Key to Math series - gentle workbooks that are great for students who need to cover one concept at a time with plenty of white space on a page. They can be very useful in building confidence in math or reinforcing specific math skills. Most workbooks can be used as early as the 4th grade, Algebra is recommended for 5th and above. The series covers fractions, decimals, percents, measurement, metric measurement, algebra (more or less equivalent to Algebra 1, but not as in-depth as a regular Algebra 1 course), and geometry (basic, not high school-level).

Introductory Algebra, Intermediate Algebra - Lial's Math Series - a favorite high school-level math series for pre-Algebra through high school level. The drawback to Lial's is that it's huge - somewhere around 700 pages - and the chapters are very long. By the time students get to the end of a chapter, they have to do a lot of review to remember what came before. Lial's strength is its straightforward and self-teaching approach. Concepts are explained with examples and students work out problems in the sidebars to make sure they've understood the concepts before moving on to the next section. There are many problems in the exercises, so most people recommend that students only do the odd problems (the answers to odd problems are in the back of the text.) Homeschoolers usually like the "worktexts" better because they're paperback and can be written in. Earlier editions can be found cheaply through online sources like eBay, Half.com, Amazon.com Marketplace. There are a lot of math texts that have been authored by Lial, so please email me if you need help in locating the correct text.

Jacob's Elementary Algebra, Geometry - another favorite high school math series. Jacob's teaches the "why" of math as well as the "how", and uses cartoons and humor to get the concepts across. He loves math, and it shows in his texts. Chapters are shorter, and the end-of-section exercises are short enough for a student to complete in one day. There are four sets of exercises at the end of each chapter. Most people recommend doing the Set 1 exercises, which are a of review of previous concepts, and Set 2 exercises, which are based on the chapter just studied. Set 3 is recommended if there were a lot of mistakes in Set 2 and the student needs re-teaching. Set 4 are challenge problems. There is continual review of previous concepts throughout the text, and there is a review of Algebra topics throughout the Geometry text so students won't lose their Algebra skills. When you purchase this text, make sure you get the teacher guide, too, so you'll have the answers to the Set 1, Set 3, Set 4, and chapter review exercises. Set 2 exercises are in the back of the text. There are also test masters available if you'd like separate tests, or you can use the chapter review exercises as tests, if you want.

Math Samples - The Sonlight Curriculum website provides samples of many different math programs.

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