Val, did you read the entire post?

At the end, I wrote:
"* sample size n = 2. Be wary of statistics; they can be very misleading. ;-)"

When I took upper division math courses, we sometimes had to get up and show our proofs to the class. Then the professor would ask open-ended questions like, "Why do you think your answer is correct?" So I take no offense to Q like that on my kid's homework.

Math is open-ended. Arithmetic is not. There is a big difference. Some people can't believe I was a math major, because I don't particularly excel at arithmetic. Neither does my kid.

The EM developers are trying to build math intuition. It may not be an effective approach for some kids (or teachers or parents), but I was impressed by the curriculum I saw. My kid is very intuitive.
http://badmomgoodmom.blogspot.com/2006/11/math-intuition.html

Has anyone tried to homeschool algebra? I tried:
http://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Al...mp;s=books&qid=1256254234&sr=8-1

She has to do every problem in section 1, every other in section 2 and discuss how she would develop a solution for section 4. If she misses too many of the Q on section 2, I make her do the ones in section 3, which duplicate the practice problems of section 2. It's a very good book, but both mommy and kid don't have the discipline to do it regularly after a day of work and long division.