Understanding Pre-Algebra (A REVIEW)

We have used many books from The Critical Thinking Co. over the many years of homeschooling. Mostly we've used their logic books, but we've also tried out their editing, language, and math books. I was excited to try another math book out for this review, one we'd never used before. The book that we received is Understanding Pre-Algebra. It is a complete math book for the student that is getting ready for algebra. I am using it for my 7th grader.

Understanding Pre-Algebra is a pretty thick book. It is an inch thick consumable workbook with soft covers, and nice sturdy pages. There are 15 chapters of pre-algebra fun, with an easy to find answer section. Very helpful if you (the parent) needs some guidance for helping your student, and for grading. These aren't just pages and pages of facts and problems to work. There are plenty of explanations at the beginning of each new lesson, and guidance throughout the lesson. I really like how this book presents and works through the information. It really does make the student think logically.

My 7th grader was not thrilled at starting this book. But, he needs it. He's going to need to be ready for Algebra soon, and math is not his favorite subject. This is what he'll be working through this summer!

The first chapter jumps into prime numbers and prime factorization, and he finally got it! I was happy to see him successfully be able to make these prime factoring trees. Some of the other topics covered in the later chapters are Integers, Rational Numbers, Ratio, proportion, percent, algebraic expressions, word problems, inequalities, square roots, some geometry, volume, graphing, transformations, functions, and probability. This book is a full curriculum, and that is how we are using it right now and into 7th grade.

Page examples

Sometimes you just want to see what the inside looks like. Here are some completed pages that my son completed. I chose only a few because most of them he doodled on. Math is not his favorite subject! We are also working on correcting. I am having him correct his own work by looking at the back. It gives him immediate feedback which I think is helpful in learning and remembering.

Another page that shows lots of room for working out some problems. We did have a scratch paper for the bigger problems, but most of the time he was able to work right in the book. There is a lot of room for explaining his thoughts and work too, which is a part of a lot of the questions. That's where the critical thinking comes in!

He discovered highlighting makes math fun.

Like I said earlier, I really like The Critical Thinking Co. books. The are to the point, challenging, and fun. There are so many subjects offered from this company. Some of the other crew members tried this and other titles. If you want to see some detective and critical thinking type books, or vocabulary riddle books click on the banner below. Thanks for reading!