No, they don't have to let your student take the exam.

I'm wondering with the crying, I'm wondering if you want to make sure there isn't any bullying happening? Sometimes kids find it hard to admit to parents what is really happening. Can you speak with your teacher to see how he's doing socially? Would they permit you to observe the classroom, or maybe during recess?

You did say your dh doesn't want to read about homeschooling, but sometimes seeing articles in the mainstream media can really help. Yes, homeschooling is really a thing. On cool kids: The Curse of the Cool Kid in the Atlantic Downsides of being Cool in Time Magazine Revenge of the Nerds On homeschooling: Homeschooling in the New York Times Homeschooling in the Washington Post Homeschooling in the Wall Street Journal (link may not work. Google "my education in homeschooling" to bypass firewall) Rich kids homeschooling in the Wall Street Journal Homeschooling in Time Magazine Homeschooling liberals in Slate edit: fixed link in WSJ.

I appreciated calculus for deriving the volume of a sphere. Also I really enjoy drawing 3d graphs. My old exams look like art exercises. I can still whip out a hyperbolic paraboloid (saddle for a 2 humped camel) in 15 seconds. Longer if I'm including the coordinate axes. Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Agree with this EXCEPT I have a way to beat the heat and the lines at DW in summer. Spend the day somewhere else. The Kennedy Space Center, the pool, Starbucks, wherever. Have dinner. At 8 or 9 PM, head over to Magic Kingdom. Not only will the weather be bearable, but there are NO LINES!! I'm not even kidding. We literally WALKED ON to Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, all the big ones. During the high season on summer break. There will still be a fair amount of crowds, but everyone else is waiting for the parade and the fireworks. Or they are heading to the exits. The caveat is that it will be dark, so study your map before you arrive, maybe bring a small flash light, or you'll be searching for a light source to read it. Also, they won't let you cross the parade route, so that may restrict your movement. It seems like you won't have much time to ride all the rides before it closes, but without the lines, you'll be able to hit all the big ones in no time at all.

Well said!

For regular classes, we only used the textbooks, not the online classes because they were too fast. But my kids did take the AMC/MathCounts prep online classes.

I had the 2 volumes of H&R. One was yellow with green swirls and the other was green with yellow swirls. I tried to keep them, but after several years they bindings broke and they started to smell.

I just tutored a 3rd grade girl in BA. After a few weeks she has started using equal signs! :hurray: Prior she's been just scribbling numbers at weird angles as if ashamed to write anything at all. I'll be sending her your way in about 10 years.

And I don't want to be misleading and imply that other editions do not prepare for the test. That edition just happens to be the one I used. I'm sure the other editions are fine.

I wonder if this will help: Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers

I'll just add that the blue/white Holt Biology book (the one with the polar bear?), is spot-on prep for the SAT subject test if that's on your radar.

Hi: My daughters also enjoy taking AP classes. It sounds like your dd is taking AP bio this year, but perhaps has found out from taking the class that bio isn't a love. That's okay. She'll still come away with a great understanding of how the living world works, and that will serve her well in her adult life (not just college admissions). I'm also reading that while your daughter enjoys taking APs, you are worried that 4 APs keeps her spread too thin. I agree with this. My preference for my kids is they take no more than 2 APs per year, with one of them being an easy AP. Grade 8: AP CS A, because it has a reputation for being easy, my kids already have programming experience (just not in Java) and so I figure it would a good first AP. Grade 9: AP Chemistry. A tough AP, and so one to take by itself, so dd can really immerse herself in all the information she's learning. Grade 10: AP bio, a tough one, and AP stats, an easy one for my mathy girl. Grade 11: AP physics C and AP calc BC. Two tougher ones, but since my dd is strong in math, we are betting that it's doable. Grade 12: undecided, probably AP Lang and Comp. Not a strength in this field, but she has a shot at a good score, which might give her the option of skipping some freshman comp class, but a poor grade probably won't affect admissions chances. Notice we are going heavy on the math science courses and light on the liberal arts, primarily to accommodate greater focus on the math science classes. As others have written, there are other ways to show rigor than by taking APs. If your daughter has a deep interest in some field, and needs the extra time to pursue that interest, then taking a honors or regular level class in place of an AP is a good idea.

What class are you taking? Online or in person?

Before you start loading up on AP's, I recommend reading Cal Newport's How to be a High School Superstar.

Oh, that's depressing, but nonetheless a reality. Take a look at STEP at Stanford, which gets you a masters and a teaching credential in 12 months.

Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset I don't think you need to read the whole book if you are short on time. This article just about covers it.

I've posted on this in the past, but I think your ds will do fine. My dd took it in 9th grade with no high school chemistry prior. Your ds will need to be comfortable reading carefully from a textbook, making sure he thoroughly understands everything. He also needs the courage to contact Mr. M or the TAs if he has any questions, no matter what. Do not let anything slide. Ask lots of questions. Read carefully.

