alewife
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Posts posted by alewife
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1 hour ago, redquilthorse said:
This is a good idea! I hadn’t thought to buy a test prep book this early in the year. 🤦♀️ I bet that would help!
i don’t think there is one particular concept, but I’ll talk to him again. We went over his last test together, and he made mistakes like only completing half of the problem (Question asked for total force exerted on a driver of a car and he only calculated horizontal force but forgot vertical), forgetting a negative sign, and using the wrong formula. I’ve asked him to start doing more practice problems from the book. Hoping that will help. But he already seems to spend a lot of time on the class, so I’m hesitant to add too much more and have his other classes suffer as a result.
The bolded could be mistakes, but they could also be due to not understanding the concept. For example, forgetting a negative sign could be a careless mistake, but it could also be the result of not correctly establishing which direction is negative when setting up the problem.
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20 hours ago, redquilthorse said:
If you're student has taken AP Physics C Mechanics with Jack Kernion through PA Homeschoolers, what was your experience? This class is really tough for my kid. He is working hard just to get a B. I'm not too worried about the grade, but we are a little concerned about how he will perform on the AP test. Has anyone made a B in this class but still done well on the AP test? If so, did it take a lot of extra studying at the end? Is the class harder than the actual exam? We've thought about hiring a tutor, but the class already takes up a lot of his time. Has anyone done this?
Is there a particular concept that your son is having difficulty with? Many of the kids I tutor in physics c have a particular concept that they struggle with, and once that concept is mastered, the course is much easier for them. For example, some of the kids I work with have a really difficult time drawing the free body diagrams. For other kids, they can easily draw the free body diagrams, but struggle with writing and solving the simultaneous equations.
You might want to get a test prep book. Some of these books may summarize the concepts in a way that is easier to understand when compared to reading the textbook. A few that I think are good are "5 Steps to a 5", "The AP Physics C Companion, and "APadvantage Physics C"
Good luck.
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10 hours ago, frogger said:
Regarding your linked articles Francis,
It is interesting that Linfield's answer to falling enrollment is to raise tuition prices. Usually, you would lower prices to meet demand. Although, some of it is population based so a smaller Gen Z population isn't going to consume as much college regardless. I do think that more people would attend though if it were financially in reach without mortgaging your life away.
I wonder if they will also award merit aid to offset the increase in tuition? The increase in tuition may be a marketing move. If you lower tuition, some may think the school is not as good as the schools that charge 70K+ per year. But if you raise tuition prices, while at the same time offer merit aid, some may feel that the net price is a good deal.
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34 minutes ago, hjffkj said:
I haven't had any high readings until today and I monitor every few days at home because I've had issues during pregnancy before. Highest today was 150/98 I believe. No protein in urine. I have had a headache all day, no blurry vision or swelling.
They put me on blood pressure meds and will be monitoring me closely this pregnancy. I do have a MFM on my team thankfully.
I couldn't help thinking about your experience when they told me they were sending me to be monitored. Your guy was in the NICU a few weeks before my youngest was born and rushed to the NICU for different complications. I really appreciate you taking the time to post. Thank you.
Just to offer some reassurance: I developed pre-eclampsia at 25 weeks - monster headache, blood pressure 160/120, protein in urine. With bed rest, I made it to the 36 week mark before they induced me. My son was under 6 pounds, but perfectly healthy in every way. We went home from the hospital two days after his birth. He is now a 6 ft 23 year old.
Hugs and prayers for you and your baby.
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3 hours ago, lovinmyboys said:
Do you think about the risks when helping your kids choose sports? Do you avoid the riskier ones, seek them out (risk is good for kids), or just not worry about it?
When the ultrasound revealed that we were having a boy, I told my husband then that there would be no football or hockey. Growing up, my oldest asked more than once to play football, but that was the only sport he asked to play that we said he couldn't. (He ended up playing IM flag football in college and still plays today, though.)
Ironically, my boys have both required major surgeries due to injuries sustained from "safer" sports - baseball and tennis.
