In thinking about this more, rather than trying to pick random things to memorize (that you might not even need to know), I would spend the summer beefing up on basic chemistry (chemical bonding, properties of water, properties of carbon, and the 4 types of organic macromolecules). Many AP teachers (including me) have the students cover those chapters of Campbell over the summer, so we aren't wasting precious class time on what should be review. Also, if you have a basic understanding of photosynthesis and cellular respiration, that would be good. I DON'T mean memorizing each compound or enzyme! Just knowing the basic steps, what comes out of them, etc. Another thing to spend time on is basic genetics (Punnett squares and laws of probability as well as mitosis/meiosis, DNA replication, transcription, and translation). If you have the basics of these concepts down, then when you go deeper, it's just not as hard, and this is a really important unit. Off the top of my head, these would be the most important areas to bone up on before hand, for what it's worth.

Does she have access to any other regular high school biology textbook? I think reading through that would be helpful. I can't imagine pre-reading the big Campbell textbook! You don't have to memorize the Kreb's cycle or anything like that, but you do have to have a lot of foundational understanding so that you relate concepts to other concepts and to the "Big Ideas" of the AP biology framework. The redesign of the exam a few years back really took the emphasis off of rote memorization and regurgitation. Also, there are a lot of excellent books that many AP biology teachers have their students read the summer before, like Survival of the Sickest, The Sports Gene, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Violinist's Thumb, Your Inner Fish, and others. I've read the first 4 I listed, and I can highly recommend them. My students still refer back to them when they see relevant news articles or whatever! Books like those can be helpful for developing a big picture understanding of the concepts, and these ones are well-written and interesting.

The 2007 still has a full middle seat in the middle row. We fit 3 carseats across ours as well. In fact, that was my criteria when we were looking, back in 2007, and that's why we picked the Sienna over the Odyssey back then. It's weird that now the Odyssey has a bigger middle seat, and the Sienna went backwards to a small, useless one. What were their engineers thinking?! I *think* the car salesman said it was 2010 when Toyota redesigned the middle seat, but I could be wrong. Definitely after 2007 though.

We are the original owners of an 07 Sienna. I *love* that minivan. We have a ton of miles on it, but I hope it lasts many, many more. It is so comfortable and easy to drive, and the seats fit me well. We have an 8-seater. Leaving an interior light on does not run down our battery (thankfully, because it did in our old Odyssey, which we experienced many times . . .) We have had no sliding door issues, or any other issues either. When our 00 Odyssey died in 2014, we looked at new Siennas, but we were not impressed by them. They had a weird middle seat in the middle row--lower than the other seats, and really narrow, so it wouldn't seem to fit any person, or a carseat. Not sure what it was good for? But we absolutely need 8 full seats, so that ruled it out. We ended up buying a 2014 Odyssey. It's okay, but honestly, I prefer driving my 07 Sienna.

My parents both visit a NUCCA chiropractor. They've been to him for several years, and they've been very pleased. They're in their late 60's, with the usual aches and pains to go along with it, and I think he's helped them a lot. I wish I knew more specifics about what they feel he has helped with but I really don't! Sorry!

We celebrated with a birthday cake from Costco for her at our co-op this afternoon! Our lit teacher is really on top of these things, lol.

I'm starting tomorrow. I went to Costco yesterday and bought all the stuff I saw recommended on all the other threads this year on Whole30! I need to get through our co-op today, where I teach AP biology, though. We're done having babies, but my body seems to not have gotten that message. Since #10 weaned in August, I've tried various things to lose weight. Nothing has worked, and in fact, I've gained 10 more pounds over the course of these 9 months! Ack!! I actually read the "It Starts With Food" book, and all the hormone interplay resonated with me (we just covered the endocrine system in bio, so everything is very fresh, lol). Something is off, and I think it is going to take a drastic change to reset things. I am definitely afraid that I won't lose weight, and then I will really have a hard time staying motivated. I don't have really any symptoms that I'm hoping to get rid of, other than extra weight, especially my tummy. So we'll see! I'm excited to start, although I will definitely miss dairy most of all, I think. I love milk!

I think it depends on the test, somewhat. For AP biology, a lot of the review guides still do not reflect the redesigned test, even though it happened back in 2012. This year I got one I had never heard of before for that class--Preparing for the Biology AP Exam by the Holtzclaws. It's been amazing! I got it because the reviews from other AP bio teachers were so positive (and I have since added my own), and they weren't positive about the other review books, especially the big name ones (plus I already have Barrons, and I knew it wasn't good). So maybe check amazon reviews for review books that teachers like? They should at least know if the material is being covered or if the questions in the book actually reflect the questions on the real test.

That was a very helpful explanation, and I bookmarked it so I can refer it to other people who ask these same questions!

