(Frequently Asked Questions)
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- What do I need for the course? Do I need to buy the teacher’s edition?
- To be successful, you’ll need the student edition of the book for the level your student is taking, a link for which is on each course page. You do not need the teacher’s edition. I also recommend the note-taking guide if you do not want to print notes or have your student handwrite all the notes.
- Is this a spiral curriculum or mastery?
- Larson math is a mastery based curriculum, but has quite a bit of review built into it. At this level, students will continue to apply older skills as they learn new skills, so extensive review is often not necessary. I do provide a large quantity of problems for the student to practice on if they need more practice/review.
- Is this course Common Core?
- While the book is written as “Common Core”, it is in almost all ways identical to the previous, non-CC edition with the notable exception of order of chapters. The new version seems to be the older version with the chapters rearranged. Therefore, it meets the requirements of CC if you need it for your school, however, there isn’t anything “new” in the CC version.
- Do you have placement exams?
- At this time we do not, but plan to have a short exam for each level available soon. If you have any questions about what level to place your child, please message us!
- What does my child need to know before Pre-Algebra?
- Before Pre-Algebra, I highly recommend your student be comfortable with the four operations (+ – x ÷), fractions and decimals, and familiar with negative numbers. The rest they will pick up in the course if they don’t know it already!
- Should my child take Algebra 2 or Geometry after Algebra 1?
- Depending on when you went to school, you may have noticed that the order of classes has changed in recent years. Most schools now have students take Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, whereas, years ago we took Algebra 1, Geometry, then Algebra 2. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter. The newer thinking is that taking Algebra 2 directly after Algebra 1 means that students will need less review at the beginning of the year, but they will need more review at the beginning of trigonometry/pre-calculus. Students also sometimes take Geometry and Algebra 2 at the same time to move through math more quickly.
- What should my child take after Algebra 2?
- After Algebra 2 I would recommend students take either trigonometry or pre-calculus. Many schools offer one or the other with similar content. If you’d like to take the course with me, I’m hoping to offer it by August of 2019!