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Ticket to Ride
Catan
Fluxx
Liar's Poker
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On 10/7/2019 at 11:55 AM, mlktwins said:
What's your plan when it is no longer supported in January 2020? I love Windows 7 and am so sad :-(.
I bought a MacBook Air...
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22 minutes ago, Corraleno said:
The CA law doesn't take effect until 2023 and even then it will only have an impact if NCAA changes the rules. As long as those rules are in effect, any NCAA athlete who violates them will be ineligible to compete, and so will the teams if they allow it. The idea that CA schools will leave the NCAA over this is crazy, they will lose a huge amount of money and have no one to play since other NCAA teams won't play them. And if NCAA does change the rules, watch what happens to team morale when the star quarterback and receiver are driving Ferraris and making millions while the linemen who protect them get squat. The superstars who will get the endorsements certainly contribute to the success of the team, but so do all the other guys, and even the superstars wouldn't be signing any endorsement contracts if they were playing for East Podunk State instead of Alabama or Clemson or OSU, so they owe their success to the school as much as the school owes their success to the stars.
I would be all in favor of some kind of bonus or revenue sharing for everyone on teams that make the playoffs or a bowl game or whatever, but allowing individual players to sign endorsement contracts, with no restrictions, is going to have really negative consequences that people are not seeing. Its not just about Nike and Addidas endorsements, you will have situations where one college is offering a top recruit a $200K/yr contract to do billboards for Booster Bob's Cadillac, and another is offering $150K and all the steak he can eat from Alumni Al's Steakhouse, etc. etc. Colleges with wealthy alumni and boosters will be allowed to buy players outright.
At least this move forces the NCAA's hand. I have read reports that college sports generated over 14 billion dollars last year, with March Madness alone generating $900 million last year for the NCAA. It is ridiculous, imo, that the athletes don't get a share of this profit. (I don't buy into the NCAA claims that these student athletes are getting a college degree in exchange for their play because most of them are not)
At least now the NCAA is saying that "changes are needed". Changes have been needed for decades. It is unfortunate that the state and federal governments needed to get involved in order for these kids to be treated fairly...
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1 hour ago, ChocolateReignRemix said:
I will be interested to see if the NCAA gets involved. It didn't give USC a competitive advantage (seems to be the opposite) so I am not sure this will be a priority with everything else they have going on.
I doubt that the Varsity Blues Scandal is even on the NCAA's radar, especially now that California's Fair Pay to Play bill was recently signed into law. (It is about time. Hopefully other states will quickly enact similar laws.)
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1 hour ago, kfeusse said:
SO, my freshman in college (DD) nearly failed her first test. I feel like it's all my fault as we didn't do a lot of formal testing at home.
Please tell me how to best help her now. thanks.
College is a big adjustment for many kids, even those who grew up with tons of formal classroom test experiences. This is why some colleges don't even award grades the first semester - they want to give the students time to adjust.
Your daughter should definitely go speak with her professor as soon as possible. Good luck and hugs to both of you.
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2 hours ago, Mom2mthj said:
Where did you hear about college board changes? I can’t seem to find that.
I think that was a joke (or at least I hope it was). My D was annoyed when she realized that the subject test she had just taken was being dissected on reddit before the kids on the West Coast would have been in the exam rooms. Reddit would blow up if the kids had an opportunity to redo answer questions.
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14 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:
I wonder how they will deal with the score skewing from taking a single section? Test fatigue is very real. Only having to take a single section will most definitely alter scores.
I agree. The ACT folks must also agree since they are not permitting kids to just register to take 4 individual tests - they must take an entire ACT test before they can register for an individual subsection sitting. I wonder if colleges will require students to submit the scores from the test taken in a single sitting, or if the students can simply submit four subscores obtained from 4 individual sittings.
This move will just feed the testing frenzy and line the pockets of the ACT.
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On 10/4/2019 at 6:54 PM, cintinative said:
From this link:
"When I wrote course descriptions, I tried to provide every possible individual grade I could within a grading table. I wasn't perfect, though. Some tests, quizzes, and lab reports I simply lost, and then I either left them blank or didn’t mention they were missing - as if I'd intentionally not used that test on purpose.
