to review from Math Essentials by reading all of the reviews that are linked up on the Main Blog Post over on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  Review members got to choose between the No-Nonsense Algebra, Math Refresher for Adults, and Mastering Essential Math Skills Book 2 Middle Grades/High School. 

Math Essentials can also be found on Facebook.