Algebra II can be an overwhelming challenge for high school students. What's a homeschool mom to do? 

My friend Laura, a math major in college, and I lead a co-op together. We have noticed over the years that so many moms come to us during Algebra II. Their teenager has breezed through math all his life and suddenly he hits a wall: Algebra II. He is discouraged and doesn’t want to do math anymore. Mom is throwing her hands up in despair. 

What do we say?

When I speak on high school at homeschool conventions and workshops, at least one parent confides in me afterward that their “A” Math student is suddenly struggling to understand Algebra II.

Why oh why is Algebra II so hard for so many high school students?

My Experience With Algebra II

Several of my children breezed merrily through Algebra II, but then we hit a snag. My daughter completed a whole year of Algebra II and felt lost. We changed curriculum, got a tutor, and she was able to finish up high school with pre-calculus.

Why Does Algebra II Seem So Hard?

In Algebra II, teens encounter the following:

• Complete the Square
• Solve the Quadratic
• Conic Sections
• Irrational Numbers in the Denominator
• Logarithmic Functions and Exponents

Wait! I just lost some of you! Hold on. Let me sum this up, Algebra II introduces new things that are based on knowing, understanding, and being able to work with a variety of math from the past. It’s not only learning new things, but combining old things together in ways that students may have never experienced.

Of there is something from past math courses for the struggling math student that they never quite got, especially working with decimals and fractions. In tutoring Algebra II, my friend Laura often has to go back and review mathematical concepts from 5th or 6th grade.

Why Don’t They Remember?

One of the reasons I homeschool is to teach  my children from a Christian worldview. 

What does it mean to homeschooling from a Christian Worldview?

It means imparting life to my children, teaching them truth, and introducing them to the life-changing person of Jesus Christ. It means fulfilling the Great Commission by raising children who love Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

A Christian worldview acknowledges that there is a God who is involved in the affairs of mankind, that the Bible is true and speaks to all of life. We know that people live in a fallen state, they are not basically good, they need to be rescued from their sin. We know that the Lord intervenes in people's lives in answer to prayer or to fulfill His divine purpose for a person or a nation. 

Here are the ways I educate my children from a Christian worldview. I give them a biblical foundation, inspiring them to fulfill the Creation Mandate and Great Commission, using curricula that is written from a Christian worldview, and surrendering to Jesus. 

Biblical Foundation

A Christian worldview is based on the Word of God as it applies to all of life, including theology, philosophy, sociology, ethics, law, government, history, pyschology, economics, politics, family, child rearing, education. careers, medicine, health care, and relationships. 

We make the Bible the foundation for education in our home.

We read, study, and memorize Scripture so that the Word is living in our children’s hearts and lives. We obey the Word of God.

When it comes to conflict resolution, we follow Jesus’ plan in Matthew 18 to work in out between two and bring in a third person (parent) if it can’t be worked out.

Our children honor us as parents and respect our authority so that it will go well with them according to Ephesians 6:1-4.

The bottom line is that we use God’s Word as the measuring stick. If something doesn’t line up with Scripture, it is tossed out. The Bible is the standard of truth.

Creation Mandate

I have a confession to make.

I love file folders. 

They make a perfect place for all of my piles of paper mess. Oh, I know you have these piles, too. All of us homeschool moms look around our house and they are everywhere. There are piles of papers on the dining room table, piles of papers on your desk, piles of papers on that side table. It's not your fault. It's just something that happens to us poor homeschool moms. 

That's where file folders come in. 

File folders are neat and tidy. Plus they come in handy-dandy colors.
You can use one color for each child and mark "To Grade" on the front. In goes writing papers, books reviews, and math problems. 

You can save papers in file folders Use the same color for the child you used before. Only  this time, write on the cover "Writing Papers Grade 4" or whatever grade your son or daughter is in. 

I also use these folders for little games I download online. Or worksheets. I'm able to browse through my file cabinet to find "rhyming worksheets, animals-babies worksheets, telling time worksheets, and multiplication worksheets. 

Other homeschooling files in my file cabinet: 

• Math 
• Learning Styles
• Science
• Health 
• Unit Study Ideas
• Field Trip Ideas 
• Living Books & Classic Literature
• Art/Artists
• Evaluations
• Transcripts

But, file folders also work well for managing my household and my life. 

Here it is the end of August and we in the path of a hurricane. No one is worried. We know the drill. Get your supplies. Batten down the hatches and settle in to ride out the storm or evacuate if needed. 