Ah...the old yahoogroups. :001_wub: It pains me to think about how neglected and put-upon those wonderful yahoogroups are. They were so slick and easy to use 20 years ago, and gradually got worse and worse with all those intrusive ads and worsening search (how can search get worse??). And neglected! Yahoogroups could have been as big as facebook is now, had someone at yahoo been paying attention. They could have added avatars and likes and funny emojis years ago, but no one at yahoo cared about the groups. why? Dh, who worked in online advertising, tells me yahoo didn't improve and monetize the groups with targeted ads because the conventional wisdom used to be that marketers didn't want their products alongside fringe groups (like homeschoolers?) with their crazy ideas. Of course, that idea was thoroughly debunked with facebook where your favorite box of cereal is displayed alongside some fake news. But hear, hear for the WTM platform, whatever it's called. I love it's linear structure. I know I'll never a miss a gem of a message here (and there are so many gems on this boards). On FB I need to click repeatedly on links to find conversations within conversations within conversations, replies to replies that get repeatedly indented and recursively included. If I click on View 9 More Comments, I don't know if it's something I've already read before. And it's the most interesting threads that have the most recursively structured replies, requiring multiple clicks. Googlegroups do seem to be user friendly, but their search is also pretty awful. What is it with search engine companies that have terrible search results?

LOL, I must admit that I can often be found begging and pleading for students to join our team! Most of our homeschooling friends don't make math problem solving skills a priority. (Waldorf is very big around here.) But I also have a small group of parents who have been on board with these math programs through the years and sometimes multiple siblings.

Are we still answering the OP? I organize primarily math-related activities. My daughter and I coach a MathCounts team. I arrange for AMC exams locally, finding a proctor, filling out paperwork, etc. I host annual Math Kangaroo exams. Both my daughters coach MOEMS and I facilitate that. This is elementary through high school. I make folks pay a nominal fee, like $10, so they're less likely to flake, and it isn't too high to be a financial burden. (Reminder to myself to make sure to tell people to ask for a fee waiver if they need one.) I'm not doing it to make money. Which leads me to why do I do it? I do it to coalesce a community of like-minded mathy kids. It's no fun to show up at MathCounts chapter competition as an individual when all the schools are showing up with 10 kids each. (Not that it's no fun, but it's more fun to have friends along.) I organize the meetings at my convenience and for the purpose of providing an environment for my own kids. I don't ask for any help from other parents because I don't want to collaborate. (I don't collaborate or compromise very well when it comes to my kids education. That's why I homeschool.) I have my own vision of what I'm trying to accomplish with my kids. I explain my approach when I invite parents to have their students join us. "This is exactly what I'm doing. If you want to join us, that'll be 10 bucks and see you every Thursday at 2pm." While it's tiring sometimes, since I'm doing it for the good of my own kids, I don't feel full blown burnout, nor do I feel taken advantage of by other parents. If anything, I feel grateful that they are sharing their kids with mine, again to build friendships and a community. Kids who join us in the MOEMS classes in elementary school end up being on our MathCounts team, and so on. I also get a chance to vet other parents for reliability and not being high maintenance, but that's a small issue. Most parents are very nice and responsible. I may continue this after my kids have outgrown it, but I would charge a great deal more money and arrange to do more of the teaching and less of the administrative stuff. The key to success: Do it for your own kids and let the others decide whether to join you. HTH.

No, no! Wrong link. I mean this one: US vs UK: Mathematical Terminology.

And this is my cue to link to the US vs UK: Who's got the right way to teach math(s)? You're welcome. ETA: fixed link...No I didn't. It's in the next post.

Yes, she competed last year with her sister. They learned a great deal, and I want to spread the word because we think it's such a great program.

Who wants to discuss your impressions of Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dale Evans? I just cited the book in advice to a student who is looking for an internship. Their advice was to contact as many people as possible, using LinkedIn, and ask for what I used to call "informational interviews." Come with genuine curiosity about a person's field, and good insightful questions about their work, how to get started in the field, etc. But be prepared to contact many, many people before you find even one person who will respond. While many of us want to help the next generation, many more are just too busy to entertain requests for more meetings. But eventually with a great deal of persistence, you should be gradually building up your network of contacts in your field of interest, while learning more about the field, and perhaps even deciding it isn't right for you. I was especially moved by the story of the person who loves to cook and thinks she wants to open a restaurant, only to find out too late that running a restaurant is entirely different from cooking from scratch. However, I wasn't so impressed with their dashboard-style analysis of one's life along 3 axes; I forget what they are now. I also respected the fact that designing your life for the better doesn't necessarily mean quitting your job and "following your passion." It could mean making small changes to your job to maximize your enjoyment, or simply being more mindful of other areas of your life that are enjoyable. I appreciated their recognition that quitting one's job in the service of pursuing happiness is not always a good idea. I'm hoping someone else has read this?