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AFwife Claire

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Everything posted by AFwife Claire

  1. My older 3 boys are all involved. My older 2 have had a lot of squadron leadership positions, and it's been a very good thing for them. They have been involved in some activities outside of the weekly meetings, like a TARC rocketry team, drill competition team, several cadet special activities in the summer, and encampment. Oldest was on encampment staff one year, and ds2 will be on staff this summer. We haven't found it to be too terribly expensive, as far as extra-curricular activities go. Air Force thrift shops (on air force bases) often sell used uniform items to CAP cadets pretty cheaply for blues uniform pieces, and our squadron has a supply closet for BDUs. I'm sure a big part of it is how each squadron is run. I don't think you can even join until you visit something like 4 times, so there is time to see how everything goes before making a commitment. My oldest got an appointment to USMA and also a 4 year ROTC scholarship, and I'm sure his CAP involvement was a big part of that. It's an easy way for homeschoolers to gain leadership experience.
  2. No, you can't do this. You can't list a course as AP on your transcript unless you have an approved syllabus, and you have to have the syllabus approved by January sometime of the current school year to be able to list it that year (so you still have time to submit for this year). But no worries--you just list the course as "Honors Biology--AP Equivalent" or something, and then you also put the AP score on the transcript. Then it is pretty obvious that the class prepared her for biology, no matter what it technically was called.
  3. I think I saw chatter on the AP bio teachers forum that the Holtzclaws were working on questions to go with Biology in Focus. I hope it's true!
  4. This link here has links to the reading guides for all the chapters of Campbell (8 ed., but it can still work with newer ones), both Holtzclaw and someone else's. The Holtzclaw ones are incredibly long and detailed, but they really do help break the chapters down into manageable chunks.
  5. I have that. It can be useful to get a better sense of what is important in the chapters, since they cut out a lot of the extra stuff. What I like is that there are more questions, both short-answer and multiple choice, with answers in the back.
  6. The Bozeman videos are excellent and can help fill that gap. If you don't see a subject under AP biology, look under regular plain old biology, and you'll most likely find it there. Even though I do teach AP bio in our little co-op, I assign the videos to watch when students don't understand the concepts and need someone else to present them. Mr. Anderson does a good job.
  7. So because I teach in a co-op, I am called to write letters of recommendation, which I do not mind doing at all. The common app one, plus the ones for military academies (the 2 types I've been asked to submit) both have a section where I have to rate the student as "one of the top few encountered in my career", "top 5%", "top 10%", etc. in a bunch of different areas. The kid I'm writing for right now is truly an excellent young man in all senses of the word. But it seems weird to check "one of the top few" every single time, especially since the Common App knows I do not teach in a registered high school, and so presumably don't have oodles and oodles of other students with which to compare him. I worry that a column of "one of the top few" boxes checked would make them discount me as a recommender. But then it seems like a markdown to say "top 5%" in a few areas. Anyone else struggle with this? I don't want to hurt his chances!
  8. My 2nd son, who is now a junior, took AP Micro in 9th grade, and then lit, world history, and macro in 10th. He's taking stats, bio, and US Gov. this year. My first son took AP Gov. his junior year, and thought it was very easy. He self-studied and did not spend very much time at all on it, but got a 5. If your daughter has had any US history, knowledge of current political events, etc., that might be a good one to take freshman year. Both sons took the AP lit class last year, and both agreed it was hard (esp. for science-y kids--definitely not intuitive to figure out what they want for all the ambiguous questions/terms), although they both ended up doing quite well on the exam. Biology is not supposed to be as focused on memorizing a ton of facts anymore. Now you're supposed to make all these connections--and in some ways that is even harder, since you don't really *know* what you are supposed to know. There is still a TON of material to get through though.
  9. If you message me your email address, I can share mine with you. I think what the CB really looks for is having every curricular requirement clearly marked, so I put them bolded in brackets. It does make it look really busy. This syllabus is not my "working" syllabus that I hand out in class.