I grew up in Florida and have been through many hurricanes, including some major hurricanes. You really never know what a hurricane will do. The slower moving ones often bring a ton of water which has meant mopping up water from our family room floor. 

Most long-time Floridians have a stash of hurricane items that are stored in the laundry room or pantry and include flashlights, lanterns, and a portable radio. We check the battery supply, stock up on non-perishable food items, buy bags of ice to throw into coolers if the electricity goes out, get more bottled water than we could possibly drink for a lifetime, and make sure we have at least 2 can openers that work before a storm hits. 

We charge up phones, tablets, and laptops before the storm. 

Of course, we get the house ready. We take in all furniture and lawn decorations, storing them in our already crowded garage. We trim off any branches that look like they could cause damage if they broke off, and we board up our windows. 

At the last possible minute, I scrub out the tub and rinse it sparkling clean. Then I fill it with water. This water is in case a water main breaks so we have water to do dishes and bathe. We've never had that happen, but others have so we keep doing it every storm. 

Did you know that you can buy many of the supplies you need online at Amazon and have them delivered right to your door? That makes things so much easier. 

You should have 3 gallons per person per day when a hurricane is approaching. But, remember I also fill our very clean bathtub with water. I usually run to the grocery store to buy bottled water, but you can purchase it at Amazon. Crystal Geyser Natural Spring Water is perfect when a hurricane hits!

On the title page of What is Your Language  by Debra Leventhal a little boy is packing a suitcase and holding his red passport. 

He is off to make new friends all around the world. 

His first stop is London where he asks some children, "What is your language?" and they respond, "My language is English and this is the way it sounds, "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

The pattern continues with him traveling to Germany, France, Russian, Inuktitut, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Swahili, and Spanish. Children love patterns like we find in this picture book. 

When he tells the children he is going home, they all respond, "No!" in their native language. 

The final illustration is the little lying under his world flag comforter with his map-of-the-word rug by his bed. Very cute! 

Which brings me to the illustrations. 

Geography is one of our favorite subjects! We love to explore the world and learn all about other places in the world and how people live there. 

Over the years, we have enjoyed many different resources and created our own! 

We love living books and literature set in beautiful places. We love to go on adventures through the pages of a book. 

We enjoy songs that help us memorize geography facts and games that help us remember country names and capitals. 

We have enjoyed living textbooks and created our own curriculum with unit study fun. 

We have enjoyed cooking and baking from around the world. Unit studies have been a blast, too! 

Finally, we love to read and research so we can learn more about other places. 

Here are some of our very favorite geography resources. We hope you will enjoy them, too. 

Our family loves this literature series from YWAM: The Reel Kids Adventures. These Christian kids travel the world to make videos and on their way solves mysteries. You can purchase The Amazon Stranger, The Missing Video, The Himalayan Rescue, and Mystery at Smokey Mountain on Amazon. Look for more titles here. You can also buy the whole set of 10 books from YWAM here. 

Luis lives in Columbia with his wife Diana. He loves to read and buys lots and lots of books.

He has so many books, he has to get rid of some which gives him a great idea. 

He will create a mobile library, transported from town to town on the back of a donkey. Luis and his traveling library go from village to village, reading books to children and letting them take books home to read. 

Books, biblio in Spanish, and donkey, burro in Spanish led to the book's title, Biblioburro by Jeanette Winter. 

Beyond the charming story, this picture book is filled with charming illustrations that children love! The pictures are bright and cheery! 

The story of one man's outreach to his fellow Colombians is delightful. Your little lambs will want to hear it again and again. 

Children are often told that the small unit of life is the cell when we are studying plants, animals, and people (life science).

But, in physical science, we are told that the smallest unit of matter is the atom.

They are both true.

Living Things are made up of matter that is made up of atoms and molecules, too. 

You see a cell has many components like ribosomes, mitochondria, and lysosomes. These components are made up of large molecules and the molecules are made up of atoms.

Proteins, sugars, and fats are all molecules. The oxygen that your cells so desperately need is a molecule.
Inside the cell, chemical reactions are happening all the time! Inside the cell, you will find atoms as part of molecules. Their electrons in an atom are busy beavers participating in all kinds of movement during the chemical reactions that keep a person alive. In the cellular level, the processes that provide oxygen (respiration), energy (glucose), and building things like antibodies are pure chemistry! 

​I remember so many times staring a test in college, thinking, "I know this! Why can't I remember?" 

Years later, I was homeschooling my own children and they had their own struggles with remembering information. 

Whether you are a college student or teaching a preschooler, learning should be a joyful experience.

Wait! You're not experiencing joy in your learning journey? It's hard to remember things.

