This is a good reminder for me, as I tend to fall into the "homeschooling is always better than regular school" habit of thinking. I do so wish we could take advantage of some of the clubs and teams at our local high school, but as homeschoolers we're completely shut out. So we choose to continue homeschooling so dd can pursue her math and sciences on her own schedule, and lose out on those awesome extracurriculars that I can't replicate at home.

I'm always happy to respond to someone with a pair of dancing bacon in her sig! EEME is a subscription-based electronics curriculum. Every month he sends you a project to kit. You put it together by following his sequence of short youtube videos on his website. Along the way, he has online quizzes to test your understanding. It's a big win for us. EEME is particularly good for either younger students (late elementary or so), or students who need a lot of hand-holding. If you don't know a resistor from a capacitor, this is for you. Some of the materials (like the mini-breadboard) are reused each month, but he will send new components each month. It's a great place to start before moving on to other materials like Make: Electronics by Charles Platt, of which I am also a huge fan. For more info about resources I've used for electronics, check out this old thread.

I had heard there is grade inflation in the humanities, but my experience in college was that researching, reading, and writing papers was way more difficult than completing problem sets. Heck, our engineering exams were often open book (not that it helped much).

I don't know if this will make you feel any better but at Stanford, it seems that humanities is dying on the vine, as it turns into the MIT of California. If anyone has a student who excels in humanities, I encourage you to apply to Stanford, as I suspect they really need these students to balance all the techies who apply.

Well, this isn't very altruistic, but I'm in the process of "volunteering" my dd to coach a MathCounts team at a local public school. Here's the dealio: MathCounts is insanely popular and competitive in my region, but the public schools in my own district do not participate. Not even the magnet school with high state test scores. IMO, this is a huge missed opportunity. Older dd participated on my homeschool team for 3 years and now has aged out as a high school freshman. Looking for an opportunity for her to get out into the community and do volunteer work that aligns with her interests and skills, I think it will be a win-win for the schools and for her. Just last week I've been pinging local email lists and friends with kids in public schools to see if we can start something, and I have one lead that's proving fruitful, but it isn't easy. One underperforming school (our own neighborhood school, lol!) that largely serves Mexican immigrants already has an afterschool math program and I suspect it's just trying to keep their students at grade level. But I have interest from a parent at the high achieving magnet school, so it's a start. I'll report back in a few weeks/months and let you know how it goes. It's hard when you are on the outside.

Math: AoPS Intermediate Algebra Competition math prep with AoPS online and independent study Coursera Data Science English/LA: Essay writing with a tutor via skype. Word Within Word II for vocabulary History: Ancient Greece with independent student-led readings Science: AP Chemistry at PA Homeschoolers Spanish: Ray Leven Spanish I Technology: Electronics III with a variety of books and EEME

Have you survived polynomials and inequalities? Eek, that was rough.

Thank you for the follow up. I'm glad it worked for your ds (and you)!

Yeah, I know, it depends on the student and their interests and strengths, but generally speaking/on average/everything else being equal, what is your vote. Most difficult AP: Easiest AP:

I just found this thread! I'm in Redwood City, SF Bay Area. Shameless plug: anyone have mathy middle school age students residing between Burlingame and Palo Alto, and want to join my MathCounts, let me know! :-D

"with replacement" is a sort of math shorthand for removing a green marble, putting it back into the box, then choosing another green marble, and then returning it to the box, then choosing a green marble again. "without replacement" is short for removing a green marble, setting it aside, and then selecting a new marble. There are fewer marbles in the box now, and the proportion of green marbles changes. Since the events (choosing a green marble) are independent, that is, the outcome of choosing the first marble does not influence the probability of choosing the next marble, you can multiply the probabilities. (I like to tell my kids that the box and marbles aren't conspiring among themselves, thinking that since we already chose 2 green marbles, it's going to make us choose some other color.) So: (10/23)^3

I heard a mom friend say to his son, "Your perseverance is going to sever you very well as an adult, but right now I need you to do what I say."

I'm sorry I can't be of help, but this really struck a chord with me since dd is taking an online biology class and I had to lead her through just this same topic. A chromosome become 2 sister chromatids, but then when the chromatids separate, when is it no longer a chromatid anymore and just a regular chromosome. I had a tough time sorting through the fact that it only makes sense to speak of chromatids if there are 2 of them, but once a chromosome is in its own cell it's no longer called a chromatid, even though nothing about it has really changed. So confusing! I'm now glad she didn't ask me what chromatin is. Actually, do I have this right?

Ah, then you will appreciate this edition of Kids React to Old Technology. (Is it obvious that I just discovered this wealth of time-wasting entertainment?)

Neopets? I vaguely remember it, but I must be too old for that generation. This reminds me of the Kids React To Old Technology youtube series. (I'm saving this for Thanksgiving family entertainment.)

What's the popular website? Happy birthday to her!

If she isn't planning to continue taking math but wants to keep up her algebra and geometry, you can take old AMC 8's and old MathCounts exams. They are full of those kinds of problems: similar triangles, tangent circles, quadratic equations, sequences and series, etc., etc.

There is some reading and one short writing assignment first semester. (My dd is reading Selfish Gene.) I'm usually not a big fan of cross curricular overlap (is there a word for this?), but I thought this was appropriate. Also check out Online G3.

It's funny that my dd objects to this and tells me she doesn't see why her teacher would want to see these things.

I haven't read this article about a young homeschooled MIT student, but it looks like it may be of interest to you.

Nope. The private schools probably don't care, so why should I? And how long do we expect this education fad to last? If a president from a different party is elected, will CC last much longer?

It appears we have a consensus. :) I was entering classes into our transcript software (My Homeschool Transcripts), and saw the checkbox for dual enrollment, and I didn't really understand what it meant. Thank you, board!

My dd just completed an online course from Coursera: Data Analysis and Statistical Inference taught by a professor at Duke. Would you call this dual enrollment on your homemade transcript?

I like to share the love a bit with our online teachers. My dd is taking an online biology class. When she does a lab at home, I snap a photo on my phone and email it to the teacher, just so she can appreciate a bit how things are going. I get big thank yous and follow up questions from her, so it's nice all around.

The Norton Reader: Anthology of Nonfiction. Lots of essays, old (Jefferson, Orwell) and recent (Garrison Keillor).