  10. I have a bio one as well as a US gov one I could share. Although I will caveat that my bio one is now 3 years old, and I'm sure I have changed things as I saw fit! Dh and I are on vacation in CO right now with his company, so I can't even look at it right now, but when we get back, I can. If you shoot me a message, I'll try to figure out how to share it, LOL. I know it's possible, but I have no idea how!
  11. I've never tried a reusable cup, but I had been considering it, since so many on here love it. But then I read the article linked above, which icked me out, and then this post came across my facebook feed, and I realized I really would not be the best fit for a cup, LOL (some language in the link--sorry!). Fortunately, since I've pretty much been pregnant or nursing for the past 19 years, I've not had to deal with it all that often. Now that we're done having kids, I guess I'll have to get used to the whole thing again--but I don't think I'll be trying a cup after all, LOL.
  12. I just bought one today at Walmart for $88. It was the same price as the TI-84 Plus. We have one of those, but with the oldest DS heading off to college and taking that one, we'll need something else for the rest of us. I was glad I had seen this thread when I wandered around the school section and found it! I checked the price at one of those scanner-things in the aisle to make sure it wasn't more expensive.
  13. Wow, we are in the same community. News of the accident showed up on my facebook feed, and I was very sad. Then I found out yesterday that one girl is the older sister of a good friend of my 9 year old daughter's. They are in our elementary homeschool co-op, and I am friends with the mom. Whoa. My oldest just graduated this year, so my daughter and I were talking about how she would feel if he had been killed in an accident. It has now *really* hit home with me, and I've been so sad. I'm sorry I don't have advice about your daughter. I just was surprised to see this accident mentioned on here!
  14. I think the deadline is the end of January or something . . . it's pretty late. Once you have successfully submitted one syllabus, they will send you a zillion email reminders the first part of the school year to make sure all of your syllabi (even if you only have one) have been renewed for that year, and those emails keep coming for awhile.
  15. We put hardwood in our kitchen 7 years ago to match the other hardwood on our main floor (before, the kitchen floor was a really nasty linoleum). I love it! We'll have to refinish it before we sell it, but well, we have 10 kids. Scratches, etc. are to be expected, and they really don't bother me. It still looks good! We had tile in other houses, and I hated that when things dropped, they just shattered into a million pieces. I much prefer hardwood.
  16. When I talked to the West Point regional admissions officer at an admissions briefing here in NoVA last fall, he said he didn't want course descriptions because it was mainly just him, and he didn't have time to go through a ton of papers. So I sent the transcript (Kareni's wonderful format!) and nothing else, and DS got an (early)appointment there. For USAFA, at summer seminar last summer during the admissions briefing, someone asked about what homeschoolers should send, and the answer was pretty much "whatever you have that makes us understand the quality of coursework you have done in high school". So for them I sent in course descriptions, school profile, and transcript--and ds did not get an appointment even though he was triple-nominated. Clearly the Lord shut the door for him, but I had to try not to take it personally that I failed in getting him in there, LOL. Hopefully it was not my course descriptions that kept him out! :tongue_smilie:
  17. Good news here too! My oldest 2 (senior and sophomore) sons took the same 3 AP exams this year--world history, macro, and lit. All 3 were taken at our little high school co-op, and in fact one lady taught both lit and macro (although she will never do it again, LOL). She has a PhD in economics, so that wasn't such a big challenge, but she spent so much time on lit, since that is not her background at. all. (Her son was the one who really wanted lit.) I am thrilled with how the boys did--neither of them are literature people either! Macro--5, 5 World history--5, 4 Lit--4, 4
  18. I just checked the AP Bio teacher's forum, and it looks like the score distribution was: 5: 6.2% 4: 22% 3: 35.9% 2: 27.6% 1: 8.3% So she was in good company with a 3. When they revised AP bio, they decided that instead of any kind of scaled score, the student would have to obtain a certain raw score to get a 5, a 4, etc. That has made it very difficult to obtain a 5, even for those students in good classes, since it is not a comparison with other students taking the exam, either high schoolers or college students. It does look like a bell curve this year, though. I haven't heard anything about them changing the grading, but then again, I really didn't read the forums at all this past year, since I didn't teach AP bio last year. Still--it'a a hard test. I don't know what to do about reporting, though. The teachers don't talk about that in the forums!
