I am neither, but I'm going to throw out a few suggestions anyway, mostly cultivated from the book Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments. I will recommend 2 products that we've had success with from Edvotek: bacterial transformation and DNA electrophoresis. Both of these kits are pricey and designed to be used in a classroom, so you can save money if you split the cost with another family. But we've had success with both kits because they come with detailed lab descriptions and instructional videos. Before the year is out, I also plan to do a gram stain because it is commonly used in hospitals every day. There are lots of instructional youtube videos on how to do this. I plan to grow different kinds of fungus and stain those as well. We will probably do some kind of pill bug behavior lab as well. HTH!

True, true. And there are plenty of boys who do sit quietly and listen. She just doesn't notice them because they are so well behaved.

Well, not really. It's more like girls and boys at a younger age are just at a different stage developmentally. Dd can not stand to be around folks who aren't socially sophisticated, that is, who can't refrain from interrupting, bragging, being competitive, etc. She finds it rude and intolerable. If she were in a room full of kids like that she'd want nothing to do with it. (Not that all young boys are like this, but well, they kinda are.) She wants to be among nice girls who know how to take turns, sit quietly and listen and learn, and are generally polite and supportive. Boys eventually get it, but I didn't want to wait around for them to catch up. Homeschooling allowed her to study math, computer science, and science without all those social distractions.

What was the operation that supposedly could not be done with a calculator?

My first thought is maybe the student didn't bother to tell her mom about the tests, and it's actually all taken care of.

This anecdote about the student who didn't know he was in remedial classes, I heard on a radio interview a while ago. I'm pretty sure she was underserved minority, and in retrospect she probably wasn't the one taking the initiative to enroll in cc, but maybe there was a special program to get her enrolled in a college, any college, after high school graduation. Then a year or two passes, and she realizes she isn't any closer to getting a degree. These are students who just aren't getting a lot of support at home, probably because they are first in their family to attend college. Their family hardly knows what an education looks like, so the schools can pull the wool over their eyes.

At this point we just shake our heads and roll our eyes. Wait, I think there's an emoji for that: :lol:

Yes, this is a big reason I homeschool, because I had heard about elementary school teachers who hated math. Also my older daughter is olympic level socially sophisticated. And I don't mean in a good way. She is acutely aware of where she is supposed to fit in and how she appears and behaves in front of others. So I essentially tricked her to be good at math, science, computer science before she realized what was going on. Before she knew it (by middle school) these were her strongest subjects and it was too late for her to do anything about it. No one was aware she was way beyond what anyone else was learning in their homeschools. And she began to identify as the "smart one" who was "good at math" and embrace it because she's also ambitious, and could clearly see how it benefitted her. When I look back to my own upbringing, I was smart but also unattractive and unpopular. Boys didn't like me, popular girls made fun of me. I wasn't good at sports. All I had going for me was academics. By the time I hit high school when math was really tough (like we were taking practice AHSMEs my freshman year), I still had unshakable confidence in my intellect and I rose to the challenge. I still managed to eke out As in my high school math classes, and my senior year I was an AIME qualifier. I guess I should be grateful for not being a cute white kid, because I would have traded popularity and good looks over academic achievement any day! (Actually I would have preferred all of the above.) ETA: I still remember after I picked dd up after her very first AMC8, she greeted me with a big smile and said, "I was the only white girl there!" Atta girl.

Some kids have no idea that they are even in remedial classes when they arrive at college. They think with their As and Bs in high school they are college ready. Then after 1 or 2 years of taking remedial classes, they learn they haven't even made progress toward a degree.

Agreed. I'm also grateful we live in a country where one can demonstrate their academic chops to college admissions in other ways that high test scores: like achievement in science research or robotics competitions, writing poetry or composing music, performance art, etc. Many other countries do not consider the whole student. I enjoy taking tests and do well on them, but I don't think that necessarily makes me a better candidate for college than those who have achieved in other ways.

Wow. It's one thing to have a member who doesn't pull his/her weight on the project. But another thing entirely if this person is plagiarizing because that's such a serious crime in academics. I like Janice in NJ's ideas about assuming your student will do all the work until proven otherwise. That's a keeper, and one I will share my dd's.

I took the SAT in 7th grade and so did DH, so we had both our kids do the same. (Family tradition, and we all love to take tests.) For me, the big benefit was demystifying the exam. People didn't really worry about the SATs back in the dark ages when I took it, but it was still nice to be able to take the SAT in high school having already had it in junior high. "BTDT," I would have thought to myself had "BTDT" been an expression back then. Again, I really *love* to take tests. My dh would probably say he appreciated qualifying for Duke TIP and he took advantage of their camps. I did their camp, but thought it was meh.

That sounds like a nice solution: creating smaller communities within a larger school. Best of luck to your ds, and let us know how things go next year!

I don't have a specific question, but just wondering how things are going with your students who have been away at college for a year or more. Any surprises? Were your students well prepared? If you have reviews of specific schools, I'm sure we'd all appreciate names if possible. Thanks!

Congratulations! I'm glad you brought up the size, because the UCs seem just (to quote Trump, lol) yuge! Can you comment a bit on how his thoughts have changed on the size of the school. Are there any concerns about getting lost in the shuffle or having personal interactions with faculty? Is he planning to do some research while he's there? How receptive is the faculty to undergrads doing research? (And all these questions, months before he's started classes!)