In my opinion, that approach would be overwhelming and detract from the important components of the application document. Fwiw, I had one sentence in the school profile that said that subjects were studied to mastery. My kids were accepted by both state schools and private schools with no issues.
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My transcripts for all 3 of my kids were each one page long. I submitted multi-page course descriptions as a separate document.
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All three of mine were around 1.5 pages and extremely personal.
Good luck to everyone going through the application process this year - it is the only thing about homeschooling that I don't miss...
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Lukeion Latin was my biggest online class failure - the pace was too intense ( the condensed semesters certainly didn't help), the structure was too rigid, making it difficult to be available to submit assignments, and Quia added a ton of extra-busy work . Zero regrets about dropping it.
Good luck with your decision!
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6 hours ago, Frances said:
I think you are in a difficult spot due to some outside constraints (CA resident, NCAA requirements) and internal (needing to outsource most or all classes for a variety of reasons and balance needs of other family members) combined with a strong desire for an elite school. I may be missing something, but it sounds like the only option is doing what you’re doing, basically a rigorous traditional college prep curriculum, outsourced, because tailoring or doing home brewed classes is not currently possible. So in that context I think it’s very normal to feel like you are playing the game and for him to feel like it is a grind. I’m guessing it’s very similar for many families with kids in brick and mortar schools with similar college aspirations and a major EC, especially in CA.
If he is at the level to be a recruited athlete for crew, that is an amazing hook for elite schools. Hopefully, once the recruiting process starts, he will be able to more clearly see the light at the end of the tunnel and you will know more precisely what he needs for academic credentials.
And if he’s your first to go through this process, it’s also completely normal to feel overwhelmed and stressed and worried that you are messing things up. And it is much easier for those of us who have btdt to try and assure you that everything will be ok because it worked out fine for our kids, than it is for you to believe it when you are in the middle of it. I remember well my stressing over everything during the high school years.
I agree. The OP's son will definitely know where he stands once he begins reaching out to coaches. I am not familiar with the crew recruiting time-frame, but I just read an article this week stating how the recruiting process for my son's sport has accelerated since he went through the process. I thought my son was early when he accepted a slot in March of his junior year, but now, some kids are now going through the process in their sophomore year.
OP, if you are not familiar with the recruiting time frame for crew, I would check in to when the process starts. A coach is given a specific number of slots by the admissions office. You want to make sure your son gets on the radars of the coaches before they give away all of their slots.
Good luck!
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6 hours ago, Frances said:
(snip)
So while I completely agree with you that heavy AP/DE may not be the best path for anyone, for us, eight of those classes, chosen by him, combined with homegrown and co-op classes did work well. I think it depends greatly on the child and their goals. My son would absolutely have withered had we done AP or DE or online classes primarily in an attempt to demonstrate rigor or to check boxes for requirements. Instead, we used it as a way for him to pursue his interests and passions, but kept things relatively sane by letting him drive the bus in those areas and then balanced it with ungraded co-op classes (also chosen by him) and homegrown courses.
My kids would have withered as well if we would have used that approach. We did AP classes in their areas of interest and AP material was the natural progression of their studies. Many of the AP classes were also home-brewed, so they didn't have the time pressures of deadlines like they would with an online class. We also schooled year-round, with a much lighter load in the summer, which also enabled the kids to fit in their time consuming ECs and still have downtime each day.
I did not have much luck when selecting online classes and ended up dropping the vast majority of them a few weeks into the class. I have read some comments over the years that people think that taking an online class or coop class "looks better" to colleges than a home-brewed class. From my conversations with coaches, the grades from an online class or coop carries no more weight than the grade that I assign in a home-brewed class - all are unknown entities to the adcoms.
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On 9/25/2019 at 1:05 PM, Caraway said:
My oldest child is a 16 yo sophomore, homeschooled since the beginning. He takes most of his classes live online, although this year we added an online AP and a local DE. He is a smart kid, but not a genius. His main passion in life is crew, which consumes 24+ hours a week.