Or your not enjoying your homeschool adventure because it's hard to teach your children so they remember things. 

This is for all of those who struggle to remember what they learn and for all the teachers who teach them.

Here are some tips to help you learn to remember. They work for all ages, even homeschool moms. 

"Look to your left," the professor barked. We all look to our left. "Now look to your right!" We all looked to our right. "Half of you will fail this class." 

My first day of Human Anatomy and Physiology my sophomore year of college was off to a dismal start. I was paralyzed for a month with fear of failure. ​If you want to remember or help your students remember, start by setting yourself or your students up for success. 

Set yourself or your student up for success by expressing confidence in your ability to learn whatever is before you!

Nothing is impossible with God! We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength! Surround yourself with positive people who cheer you on and be a cheerleader to your students.

Set yourself up for success by getting plenty of sleep, eating healthy foods, and exercising regularly. Good health makes learning easier. 

Setting yourself up for success also involves the environment. Choose a place to study with plenty of light and fairly quiet. Make sure you find a comfortable place to read and study. I like to read while I sit on a comfy couch or recliner. If I read in bed, I fall asleep. Light energizes me so if the weather is dark and cloudy, I turn on plenty of lights. What is your optimal environment? Your students'?

When I am stressed out or frustrated, I have a hard time studying. If I'm trying to teach and feel stressed, my students are on edge, too. They cannot learn because they are too busy wondering what's wrong with me and what I am going to say. Sometimes when the children were little, I would become frustrated when they couldn't "get" something. I would have to take a break and get my joy back. 

One day I was trying every way possible to teach Julianna first, second, third. I was so angry that she couldn't understand all the creative ways I was trying to show her the concept. So we took a break. I said a quick prayer and immediately got an idea. We went into her bedroom where I lined all the stuffed animals up and pointed to each of the first three in line. "First, second, third," I said. She got it! Now, I thought all my other illustrations were more creative, but that's what clicked for her!

Keep trying different methods until it clicks. When things get tense, take a break for five or ten minutes to calm down.

When you combine an adventure, a mystery, and loads of British history, you get a novel that's impossible to put down. Britfield & The Lost Crown is the first in a brand new series from the world of Britfield. 

Tom and Sarah are trapped in a horrible orphanage that seems to jump right off the pages of a Victorian novel written by Charles Dickens. The owners are evil and dastardly. Right away, our hearts were bonded with the orphans and we held our breath through the adventure and several near-captures as Tom and Sarah escape. 

Sarah grew up wealthy, but Tom only remembers poverty. Together, they are determined to escape and rescue their former orphanage-inhabitants. So, off they go, on one breathtaking adventure after another from Yorkshire to Oxford to Windsor to London to Canterbury. Oh, did I mention the escape begins in a hot-air balloon. 

Alright, here is the truth. I personally don't like so much adventure. I love classics that move more slowly. But, everyone else? Well, everyone else loved all the adventure! It was like watching an action movie! 

One thing I love was seeing all the place through Tom and Sarah's eyes. So much history! So much to discover. It made me want to travel to England and explore the whole country. 

Though not overtly Christian, the book was wholesome and there was nothing that was inappropriate or upsetting. 

Britfield & The Lost Crown will make a perfect read aloud for any homeschooling family that loves a good adventure story. Homeschooling moms will love the geography, history, architecture,  and positive character exemplified in the book. 

So much of what we know about Ancient History comes from our understanding of archaeology. So, we always dig into archaeology when we study Ancient History. 

However, Archaeology is a blast to study by itself! 

My favorite thing is to learn about archaeological sites that are mentioned in the Bible. Archaeologists have uncovered ancient cities like Shiloh, Niveveh, Ur, Shechem, Joppa, Ephesus, and Dan. There is so much to learn about discoveries and how they confirm the biblical record. 

When we study archaeology, we talk about tells, dig sites, and tools used to unearth artifacts. We have enjoyed creating our own dig site and unearthing treasures. First, we create artifacts from different civilizations. We dig a large hole and layer the artifacts from oldest to newest. You can learn all about our archaeological digs in Let's Have Our Own Archaeological Dig. 

Our favorite archaeologist: David Down. He is amazing and we have read his books and watched his videos over and over. 

Anyway, I am sharing our family's favorite archaeology resources below. Please share your favorites in the comments. 

Until next time, Happy Homeschooling! 
​Meredith Curtis 

The Archaeology Book By David Down is a great read aloud for the whole family fully of glossy photographs and all kinds of neat information. This is a book we go back to over and over. This covers the basics of archaeology from a Christian worldview. 

