This really highlights how difficult it can be to staff any school with strong math teachers. And I don't even mean teachers who can coach to AIME level or higher. That goal is really aspirational, but even finding teachers who are comfortable at AMC8 and AMC10 is tough.

I agree with Tammy. My dh and I have a division of labor with respect to each other's parents. By default, and inconveniences caused by my parents are my job and his are his.

I forgot to mention, did anyone else find it highly offensive that the show played "kung fu fighting" as their theme for South Korea? Weird and offensive.

Take a look at Cistercian Prep in Dallas. DH attended back in the day, and his science education was amazing.

I don't know what most kids are doing, so I'll tell what I did with my daughters. We did one section of the chapter each day. (Usually, there are rare cases where we spread it out over 2 days.) We work through the problems together, with me writing out the solutions, demonstrating good documentation. By that I mean having the equal signs lined up, using arrows to mean "implies" and avoiding other notation errors such as stream of consciousness equalities. Building these habits now, will help in solving more complicated problems in the years to come. Then my students do the exercises at the end of the sections on their own, checking their answers in the solutions manual and checking with me if they don't understand anything. At the end of each chapter they spend roughly 2-3 days each on the review problems and chapter problems. My kids didn't care for Alcumus. We watched some of the videos (don't miss the LCM one!), but didn't watch many of them. I agree with taking your time and making sure everything is solid before moving on. Avoid doing anything in your head; write every step down even if your student already knows how to do it. You never know if they don't. If they forget something like what negative exponents mean, resist the urge to just tell them the answer. Go back to that section of the book and go over again the motivation and or the derivation. It's a good idea for students to keep some "back of the envelope" quickie derivations for stuff they forget. Forgotten the quadratic formula? Begin with ax^2 + bx + c = 0 and complete the square. Every time. Now is a great time to lay down those good habits! I remember those years fondly. ETA: cleaned up my writing.

Take a look at Home Biology Experiments: All lab, no lecture. Look carefully at the pdf before deciding whether to buy. The most helpful parts of the book for me were the parts about staining microorganisms (gram stain and others) and the section on gel electrophoresis. Edvotek sells equipment for gel electrophoresis, but if you already have the equipment, you can just order their DNA samples and run the gels on your own equipment. (They have fun experiments in which you try to figure out which suspect left their DNA at the scene of the crime.) Edvotek also sells materials to do your own bacterial transformations, where they produce rainbow colored proteins. That was also a lot of fun. It's pricey, but if money is no object, we thought their support (video tutorials and pdf instructions) were worth it. Good luck!

I don't see it on your list, but I would recommend an algorithms course. My dd just began the class at OCW MIT. ETA: She's primarily signed up to improve her standing in the USACO.

Thank you for posting, Moon, and sharing your impressions of S Korean and US education.

I might go ahead and order a wheel chair for the event and push it with you--empty or not--as you proceed from one ceremony to the next. You FIL can choose to take the ride, or walk at his own pace and miss the ceremony.

Could you elaborate on this a bit? What in particular does she require of her students when they show their work?

BTW, my family enjoyed the linked BBC documentary. Thank you for posting, OP!

We do one section per day, then 1-2 days each for review and challenge problems. We have rarely needed to spend 2 days on a section. We do the introductory problems together, writing out the given problems and solutions on paper, me leading them through the solution socratically. They do the exercises on their own, checking against the solution manual and checking back with me for anything they don't understand. We only use the AoPS online classes for extras like AMC prep or programming.

Like PPs have said, read the Smartest Kids book, and you'll find a wealth of information about S Korea and Finland. I'm a few years away from reading it, but from what I remember about Finland, they eliminated many of their teacher training colleges so it suddenly became very competitive to become a teacher, and only the best could hope to be admitted. I agree with a PP that the system in S Korea seems like a waste. Kids sleep through regular school because the teaching is so bad or nonexistent, but instead do all their learning and studying in after school programs all afternoon and into the night. Why bother with regular school?

We used Barron's, Princeton Review, and like Quark said, saved the CB official old exam for last. Barron's and PR were enormously helpful because while the WTM biology class did a great job of covering most of the material on the exam, it didn't cover everything. So we used those books to identify what additional preparation she needed before taking the exam.

SSAT Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

What is an efficient effective way for parents to use College Confidential?

Now I know that email acceptances are not real unless confirmed. My plan is if dd receives an email acceptance, we'll follow up with a phone call and wait for a letter. Why do they even bother to email if they can't get it right?

I ended up being able to access the threads when I signed out of WTM. Go figure. Still not sure why my posts appear in the Mom's of autism spectrum social group.

My dd would like to some practice reading short passages and answering questions about them, in preparation for standardized tests. Could you recommend any books with practice questions? And weirdly, I have posted on this question (twice!), and while I'm able to access links to these WTM threads, I am unable to access the actual threads. It says I am not a member of the Mom's of Autism Spectrum social group (true), where my thread now resides for some reason, when I originally posted it to the Logic Stage group. If anyone can access these threads from 2013 and 2014, please LMK! ETA: I was able to access old threads by signing out of the WTM. By being logged in to WTM I was unable to access them. Go figure. the old threads are here and here.

Hi: I'm trying to access a couple of old threads of mine, from a couple of years ago. When I search using either the WTM search or google search, I can find a link to my old post. But when I click on it, I get a WTM page I get this error message: IP.Board Message You do not have permission to view this forum. In some cases joining this Social Group will give you permission to view this forum. When I look at the top of the page to see what Social Group, it says: The Well-Trained Mind Community → Groups → Moms with Kids on the Autism Spectrum → Group Discussion → K-8 Curriculum Board → Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges It's true that I'm not a member of Kids on the Autism Spectrum, but I didn't post it to that forum. I posted to the regular Logic Stage board. I'm not sure how my thread was "moved" there. As a stopgap measure, I am trying to join that forum to see if I can access my old thread. The threads I'm searching for are titled "Reading Comprehension help" (Jan 2014) and "ISO reading comprehension aids." (Oct. 2013) I desperately need the info in these threads! Thank you!

Very cool! You must be so proud. Also, how cool is to have a radio program called Thesis Thursday? Your dd sounds amazing.

Thank you all for posting to this thread. This is such an inspiration. Congratulations to all your seniors!

I'm using a software app to create our homeschool transcripts (My Homeschool Transcripts), and my dd just noticed that while I am able to enter grades after each semester, the semester grades do not show on the pdf of the printed transcript. Instead the guy who runs the site tells me that the final grade is the average of the 2 semester grades, and I can choose to round up or down depending on settings I choose. But semester grades are not specifically reported. I would like to know if your high school transcripts report grades at the semester? Do you think this is the norm?

I might have asked: "What value of y satisfies the system of equations?" Maybe too many students were putting down the answer for x?

I see more and more the use of "reflections" aka "write about your feelings" being used in schools, in various classes, sometimes even after a math problem set. Why are so many schools assigning these? What purpose do they serve? Do homeschoolers do this?