  19. This is what I'm wondering as well. So, for me personally, I've thought about becoming a doula when my kids get older. I love talking about childbirth, and I already invite any new moms in our church over to discuss natural childbirth in particular if they have any interest. But I would not at all be comfortable being a doula for a lesbian couple. Or for a surrogate. I also wouldn't be comfortable being an "abortion doula". Am I not allowed to turn down clients without someone crying "discrimination" and suing? I used to lurk on a doula message board. Most of these ladies were rabid anti-circumcision, and the threads about people who circumcised were absolutely vitrolic. These ladies made no bones about how they would turn down even clients who were just *considering* circumcision, not to mention those who were going to do it. This was all celebrated and treated as noble. I'm sure the vast majority of them would be thrilled to be doulas for lesbian couples, so they're okay to discriminate when they want to because ? but other people (Christians, mainly, I suppose) can't because discrimination and hurt feelings? Of course, I would NEVER want someone at one of my births who was at all uncomfortable with me and my choices, so I would hope they would be free to mention their views to me. I guess I also see the difference as being the active/passive involvement. I have no problem selling something off the shelf or whatever to anyone, but something that requires artistry/active personal involvement--well, I think people should be free to accept/decline customers according to conscience.
  20. Growing up, I always went to a Christian school, no matter where we were stationed. I thought 4 kids was big, and looking back, I think in part that is because I didn't know of any families with more than 4 kids--and that was most likely because how could anyone with more than 4 kids afford Christian school? Since it was just my brother and me, 4 seemed huge, and definitely what I was aiming for, because I thought 2 kids was the most incredibly boring and predictable thing ever (said in my best pre-teen/teen drama voice). Now that I actually have kids, I would say over 6 is big. Six kids can all fit in a minivan (we had an 8-seat Sienna), but when we had #7, we had to go up to the full-size van. However, we do *not* wear matching outfits/long skirts and hair, and we MOST CERTAINLY never sing as a group. That would be a disaster! I know we look like a big crowd though. When we were in Boston last year for my dh's business trip, the foreign tourists pointed and talked about us as we passed all the time while we were sightseeing. Hey, just another mixed-age tour group that happens to all look really similar (my kids have very similar facial features--you can definitely tell we are all a family)! I thought that once my older kids were over 8 and became so much more helpful, it was not too difficult at all to keep adding another baby into the mix, so adding #6, 7, and 8 was not too challenging. It wasn't until the oldest one got into high school, and I started teaching the junior high and high school science classes in our small rigorous co-op, that things started getting hard again, dealing with newborn stuff. ETA: Not at all sure why that blank quote box is there, and I can't figure out how to get rid of it! Oh well . . .
  21. Are we the same person?? This is pretty much how we have handled all these things! We all go to a few things for each child a season, and then different groupings, or sometime just dh and I, go to others. The toddlers and babies just deal. Like I said in my last post, when we flew space-a to Hawaii last year, our oldest was 17 and our youngest was 1 (and I was newly pregnant). If we had waited until our kids were all "a good age", we would never have gone anywhere at all! One thing has stuck with me for awhile. Several years ago (probably 7 or 8), I had a conversation with a friend who was the oldest of 12. She loved her big family and wasn't bitter, but she did remark that she wanted to be done having kids whenever her oldest was ready to leave the house. She said her mom had her 12th baby just a few weeks before my friend got married, and so the mom was naturally more focused on having a newborn, nursing, etc., than on doing special things to prepare for my friend's wedding with her. So with that in mind, our last baby is going to be our last, barring something miraculous (which would be fine, LOL!), and my oldest is going off to college this summer. It was hard dealing with all his college applications/visits, etc. AND being pregnant/having a newborn, so I'm glad to not have to do that again! Homeschooling rigorously through high school and dealing with newborns is also difficult and stretching for me!
