Understanding Pre-Algebra Review

I’m excited to share with you our latest review from The Critical Thinking Co. ™  and their Understanding Pre-Algebra workbook.

You may already be familiar with The Critical Thinking Co.™. If not let me tell you they have you covered in every subject and grade for your homeschool. They have science, language arts, social studies, technology, math and even critical thinking skills. So far I haven’t been disappointed in any of their material. They have full curriculum or just supplements for your homeschool.

Another neat thing about The Critical Thinking Co.™ is that they have an amazing copyright that allows you to copy the material for use for your family only.

Understanding Pre-Algebra:

This comprehensive work book is intended for grades 6-8 or students doing pre-algebra. Understanding Pre-Algebra purpose is to teach the skills your student the techniques to do Algebra 1. What makes this unique is that the layout of teaching pre-algebra is that they want to help your student succeed in those math skills with practice and using critical thinking skills to solidified those math skills needed for high school.

The work book has 442 pages and 15 chapters. The pages are perforated. Included in the work book are the student work book, chapter reviews, final exams, glossary, reference sheets, and an answer key. It’s an all in one workbook and no need for a separate teacher’s manual.

The lessons are divided by topics. Each topic is broken down in more precise topics.

Chapter 1-Family of Numbers

Chapter 2-Working With Integers
Chapter 3-Working With Rational Numbers
Chapter 4-Ratio, Proportion, and Percent
Chapter 5-Percent Applications
Chapter 6-Algebraic Expressions
Chapter 7- Equations and Solving Word Problems
Chapter 8-Inequalities and Applications
Chapter 9-Understanding Square Roots and Irrational Numbers
Chapter 10-Two Dimensional Geometry
Chapter 11-Understanding Volume and Surface Area
Chapter 12-Graphing on the Coordinate Plane
Chapter 13-Transformations and Congruency
Chapter 14-Understanding Functions
Chapter 15-Probability and Statistics

You can start in the beginning of the work book or you can skip around to cover topics that your student needs to go over.

The lessons are basically laid out the same in each chapter. Each chapter starts out with an explanation of the topic along with several examples showing you how the problems work on each topic within the chapter. Some of the examples have charts, illustrations, and graphs. So far everything my son has done in the workbook the explanations have guided him step by step instruction and have been easy for him to understand. There are several sections in the chapter where an explanation is needed or if there is an variance on the topic in that chapter. There are a variety of multiply choice questions and those that you need to write out yourself. I would recommend a notebook to solve some of the problems. There is even a cut out dice to practice adding intergers.

There are several word problems which are taught with tables and charts. The purpose of this is so that they can learn strategies when doing some of those pesky word problems. I remember struggling with word problems as a kid and trying to figure out what I need to do to get the correct answers.

Since we are talking about word problems I’m going to give you an overview of Chapter 7- Equations and Solving Word Problems which covers pages 119-147. 

It starts out giving you an overview of what you are going to learn and how to solve the problems. It reviews the properties of real numbers and the properties of equality. Explaining that the rules will help you solve the equations. It has a table that gives you the property, example, and the using words.

The next page gives you an illustration to help you discern associative and commutative properties. There are several examples to help you understand the concept. 

Afterwards it’s your turn to practice what you just learned. You will broadened on the topic and see more illustrations, charts, tables, and helpful hints. Overall there seems to be a lot of practice and each chapter ends with a chapter review. I love all the extra like the reference sheet that gives you some of the common formulas you will use.  After you have completed all 15 chapters there is a final examination.

How did we use Understanding Pre-Algebra in oue homeschool?

I’m going to be honest with you, math is not my favorite subject and I struggled with it when I was in school. I find that my while teaching my kids I’m learning math all over again. This is where I really appreciate good quality step by step curriculum.

My son has been doing pre-algebra this year. I felt he needed more practice before next year. He starts 7^th grade next year! We finished our main curriculum for the year and Understanding Pre-Algebra will be used as a supplement for the summer and we will continue it into next year.

My son wasn’t too thrilled with taking on such a heavy course the last few weeks as we are finishing up the school year and we have been working hard 5 days a week through the workbook. We typically worked on two-three pages a day. Some days he was just frustrated and we needed to step back and only do one page. It wasn’t the curriculum it was math. That frusteration indicates he was challenged and needed more practice in those areas.

 I decided to start at the beginning of the workbook to review topics. I found that he did need a refresher in some areas. Time wise honestly it depended on a topic. Some days it was an hour and others he speed through it in a half an hour. We have completed several chapters already. This summer I will go to our summer schedule of 3 days a week for an hour of school. We will continue using Understanding Pre-Algebra this summer.

I really like that there are several rules or helpful clues that are highlighted to help you out with the topics.

The glossary is very helpful to help refresh your memory of the skills. My son would have liked it to list the pages where the concept is taught and talked about.

My only drawback is some of the questions I wished the answer key showed how the problems were solved and not just the answers.  For some this may not be an issue if you’re competent with math. I just needed to understand some of the problems by seeing the complete solved problem in black and white. This was minimum issue as I have a husband who excels in math! Math is just not a subject I thrive on and it’s not the curriculum's' fault.  The examples and explanations are very clear and sometimes I just needed look over them myself to think the problem through with him.

Overall, we have been learning a lot and reviewing those concepts with Understanding Pre-Algebra. I love The Critical Thinking Co. ™ and will continue to use their curriculum in several subjects. Other Homeschool Review Crew members have been working on other products from The Critical Thinking Co. ™.

I'm curious to read the reviews of:

 Critical Thinking Detective Book 1 

Something Fishy at Lake Iwannafisha to use in my homeschoo next year.

 The Critical Thinking Co.™ is offering free shipping and 15% off any zize of order when using the TOSCREW18 code.

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