I wondered about this too. I knew someone who had a similar out-of-the-blue descent into OCD/anxiety/crying jags, etc., after what we think was an undiagnosed strep infection. But this was an adult man. It was very scary to watch, and everything about this article rang true for his family. If he had cancer or something, everyone around would have rallied, but when someone just all of a sudden mentally goes off the deep end, with absolutely no previous warning or depression or any other sign of impending mental problems--well, no one really offers any support, and doctors don't know what to do either. Doctors were asked about an "adult" PANDAS, but everyone just pooh-poohed the idea. After 8 months of increasing OCD and increasing sleeplessness, he was finally put on prozac, I believe, and started taking sleeping pills. Once he started sleeping again, things began turning around, and eventually, probably 6 months later, he was more or less back to normal. Except he doesn't really remember much of the details of his slide downward, or any of his OCD behaviors or anything, so he just thinks everyone else was "over-reacting". Mental issues are scary. I really hope we can learn more about adult triggers.

My ds2's (homeschool) mock trial team just won the state competition and is headed to the national tournament in Idaho in May! We are pretty excited ourselves! This is his first year to participate, and it really has been good. Their coach is a former PHC student who is in law school now, and she is amazing. This is their second year in a row to win the state competition.

Me too! That is the name of our first daughter, and I just love the name (and the girl, LOL).

This is the season for ordering AP test review books, and I finally found a good one for the AP biology exam! The exam was redesigned 3 years ago, and the "big names" in test prep books simply haven't gotten the memo. It's called "Pearson Education Test Prep Series for AP Biology: To Accompany Pearson'sCampbell Biology Program". Here is the amazon link. I just submitted a review for it, so I thought I'd go ahead and paste it here too, in case anyone was interested. "I teach AP biology for our homeschool co-op, and I have been looking for a good AP biology review book since the test was redesigned a few years ago. Barrons, et al, didn't seem to have questions that really prepared the kids for the questions on the actual exam, and all those review books definitely focused on lots of nit-picky details that were no longer required things to memorize. This book is clearly head and shoulders above the rest. It is written by the Holtzclaws, who also write guided reading questions to go along with the Campbell biology book. There are 10 topics, or chapters, that review content, and they include boxes called "You Must Know" that state bullet points that you should be able to explain to yourself. If not, some more time spent on that topic with your book is probably in order. Then there are several types of questions at the end of each chapter. Level one contains knowledge/comprehension questions that "review essential content knowledge but don't represent the type of question you will see on the AP exam. Level 2, application/synthesis, questions are similar to those you will see on the exam." Based on the questions I have seen on the practice exams released to approved AP bio teachers, these questions *do* look like the ones on the exam, unlike the questions in the other review books. Very good practice, and worth its weight in gold right there! Then there are at least 2 grid-in questions for each chapter, which again, the other books don't really focus on at all, and one free response question. You may need your textbook or whatever to review the topics more in depth, but this review book will help you figure out what areas you don't know well but should, and it will give you lots of practice in the kinds of problems you will actually encounter on the exam."

I just checked my table of contents, and it looks like there are 3 specific lectures on origins (14, 15, and 16). They are "Evolution Theories", "What the Bible Says About Origins", and "Intelligent Design". The lab that goes along with that section is one dealing with how to use the Hardy-Weinburg equation, which is an important concept so I wouldn't skip that lab. But that was the lab where he had some particularly weird comments on evolution in the intro and the conclusion that I was like, ummm, that's not really a logical argument and why is that comment even here?! We did skip the lectures, so I don't know what exactly he says there. On exam 2, it looked to me like there were about 8 questions out of 66 multiple choice/true and false/fill-in-the-blank questions that would be problematic, but I would think you could just skip those and grade that part out of 58 or whatever. The short answer part of the test has a few problematic questions worth 9 more points. They ask the student to define evolution, give evidence as to why you believe or do not believe God created the earth, and give one example of an irreducibly complex system. Then there are other questions in that section about labeling a sketch of a bacteria, list the kingdoms, etc., so it's not all about origins. I checked the other 3 exams, and none of them mention origins again. Exam 1 does have 2 questions involving Bible verses that were mentioned in the first lecture, "Science, God, and You". I think if you skipped the first section of the exam (6 questions), then there isn't anything else from that lecture on the exam or anywhere else. Hope this helps!

I don't have much time, but I wanted to answer this specifically. I do not think a student would be well-prepared for the AP biology exam, but they would be prepared for the SAT-2, although I would still definitely recommend a review book. Oh, and I agree that you shouldn't use another text and just the tests. The first time I taught AP bio, we hadn't decided we were actually going to go the AP route, so we started off using DIVE and supplementing with Campbell. Then we decided to go for it, and we really only used Campbell, but I still gave them the tests, since I had spent money for them. But I did have to go back and make sure to specifically cover things on the test that he had said in the lectures for the kids. We never did listen to all that many lectures, but I watched most of the labs (to get ideas for set-up and so on), since they are the old AP bio labs. Often at the beginning of the lab, he'll make comments about God (which don't bother me, as a creationist), but they are easy to fast-forward through, and during the actual lab, there's not mention of religious things, except again possibly at the very end when he's drawing conclusions.

