Math Refresher for Adults {Review}
Math… the agony… the despair… the torture… basically my childhood nemesis.
Cue dramatic music and the entrance of Math Refresher for Adults from Math Essentials
I have a few very distinct defining memories of math as a student. I’m going to regal you with 2 of them.
{I will first preface it with the fact that I grew up a military kid and moved all over the country throughout my entire upbringing, this is important because I never had a consistent math education}
I pretty much stopped being “good” at math about the 5th grade. When I hit 8th grade I was really struggling and when I had to settle upon my classes for high school, my 8th grade math teacher told me that I probably wasn’t ever going to be good at math so it might be a good plan to not take pre-algebra and go ahead and start with consumer math.
When I hit 10th grade- {at a new school}, I was shoved into an algebra class that I was ill prepared for in the middle of the school year with a more than un-enthused teacher. After countless failed grades and conferences, she told me that she wasn’t going to waste her time with me anymore. I passed that year by the skin of my teeth.
Why are those stories important? Because they illustrate the ONE reason, I’m convinced that I’m terrible at math. – Someone told me I was. At an age when I was already struggling with self-esteem, math loser was just one more label I pinned to my lapel.
As a homeschool parent the math struggle intensifies. Although I’m so thankful to have two children that excel at math, my oldest is much like me, in that it’s a subject that doesn’t come naturally to her. I have had to go back and learn just as much as she has when it comes to math concepts. It’s one of the reasons I agreed to do the review on the Math Refresher for Adults Book.
This is a great book for someone who does {as the title mentions} just need a refresher on some math concepts. There were several concepts that I was like “oh yeah, I forgot how easy that was” The book is helpful in that it doesn’t assume that you already know something- the first 29 pages explain adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. It then moves on to harder concepts.
This book is not meant to be used as a math curriculum and isn’t even meant for students at all. At least the under 18 kind of student. It is meant for the mom or dad that is trying to remember how to find the radius of a circle or can’t wrap their brain around percentages.
Math Refresher for Adults covers General Math concepts, Geometry, Problem Solving, Pre-Algebra and Algebra.
Each page starts with a review exercise then moves on to the helpful hints before giving you 10 problems to solve. All the answers are found in the back of the book. At the bottom of the page there is a word problem that needs to be solved.
At the end of each concept there is a cumulative review of 20 questions to check for understanding.
Although there are no specific videos that are tied directly to this book on the website, Math Essentials has videos available for most math concepts. Because we have been working on ratios and percentages I started there first in the book and with the videos.
What I liked:
I like that this book is simple enough to grab and work through a few problems for understanding. The hint section is helpful and I appreciate that there are videos to watch.
What I felt was lacking:
This is a refresher book, not a teaching book, so if you need more explanation then the book offers or the short videos- you will have to find it elsewhere. I was also confused as to where to find the videos. They are not actually attached to this book on the website so you have to go looking for them elsewhere. There are also passwords that the book said would be found in red, and without further research I didn’t know if that meant red in the book or red on the website. Turns out, it means you will find the passwords in red on the website.
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Angela is the Homeschool Encourager for the Overwhelmed & Under-Caffeinated and the Chaos-to-Confidence Specialist behind Schooling with Grace. With a no-fluff approach, a dash of humor, and a whole lot of heart, she helps homeschool moms cut through the chaos, ditch unrealistic expectations, and teach with confidence.