As far as I can tell, there is nothing that will destroy love of math faster and more thoroughly than elementary school. As DS went from utter math monster, to thinking he both hated math AND was no good at it, I found it necessary to constantly reiterate that what he did at school was
not math. It was repetitive computation (and lots and lots and lots of writing), but it was not
math. It's been a struggle to keep the idea of "math" attached to those things in which he finds great beauty and joy.
It's been an even greater struggle to convince him that he can and must work hard, on hard problems that he doesn't know how to do, in order to find that beauty. Many of you provide strong reminders of why it's so hard on kids to wait so long before experiencing their first math that requires them to think. OK, sorry about rant. My actual response to OP now
Labmom, since you're homeschooling, how essential is it to follow a particular curriculum and accomplish specific tasks (i.e. do Algebra next year?). Can you take some time (even if just the first few months) to simply explore neat ideas? Wallow in videos (like Numberphile and the zillion awesome links down the side) and cool books (from Fred to Penrose the Cat to Martin Gardner). In other words, teach her to think mathematically, and solve problems, but not necessarily focus on the next step in the math curriculum?
A transition step might be to build some problem solving skills - and confidence - by working on some math contest challenges at a level a bit below her current abilities. The actual math in the contest questions won't be hard; it's the learning to think that's tricky. I find the Math Kangaroo questions, for example, require little math but a lot of out-of-the-box thinking (don't know if the US questions are similar; here's ours:
https://kangaroo.math.ca/index.php?kn_mod=samples&year=NO).
Also, you may find quite different types of math appeal to different kinds of thinkers. DS is extremely visual spatial, and adores geometry and anything visualizable; linear stuff like algebra, not so much. He endured AoPS Algebra until we got to the chapter on Cartesian planes, and suddenly he is literally quivering and giggling with excitement (me, I'm way better at algebra). If you have the flexibility to find what floats her boat, and focus there for a while, it might be easier to then go back later and work on some of the missing tools that will help her do the kinds of problems/ math she likes. (In our house, Algebra is a necessary but unpleasant step to get to AoPS geometry).
Keep us posted - this is obviously a challenge shared by many. Good luck, and good for you for taking the leap into homeshooling; I hope it goes really well.