I feel like maybe I'm making all the wrong decisions because I'm worried about college admissions. There is very little "slack" in our days and I am pushing, pushing, pushing. Now, I also contend that he IS wasting time and making everything take longer than it needs to, which further reduces his free time.
IDK where I'm going with this. Just that it all seems so hard and unknown and fragile. I feel like maybe we are missing the freedom of homeschooling because we are still caught in the game. But I also don't want to get to the end and have failed him.
How do you find the balance?
What are you currently doing that you are only doing because you feel like you have to in order to "play the game?" Does your son feel like he is missing the freedom of homeschooling? If he could have complete control of his education, would it look similar to how it is now?
On 9/27/2019 at 12:15 PM, Caraway said:He's looking at highly selective schools where he can continue his sport. I think it all feels like a constant grind to him. Although I'm not sure that a significant reduction would *feel* like less of a grind because he's a teenager and it will always feel like extrinsic pressure?
I have a son who was a 5-star recruit looking to attend highly selective colleges a few years ago. He limited his recruiting to the Ivy League (D1 "lite") and the NESCAC, so I don't have any first-hand experience with other conferences. I will share my son's journey in case you would find it useful.
My son followed his passions in high school, and his transcript reflected his interests. The only time he felt like he was "doing something to look good to colleges" and "playing the game" was when I made him study a foreign language - which he did for 3 years and hated every second of it. The vast majority of his classes were "home-brewed." He did not have any DE classes. He did have high SAT scores, Subject Test scores and AP scores, though, which the coaches told him he needed to validate his transcript and get him past the admissions offices. However, these standardized tests were testing topics that he would have studied in our homeschool even if there wasn't a standardized test that tested that knowledge.
The college application process is different for a recruited athlete than it is for a traditional applicant. Your son should begin reaching out to college coaches by at least the beginning of next year. I have found that the college coaches are much more forthcoming when answering questions compared to an admissions officer. The college coaches will be able to tell your son what he needs to do in order to get past the pre-read process in admissions and be offered a slot by the coach.
Bottom line is that your son does not have to give up the freedom of homeschooling if he wants to continue his sport at a highly selective school. But, based on my son's experience, he will have to take a few standardized tests beyond the ACT/SAT in order to validate the grades on his homeschool transcript with the admissions office.
Good luck.
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18 minutes ago, Frances said:
Is this more at the Division I level? At my D3 LAC pretty much anyone who wanted to could participate in most team sports, and I don’t think we were unique in our conference. In fact, coaches were often trying to get people who had participated in high school to compete in college or even in some cases, to try a sport for the first time. One of my friends didn’t even make the JV soccer team at his very large high school, but played D3 soccer for four years in college. I do know that the Ivy League is unique in that it has so many different varsity sports, including some of the more obscure ones. So I can see how there are fairly limited spots overall for sports that not many schools at any level offer like squash, sailing, gymnastics, etc. or if you only want to compete at the D1 or maybe D2 level.
The D3 schools in the NESCAC have many athletes who could have played D1, but chose D3 because there is more time to devote to academics.
One of my sons has a friend who went on a recruiting visit to Georgetown. The day of his visit was team picture day. A kid showed up for pictures but didn't stay for practice. When my son's friend questioned why the kid was not practicing, he was told that he never practices or plays in matches, he just shows up for pictures. Before I saw any media reports about Georgetown, my son told me this story and said that he bets Georgetown will be involved. Obviously, he ended up being correct.
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On 8/30/2019 at 9:36 AM, TheReader said:
Assume it's legal in your state. You'd meet all requirements for your state. Person asking wants 3x/wk, in their home. This amount of time won't interfere w/schooling your own child, your own house upkeep, etc.
What rules/guidelines/agreements all need to be hammered out before agreeing to this?
I'm thinking:
...agree on what form of testing/assessment/how to monitor progress so that mom is assured child is on target
....how often would assessments be given, what would we use for them, etc.
....what goals does mom have for the child?