  22. Yes, this was me! I only had one brother, 3 years younger than me. We were and still are quite close, but I thought it was so incredibly boring and predictable--one boy and one girl! So I was pretty resolved to have more than 2 kids. Ten was not really ever a thought in my younger mind, however, LOL. My dh grew up as the youngest of 6. His family is not close at all as adults, and I think a lot of that was his parents' fostering of competition between the siblings. Also, his dad was an angry alcoholic, so that had something to do with things as well. Dh was worried about having a big family because he didn't want our kids to end up with the lack of relationships that his siblings have ended up. Our oldest 4 are boys, and I don't think they have been unduly burdened by caring for younger siblings. All the kids have been extremely thrilled when we've been expecting another baby, and I just love seeing our oldest boys with the toddlers and babies. They are so good with them, and it is so sweet to see them on the floor, playing duplos, or out in the yard helping them learn how to throw a football or kick a soccer ball! Maybe homeschooling has helped mine with not comparing. Other families that are our good friends also have more than an average number of kids (5-6), and they also don't go to Disney, get new clothes, do a ton of extra-curricular activities, or whatever, so I don't think there's a ton to be jealous of. It's more like we're just normal among our circle of friends. That being said, we have also gone out of our way to make things happen for specific kids who have expressed interest/shown talent in a particular area--gymnastics, art lessons, whatever--that not every other child has done. And we have also really tried to do things to make memories, and not just always say we can't because lots of younger kids. So for example last year in February we took a military space-a trip to Hawaii with all 11 of us. It was fun (and somewhat stressful for me), but we made such great memories without spending a ton (we stayed with friends who were living over there, which helped greatly, and we of course didn't have to pay for the flights). In August we all accompanied dh on a business trip to Boston. We paid for a second room, and then we went sightseeing while he had his meetings, and we were there for an extra weekend before the meetings started so dh could do a few things with us. Again, it was somewhat stressful for me, keeping track of everyone, driving the big van around Boston by myself, and being 8 months pregnant with #10. But it was so worth it in terms of family memories, and we had a great time! I hope the kids learn to just roll with things--I think that is one thing that *having* a lot of kids has taught me! I don't know that any of my kids will have so many kids themselves, although all of them right now say they wold like to have big families. But that's okay. I don't feel the need to justify my own life path by how my kids live! We have been so blessed by the Lord to have all these kids, and I enjoy each and every one of them so much. I enjoy their different personalities, and how each of them add in different ways to our family. I can't wait to see what they all end up doing as adults, and I am really enjoying the changing relationships with my older teens, as they prepare to leave home. So fun!
  23. When my oldest DS was 6, he tripped and fell onto a coffee table corner at a friend's house, splitting his head open and requiring 6 staples to close. DH took him off to the military base ER, no problem. But we were totally shocked when Tricare called, wanting info about our friends' address and contact info so they could go after their homeowner's insurance. We were livid! We made all the same points other people here are making--how can anyone ever have anyone over? Are we supposed to not have furniture around?? Never leave our own house??? How can it be our friends' fault that we had a clumsy 6 year old?? It didn't matter, and we ended up paying out of our own pocket for the expenses, even though we went to a military hospital, and my dh was active duty, since we didn't want our friends' homeowner rates to go up because of ds. I'm still mad about it, honestly, even though it was 12 years ago! So don't think not having a pool or swingset will protect you. You'd better get rid of coffee tables and all your other hard furniture as well!
  24. I saw "PB4WEGO" on a big SUV, and that made me laugh. I totally need that on my big van, because I must say that a zillion times before we leave for anywhere!
  25. But see--why? Why is this the response here--but for people who identify as another gender since 5--or even later in life--we just accept them (and whatever drastic surgery and hormonal treatments they want), and no one should ever say they are delusional and need mental health intervention?? I do not understand this disconnect at all, honestly and without a bit of snark.
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