My family is partial to black beans, so we often do those. But we've done pinto beans or kidney beans with rice as well.

I add black beans or refried beans to stretch ground beef. If it's with rice or pasta, the carb part fills out the meal and I can do 2:1 beans:beef. With stir fry, fried rice, and other chicken/rice dishes, if I add enough veggies and don't skimp on the sauce (so that the rice has enough flavor), I can get away with a single chicken breast for 6 servings of an entree. When we do a meatless beans and rice, we serve fried eggs on top, it really makes the meal more filling, but is a relatively cheap extra. ETA: I've found chickpeas are good for extending diced chicken. I'll do chicken and chickpea curry, for example. My family is also okay if I completely replace chicken with lots of chickpeas.

Thanks! We've read the Byzantine one and enjoyed it. 🙂

Which series of books is this one?

Do they have a pdf answer key available, or do you have to watch an entire video to see if you got the problems correct?

I'm willing to go with a book with lots of problems if I can easily tell her to do half (or just sets 1, 2, and 4, like with Jacob's algebra) and the problems are interesting instead of rote computations. What I want to avoid is having to read each problem to carefully choose the important ones. ETA: here's an example of the kind of book I want to avoid https://www.google.com/books/edition/Intermediate_Algebra_A_Guided_Approach/2-XKAgAAQBAJ?hl=en

My middle child has finished Jacobs Algebra. She didn't hate it, which is about as good as I can hope for with her. She dislikes math, but is good at it. We've got Jacobs Geometry for her now. But then I'm at a loss for what to do for Algebra 2. I want a textbook, not an online class or anything that requires use of videos. I was thinking of doing Foerster's Algebra 2, but the solution manual is out of print now. She doesn't need 30+ practice problems that just practice rote computations. I was looking at some standard Algebra 2 texts and they would frequently have over 100 problems for each lesson! Even doing just odds would be way too much, especially since most of the problems are really boring and repetitive. She tried AoPS for PreAlgebra and really disliked the "hard for the sake of hard" problems that were meant to stump the student. She likes problems that require some thought, but not as much as AoPS. So, is there anything suitable for this kid that has a currently in print answer key that can be purchased by someone who isn't part of a school? Would doing odd problems with Foerster and just using the answer key in the back be doable?

Thanks for the input! Luckily for me, I'm looking at the May 2023 exams, not the upcoming ones. I want to know if we can find a seat to take AP exams before I try to plan out an AP course and get syllabus approval, etc. I had reached out to our locally zoned school, but I talked with the homeschool liaison, not the AP coordinator. Do you think I might get a different answer if I speak to a different person?

How do you find contact information when reaching out to schools to see if they let outside students sit for AP exams? Is that listed on the CB site? Do you just call the main office of each school?

Hits: I've been really happy with Novare's 9th grade physics and chemistry text. It's been a good amount of depth and workload to step up from middle school to high school level work. My youngest has enjoyed watching the El Mono videos from Senor Jordan to get some Spanish listening practice. I'm a little sad that it seems like he's not making those anymore and I don't know what we'll watch when we finish those. My creative writing loving child continues to like W&R. Misses: One child finished W&R book 3, but I don't think they're ready for the jump to book 4. I'm struggling to figure out what I can use to get them solid on paragraphs so that they're ready to move forward.

We spatchcock chicken when we smoke or roast it, and then I use the spine to make gravy. I'd imagine you could do the same thing with turkey. I use the jus recipe from here, and then thicken it with cornstarch when it's done: https://www.seriouseats.com/butterflied-roasted-chicken-with-quick-jus-recipe

Thanks!

That makes sense. When would one start the audit process for a course meant for 2022-2023 (next school year)?

If a student does a course through DavidsonNext, can they list it as an AP course on the transcript? https://www.edx.org/school/davidson-next

I figured that I could put something together for her using her brother's AoPS books. I hadn't thought about using alcumus for problems; thanks for the idea!

You kind of have to factor in exchange rate as well as fees charged. My bank charges $45 to wire money to Nepal, which is way more than Xoom, but Xoom gives such a lousy exchange rate that I found more money got transferred to the recipient if I went with the bank and took the $45 out of the transfer amount. And, depending on the service again, your recipient may have to pay fees to get the money from the service to their bank account.

My middle child is disappointed that Jacobs Algebra doesn't cover imaginary numbers. I started looking for a book/booklet that I could use to cover them with her so that she doesn't have to wait until Algebra 2 to see them. I stumbled upon the Summit Math series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085C3GYPK It claims to be a guided discovery math, which reminds me of AOPS, but maybe it's more accessible to someone that doesn't enjoy "hard for the sake of hard" math problems? Has anyone used these books?

