I've been homeschooling for five years, and arithmetic has to be one of the toughest subjects I've ever had to explain to anyone. I know how important being fluent in basic mathematics is to their futures, so I've made it my one of my goals to make math one of their most important subjects.
When I first started homeschooling, I thought I needed the most expensive program with a lot of manipulatives to succeed in teaching math. I was wrong. I was nervous that I wouldn't cover everything they needed to learn - even though I used a curriculum that was scripted, with lesson plans already done for me. This was, of course, nonsense.
You may be like I was and thinking, "How in the world can I ever teach all of this stuff to my child?"
I remember some really good advice I received from an experienced homeschooling mom and math professor. She basically told me that we have six to eight years to teach our children about whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and positive/negative numbers, and how to do the four operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division - to each. Of course, there are a few things along the way that fall in the category of math - like measurement, for instance - but I consider that part of teaching fractions.
In that light, the task doesn't seem so daunting.
Look in the sidebar for some great math blogs that will help you with any question you might have about math.