....does mom have an "amount of time per day" requirement or a "number of subjects done per day" requirement? (ex: do I stay until the work for the day is accomplished....or if child flies through, does Mom want me hanging around/filling in with extra until a set time requirement is met?)
....what will Mom want to happen if child is not progressing? Add more/different work? Scrap the whole idea?
....does mom want to do this long-term, or on a semester-by-semester basis? Year-by-year? All the way through, or just elementary, or not sure yet?
....what subjects does Mom want covered? Extra-curriculars? Does Mom want me doing that also or just the academics?
....what is the 'child or teacher is sick" policy/idea does Mom have? (I would not want to go teach if child was sick, b/c I also teach a K & a 1st class; I'd not want to carry germs from one to the other and risk getting sick myself so I couldn't do one or the other) (and would Mom be fine with me cancelling if I was sick)
....would pay be based on per session, or a set amount per month regardless of # of sessions, or....? (they have asked me what rate I would need to charge; still thinking through that)
....is Mom choosing curriculum, or asking me to choose? Is she then paying for what I choose, or asking me to supply? What about other materials?
Anything I"m missing?? What else would I need to think about before agreeing to do this???
Another question I would add to the list is who is responsible if the child does not complete the work you assign? In my experience, I would not work with another person's child if his parents held me responsible for making sure work was completed.
I work with a handful of homeschooling families, meeting with their kids either twice a week or three times a week. We will go over new topics in our sessions, and I will assign problem sets for the kids to work on between sessions. However, I stress to the parents upfront that I am their child's math tutor, and whether or not the child does the homework I assign is up to the homeschooling parent to monitor. I charge an hourly rate per session. I provide a weekly progress report via email. This setup has worked well with the vast majority of the families.
A few years ago, I had a student who was not completing their homework assignments. The dad was not happy with me because I did not hold his wife responsible enough for making sure the child did the work. I reminded him that I was not the one homeschooling his child and had absolutely no control over what his child did when not in my presence. Luckily, I had set the expectations prior to starting the tutoring sessions that I was not homeschooling the child and was acting in the role of a tutor.
Good luck!
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On 8/28/2019 at 12:53 PM, saw said:
DD also checked with a couple of athlete friends who said that athletes get to miss a lot of class, which only makes me angrier. Rant over. But premeds applying to Williams, beware.
I am sorry your daughter is going through this. The professor's stance is ridiculous, and I am sorry that the administration isn't intervening.
Your daughter's athlete friends may not have any first-hand experience, but my athlete son has faced the same issue as your daughter when he has been required to miss class due to team travel. All of his professors have been understanding about missed class lectures, etc. with the exception of one - who just so happens to be a professor of literature.
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2 hours ago, Roadrunner said:
Do most of your kids work around academics? We feel that there are only so many hours a brain can be productive a day and since his extracurricular involves brains, somewhere we need to make sacrifices. It’s summer now and with minimal studies (we started back up slowly), I already see the trouble brewing.
And all the great lists of extracurricular activities kids are amassing for their high school resumes? Won’t be happening here unless nature can somehow squeeze in another 4 hours into the day. Now I sound like I am ranting a little, but I am trying to think out loud in a way.
In my opinion, your son is amassing a great extracurricular list and resume just by pursuing his music.
My kids all devoted 20+ hours per week to athletics from the time they were in elementary school. They played because it made them happy.
For the most part, my kids' athletic time started at the end of the school day. They usually only travelled from Fridays to Mondays a couple of times a month during the school year. The club they played at when at home was 5 minutes from our house, which made it very efficient from a time standpoint. They also considered playing as a part of their "downtime", so mentally it didn't feel like they were "working" another 20+ hours a week on top of their already demanding academic loads.
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I saved my kids' science lab reports, but none of the colleges they applied to requested them. (My kids' friends in our public school are also told to keep their AP lab reports as some colleges request them in order to grant AP credit.)
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Cambridge Face Memory test
in The Chat Board
Posted · Edited by alewife
95%. Putting a name to the face is not as easy for me as recognizing the face.