Our family loves ancient history. We like to learn about Creation and the early years before the flood. We enjoy learning about Sumer, Ancient Israel, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Ancient Egypt, Crete, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome. 

Over the years, we have discovered some amazing resources that make learning ancient history fun and meaningful. 

We've also discovered some amazing, and some very funny, historians like Dave Stotts, Diana Waring, Linda Hobar, and Don Landis. The have enlivened our studies of ancient history. 

I'd like to share those resources with you. 

We found some incredible books, audios, DVDs, and living textbooks. 

We also created some of our own resources slowly over time. We created a timeline, timeline figures, cookbooks, and enjoyed several archaeology digs. 

Well, here are are favorite ancient history resources. I highly recommend them for your homeschool. 

Please share your favorite Ancient History Resources in the comments below. 

Until next time, Happy Homeschooling, 
​Meredith Curtis

We started listening to Diana Waring when my oldest children were in elementary. We loved her! She is funny, loves Jesus, and truly makes history come alive. What in the World? I: Ancient Civilizations & The Bible comes with four Audios on CD and takes you from Creation to the time of Jesus. I have listened to these CDs so many times and never grow tired of learning more about world history from someone who truly loves history! 

I have four lovely daughters. They are all grown now and love the Lord with all their hearts. That's not because I was a perfect mother because I made tons of mistakes. God was very gracious to cover my inadequacy with His grace. 

However, I do want to share some of the things I purposed in my heart to do in raising my God's Girls. I think it will minister to you if you find yourself raising daughters. 

Did you ever stop to think about why God created women? 

Well, I do. I notice that men and women are different.  Not just physically, but emotionally, intellectually, and socially. 

Women reflect God's image in a unique way.

In some ways, all people reflect the image of God, but in a unique way, women were created to reflect God as Creator and Sustainer of Life. Just think about it.  Our bodies are created to nourish a separate life right inside our bodies! When we give birth, we are able to sustain little babies with breast-milk right from our bodies! It's amazing! I mean, can a man have life grow right inside him or feed a baby from his body? What a privilege it is to be women! 

However, I believe that the physical just represents who we are in the other areas. Emotionally and practically, we bring forth life wherever we go. We nurture our own children and everyone else around us! We add beauty and fragrance to the lives of those who know us! 

The essence of femininity is to bring forth life and nurture the life of everyone around us. 

A daughter is a heritage, a reward. 

What a blessing to have a baby girl! 

I was so upset when China only allowed her citizens to have one child. If they got pregnant again, they had to kill the unborn baby. Another thing that broke my heart was that most Chinese couples only wanted sons. Do they not understand biology? I wondered. 

Years later I read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. That book helped me to understand Chinese culture. You see, if a family got a girl, she grew up and left her household to go be part of her husband's and his father's household. So, the Chinese parents felt like they were just raising a daughter for a few years for another family. 

I am so grateful it's not like that in our culture. Daughters are so good at valuing family ties into their old age. There is an old saying I learned as a girl: 'A son is a son til he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter for the rest of her life.' Now, I'm not saying all sons abandon the family, but I am surrounded by daughters who are so kind and loyal to their parents and siblings. They inspire me! 

All that to say this:  When you give birth to or adopt a daughter, you are beginning a lifetime relationship. There is a lifetime of love ahead for you! 

Family Movie Nights are a weekly event in our home. We enjoy popping some popcorn and watching a good movie that everyone enjoys. 

Okay, there is a catch to this Hallmark moment movie night. 

We have trouble finding movies that we all enjoy and more importantly, we have a hard time finding a movie that is wholesome. 

So, I will share some of the movies we've found that the whole family enjoys. These movies are hits in our house. I think you will enjoy them too. 

Some of the movies are Christian (Risen, Facing the Giants, Polycarp​). They inspire us and motivate us to draw closer to Jesus. 

Other movies make us laugh (Mom's Night Out, Cars, Princess Bride). Some our Hollywood versions of Christians stories (Chariots of Fire, Sound of Music)

Movies can impact us in a positive or negative way. Everyone loves a good story. A good movie with a delightful story and sparkling acting is a blessing for the whole family. 
​
Movies often lead to discussions afterward or even weeks/months later. 

​This is the story of Eric Liddell, a gold medal winner in the 1924 Olympics. His devotion to the Lord is exempliary and inspiring! The movie also follows another runner who must overcome anti-Semetic prejudice in his quest for winning.
This awarding winning movie (Academy Award for Best Picture) was released in 1981.