Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this program in exchange for my honest review. All opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Regulations
When my two oldest daughters were in middle school and people discovered we were homeschoolers, they would often ask if I planned to homeschool high school. When I would respond that I planned to homeschool them to graduation, their eyes would widen with shock and I could see the questions forming, ready to be shot at me rapid-fire. Back then, I would tense up, ready to fire back answers to defend my decision.
Nowadays, I’m much more at peace and don’t feel pressured to defend my decision to homeschool, period. I still love to answer questions, but it’s coming from a place of informing and educating, rather than defense. One popular question was how was I planning to teach math? This was and still is a worry among prospective parents of high school homeschoolers. For many, math was an obstacle we struggled with during our high school years, and we don’t fancy repeating that struggle with our homeschoolers. However, we still value our children having a solid mathematical foundation from which they can pursue various career paths, whether those paths lead to college, the trades, entrepreneurship, or the military. We want our kids to feel competent and confident in their math abilities, and we want to monitor their progress for accountability without having to do the heavy lifting of teaching high school math courses. This sounds like a tall order to fill, but there is an online math program that checks off all the boxes on a homeschool parent’s wish list!
UnLock Math for the Win!
UnLock Math is an award-winning online, self-paced math program that offers upper middle school and high school level math classes at an affordable price. Teens can begin by taking foundational math to shore up their fundamental math skills. UnLock Math also offers pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Geometry, and Pre-Calculus. I can’t reiterate the affordability of this program for what you and your teenager receive.
UnLock Math Highlights
Curriculum
I’ve been teaching my daughter Algebra I this year, but we’ve both been a little frustrated with how long it takes me to prepare and teach an Algebra I lesson and for her to complete the accompanying math problems. We were thrilled to discover UnLock Math because it has accelerated her progress with short, clearly explained lessons and practice problems. Each section in a unit began with warm-up problems that reviewed the previous lesson and got my teen focused for the lesson. Next, a short lesson was taught by a teacher (Mrs. Alecia Blackwood, a former homeschooler-turned math educator) with clear examples and definitions. My daughter was able to print reference notes for each lesson and follow along. Following the lecture, an average of ten practice problems were assigned that evaluated my daughter’s understanding of the concepts covered in the short lecture. These problems were all digital-based using the Mobius platform. Clear explanations were also provided for problem solutions. Finally, a Challenge problem that applied the knowledge acquired in the lesson was given.
Intuitive Navigation
My daughter loved how intuitive and easy to navigable the lesson was. Each step of the lesson from Warm-Up to Challenge Problem was clearly labeled and easy to access. There was a slight learning curve when it came to learning how to plot lines on a graph, but it took me sitting down with my daughter for five to ten minutes one time to master it.
Additionally, I was impressed with how easy it was to return to aspects of the lesson where my teen scored low. She was able to review each of the lesson sections and have more than one attempt to improve her score.
Accountability
By far my favorite aspect of UnLock Math was the weekly progress report I received directly to my inbox each week detailing my daughter’s progress. This report was thorough letting me know the dates and times my daughter logged on for her lessons as well as her scores for each section of the lesson. This allowed me to evaluate whether my daughter was ready to move on, what aspects of the lesson she mastered and what aspects needed improvement.
Teens are updated on their overall course grades when they sign into the website. UnLock Math also provides electronic quizzes, tests, and mid-course exams to further assess your child’s math mastery.
A Few Final Thoughts
Math has been the final frontier to my becoming a full-fledged, independent learner who is in the driver’s seat of her education. There were always reasons why I chose to just teach her math myself—either the explanations, content, or platform were so convoluted that I would constantly have to assist her, or I felt the content was not rigorous enough.
With UnLock Math, I’ve finally found a program I feel is both rigorous and the platform is easily navigable. This allows me to focus my energies on my two younger children and enables my daughter to become even more independent. I’m able to monitor her progress and help her, when necessary, but I am not bogged down trying to watch long lectures in order to assist or be her primary math teacher.
If you’re looking for a self-paced, online interactive math lesson for your homeschooled teen, I invite you to check out UnLock Math. UnLock Math is very reasonably priced for a self-paced, online math program. They even give you a free trial to review their platform and course prior to purchasing the full course. Right now, you can also receive $50 off your first annual subscription by using the code MelanatedGold50 or $8 off a monthly subscription at checkout. This offer is good until July 31, 2022. Last but not least, if you’re interested in your child becoming financially literate, stay tuned because UnLock Math will be unveiling their brand-new Financial Literacy Course this fall!