I like to tell people considering homeschooling that public school will always be an option if they need it. To you I would say, homeschooling is always an option, and if the school isn't a good fit, you can drop it. You may as well give it a try.

I don't know, but I'm still licking my wounds after they raised the mean score of the SAT in 1995. Before '95 I had what was considered a respectable score. Now I think it's considered fairly low, lol. "Glory days, they'll pass you by..."

Maybe I'm not as far along as many of the students here on WTM, but I find that as I get farther on in math, things are just plain more abstract and less intuitive. As an example, there is the chicken mcnuggets theorem. The problem itself is easy enough to understand: what is the largest number you can not purchase given they are sold in boxes of 9 or 20. The formula for the number of integers that can not be expressed as a linear combination of m and n is (m-1)*(n-1)/2. I have not been able to intuit this formula. Yes, I get the proof (barely). But I don't have an intuitive understanding of the formula. I would go so far as to suggest that one does not exist. If you disagree, please let me know!

Keep posting your techie posts here! I will follow them.

What about mail even? I used to get excited about anything addressed to me, even if it was a catalog. My kids can't even be bothered to open an envelope. Jeepers. I figure they get so many messages each day already, that something arriving in a mailbox is not a big deal anymore.

I've coached a MOEMS team for many years now. I would say MOEMS is basically homeschool agnostic, though they really prefer to deal with regular schools. We only meet once a month, and I usually have anywhere between 3 and 10 students on a team. I charge $10 to participate, but it doesn't really cover all my costs, as you mentioned, primarily registration and printing the exams. I don't want money to be a reason not to join us. Back when I had more time, I would hold 2 practice meetings in September and October so folks could try it out. I'd print out an old exam from volume 2. Then in October I'd ask for folks to pay to commit. I don't often have students drop out. It's only once a month, and people know what they are getting into when they register. You need to schedule your exam sometime after the official exam date posted on the website. It seems some "learning centers" would offer the exam and students would learn the solutions before taking the exam at their regular schools. Sometimes performance on MOEMS exams will determine placement in advanced math classes, encouraging cheating. Which is why it's better to keep your head down as a homeschooler and not make too many waves with them. I always feel like a 2nd class citizen to the regular schools, but OTOH, I've never really had a problem with them as a homeschooler. I schedule an hour at the library for each meeting. We begin by taking the exam. Then I have the students turn in their exams and I open the doors, so parents can start to trickle in. The 2nd half hour we discuss the exam we just took. I ask students how they solved each problem, and they describe their solution as I draw on the white board. Often there is more than one solution. Sometimes I add the official MOEMS solution to the discussion. At the end of the meeting I hand out another copy of the blank exam with solutions for the students to do at home. (MOEMS HQ does not like having digital copies available.) I take the exams home and grade them and email the parents with the students current and cumulative scores. I log in to the MOEMS website and enter the students scores. I really love MOEMS because there aren't that many opportunities for elementary students to learn how to do competition math. (Math Kangaroo comes to mind.) Also, MOEMS is unusual in that the exams are monthly, not annual, so the students get to know each other and learn from each other as the school year goes on. It's only an hour (or a half hour...I let students leave early if they have another commitment) once a month, so easy for a lot of people to schedule. I don't do anything supplemental beyond review the questions the students have just taken. If I had time to do a weekly MOEMS meetup, I'd just have them take an old practice test and review it. Then once a month we'd take the MOEMS officially and report the scores. Now that my kids are aging out of MOEMS, I have them proctor the exams for the younger kids and they lead the discussion, so there's good public speaking practice as well. ETA: In April, they mail you an award package consisting of certificates, patches, pins and trophies. Everyone gets something. Then I schedule an award ceremony, potluck, combined elementary and middle school, to pass out awards and celebrate. It's really quite nice. Overall, I've found MOEMS to be a big part of our homeschooling experience, and I'm rather fond of the organization. Please LMK if you have further questions. ETA: I also want to add that if the registration fees are too high, it's super easy to host your own MOEMS season using old exams you photocopy from volumes 2 and 3. While the awards that MOEMS provides are nice, they aren't all that, and you can print out your own certificates at the end of the year. You can even make up your own rules.

My kids have participated in math teams of various sorts. As soon as they "age out" of a team, I turn over the coaching to them.

I winced, too. Then I read the follow up article by the same reporter who wrote: "She explained that she was initially taken back by all of the attention after she got...." I remember when writers took geeky pride in their grammar and usage.

What a drag. But for a small investment in landscaping, how many lovely well-qualified students are choosing to attend other schools? And I don't trivialize the importance of green spaces to promote happiness and creativity and academic achievement. One can argue that the money saved by ignoring beauty is well spent on keeping tuition low, but I don't know. I'm really curious though to know what college this is. The robotics program sounds like it has great potential. It sounds like your dd could really soar there. If you wouldn't mind PMing me to let me know, I'd like to keep it on my radar for my own dd. ETA: You may consider asking the robotics head directly about the issue of campus beauty and how the faculty and students cope. Your dd is already admitted, so now is the time to ask those critical questions. Maybe efforts are made to take students off campus for R&R?

You might check book prize recipients in non fiction categories. Natl Book Critics Circle Award Pulitzer Prize NY Times Best Books