What size tablet would be used? My kids use the Khan app on a 10" tablet with no problems. They do find that it's nicer to use it in portrait mode (instead of landscape). I don't think we've tried it on a smaller 7-8" tablet, though.

Any others? It seems that History Quest doesn't have anything for after the middle ages and OUP World in Ancient times is (obviously) just ancients. I know OUP has something that could cover middle ages, but what about after that time period? Is there not really a narrative history for middle school that goes beyond middle ages?

Other than K12 Human Odyssey, what options are there for narrative world history for middle school? I'm looking for something with the interest level of SOTW, but at a higher level. If there are high school books that are accessible for middle schoolers, that would work, too. ETA: I'd prefer books written more recently, so that I don't have to worry about censoring on the fly for outdated/racist language, etc.

I realize that CLEP is not widely accepted. That's why I specifically asked about that issue at the end of my post. It's one thing to only have a single CLEP test in Calc and nothing past that. In my student's situation, there would be the rest of the calc sequence taken either at a local CC or 4-year. I figured he would not get the credit hours for calc 1 from CLEP, but would he get the course requirement waived, since he obviously has to know calc 1 in order to take and pass Calc 2, multivariate calc, etc? I also realize that a strong foundation is important, which is why part of my question was about providing a strong foundation (AOPS at home vs Calc at a CC vs Calc at a 4-year). The local CC is about a 15 minute drive. The anchor CC for my region is about 25 minutes. The nearest state 4-year is either a one hour bus ride or a 40 minute drive (plus parking and walking time, as the lots are expensive and street parking is scarce). If he stays in our state for college, especially if he goes to a state school, the local CC courses will be accepted for credit. It becomes less likely if he goes out of state further than one of our direct neighbors (those state schools seem to accept our CC courses, according to transferology). He told his grandparents he likes math, and he seems to like it (I haven't run into motivation issues with him like I have with his professing-to-hate-math siblings). He's also good at it, which probably helps him enjoy it more. The purpose of DE in his case would be to give him appropriate challenge, make sure he continues math in high school, and to (hopefully) get him some college credit both to help reduce the cost of college and to get him into engineering/science courses earlier. I know I appreciated going to college with BC Calc under my belt, because it opened up more interesting courses for me right away vs having to wait a year while I got the Calc prereqs out of the way.

I have a 9th grader that is very interested in STEM--likely engineering, but I don't want to rule out sciences, computer science, etc. He isn't sure which branch of engineering he might be interested in, either. I don't think he's going to be aiming for high tier colleges like MIT, but well ranked state flagships or public engineering schools like Colorado School of Mines are certainly possibilities. He's just starting AOPS PreCalc next week. The other AOPS books have taken him anywhere from 27 weeks (Geometry) to 47 weeks (Intermediate Algebra), I'm guessing that PreCalc will be between those two and get finished sometime in July (we school year round with random breaks). I'm trying to plot out the rest of his high school math sequence. He's the type of kid that won't want to do AOPS Calculus at home with me only to then have to take it again in order to get college credit (especially since the CC version would be more about "boring" calculations). We have free DE available once he's in 11th grade. Our local high school doesn't allow non-enrolled students to take AP tests with them, and I haven't reached out to further away or private schools yet. One thing I'm leaning toward is to do approximately Calc 1 with AOPS at home and have him take the CLEP test for it. If he has more time before he can do free DE, he can do discrete math to fill that gap, and then do Calc 2 as DE at the CC. After that, I figure he'd do multivariate calc, differential equations, and either linear algebra or calc based statistics until he graduates. Another option would be to hope we can both get all of Calculus done before May 2023 and also find a school that would let him take the BC Calc exam. Or to put off doing Calc until Junior year and find other math subjects to do Sophomore year. Some of my concerns are in taking math courses at the CC. Would it be worth adding significant commute time to get him to a four year school for DE? If we can't get him in to take the BC Calc exam, would it be better to teach it at home with AOSP and take the CLEP to get out of Calc 1, or to do all of Calc as DE, not using AOPS? I feel that AOPS would give him a stronger foundation than CC Calculus, but the CLEP exam may not be accepted for credit at the college he ultimately winds up at. Would that be a problem, given that he would obviously have courses after Calc 1 completed through DE? Am I overthinking this?

He'd probably really like that, as he does wood shop type stuff already. These are all great suggestions, everyone, and I'm sure we can find something for him--even if we're piecemealing together several topics into a "survey of the arts" type of course. I'll also have to look into fine arts requirements at the schools he may go to--he'd probably like the "two birds with one stone" approach of DE arts courses if it is required for his degree.

It looks like our local high school offers this, but they don't count it as a fine art. 😜 I'll have to look into this further, as I think homeschoolers are allowed to take a few classes at the high school.