I would imagine it's the same as the AP exams, for example, when students in other countries take a different form of the test so that they can't feed problems to kids in the states taking the exams a few hours later, and kids taking the make-up test a few days later take a still different form. Same concepts and exam layout, just different problems/questions.

You know, I really agree with this, and it is one of my pet peeves with Apologia biology. One of my students just had to drop my AP biology class for the second semester. He simply could not synthesize or retain the knowledge, even though he had always done "very well" on his previous Apologia science courses, including biology. I just don't think the class teaches scientific thinking when all it focuses on is making sure the student can parrot back exactly a definition, and not so much about the actual concepts. And for the record, just because a course requires a student to parrot back a ton of definitions exactly does not make it rigorous. A lot of difficult busy work, yes, and a total pain in the rear, but it says nothing about the actual level of the concepts being taught. Apologia isn't actually a difficult biology course.

We have one. We bought it not too long ago--October, maybe? Our other mattress was 15 years old (and had been through 8 of my pregnancies!), and I was having terrible hip pain from it, no matter how we turned it. Friends from our church recommended Saatva because they love theirs so much. I'm going to have to wait until my dh comes home to say what kind we have because he did the ordering, and I really don't remember which one we got. I do know it was "luxury firm" or something--and it's possibly a little too hard for me, which was very surprising. I sleep on my side and prefer a firmer mattress in general, but it took me awhile before I was really able to get used to the feel of this one. But my hip pain went away! It is really a well-constructed mattress, and I am sure it will last a good while. I would say it's one of the spring/foam ones--I'm sure we didn't get anything new, and "leaf and loom" doesn't ring any bells!

This sounds a lot like our high school co-op, except it is not that large. But we have very rigorous classes, and the parents are all on the same page. We have 8 approved AP syllabi, and our students have all done very well on the exams (which are a LOT cheaper than dual enrollment here). We do things that benefit from discussion, like history, lit, science, and foreign language. We've added math, but we didn't use to offer that because we were so small and most of us with kids in it had degrees in math, LOL. Now we're a little bigger, so we can offer more classes. It has been really good for our family. Amazing, really. I've been so blessed to be a part of it, and my kids have benefited so tremendously. My oldest graduated last year, and he's a freshman in the engineering dept. of a well-regarded engineering school. He's done really well in his classes (unlike classmates who have really struggled), got credit for quite a few classes going in, and generally felt very well prepared. Yay!

This is honestly one of the very few reasons I like being in the NoVA area! I know many people homeschooling through high school, expecting their kids to go to good and selective colleges, and we commiserate about APs, testing, etc. But after being here for 12 years, I'm really not able to able to deal with the traffic and busyness anymore--and the public schools are really hardcore, so the high pressure is also difficult to deal with. So we're thinking about moving back to Ohio when our second son graduates, since he doesn't want to move for his senior year of high school. Threads like this make me nervous, though! I have a feeling this is how it will be there . . .

We finally got plowed out yesterday afternoon (NoVA). My 2 younger boys (4 and 3) stood out on the front porch and watched the big front loader put on a show! I haven't heard from dh this morning, so I'm assuming he made it in to the big 5-sided building for work. We had a lot of complaints from people in our neighborhood about how long it took to get plowed out, but it didn't bother me. I LOVED having a reason not to go anywhere! My kids played outside most of the time, and I taught my Monday Latin class via skype. We still have another 2 gallons of milk and 2 dozen eggs, plus plenty of other food, so I'm not planning on going out until Friday. Well, that's not true--I have to get ds#3 to his math class tomorrow. We can get both minivans out of our driveway, but I'm just leaving our big van until the snow melts around and on it. It's really hard to get the snow off the top of that one!

Just wanted to say I tried this Friday night for the first time, and everyone loved it! It was yummy and so easy! (I skipped the pepper flakes too, LOL.) I served it over a ton of rice. I tripled the recipe and had only a small tub of leftovers, if anyone wants to try it with a big family.

We're in eastern Loudoun, and we had about 30 inches. The kids have had SO much fun building snow forts and sledding down the hill at the end of the cul-de-sac. I was really thrilled that all the basketball games yesterday were canceled, as well as church today. I felt like it really was a break for me, since I didn't feel any obligation to do school! Now we're waiting to see what OPM will decide about work tomorrow. They'll probably say 2 hour delay or telework, but our neighborhood hasn't seen a plow, so there's no way dh is getting out, and teleworking is only an option if you work on unclassified stuff. So . . . looks like unpaid time off tomorrow, since he used his leave for Christmas!

My oldest ds is there as a freshman this year. I honestly can't remember what I had to mail in for them, but it definitely wasn't anything weird. I think it was just the transcript, and I also included our school profile. I'm pretty sure I didn't even send in course descriptions! I can't remember a counselor letter, but there may have been one. Like I said, I remember it as being very easy!

DS2's is in for USAFA, and now I think he'll work on West Point's. He really hasn't been interested in a service academy, but we'll see what happens. It's a good thing to do in the summer, especially since the summer seminars are earlier than other activities that he has going on. Might as well fill the whole summer!