I don't know much about gymnastics, but your dd sounds pretty awesome. I hope she has many successful seasons! --Vida

In all the AoPS books we shoot for 1 day on problems and exercises, taking about an hour. Some sections are (much!) longer than others. If it's egregiously long (rarely) or we're short on time, I give them a break and have them do problems on day 1 and exercises on day 2. Then they spend 2-3 days each on review problems and challenge problems.

Those AoPS classes are fast-paced. My dd took the counting class for fun and b/c a friend was taking it, and really didn't take it seriously and didn't get much from it. We later studied from the textbook at her pace so it can really sink in. If it is still early enough, you can withdraw for a full refund. If not, you can encourage her to roll with it, and if you want her to have a thorough understanding of counting, then the she should restudy from the text a second time. (It may sound depressing, but I think it's worthwhile to not rush and have time for additional practice and for the stuff to sink in.) Good luck!

I have a copy of the 12th edition of the Norton Reader: Anthology of Nonfiction that I got from the library, and I'm intrigued. But I can't put my finger on what this is. I see essays written by Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass and George Orwell, as well as essays by contemporaries like Molly Ivins, Nicholos Kristof, and Malcolm Gladwell. What is this collection, and do I need the latest edition (14th)? The cover says that 25% of the readings are new. It looks like it has potential in a high school curriculum, but I'm not sure how. How do you use it?

The polynomial chapters are pretty crazy aren't they! It covers way more than I ever studied. I haven't compared it to the aops precalculus book, but there's a lot of good stuff you won't want to skip. conic sections, quadratics, vieta's, sequences and series, am-gm, logs, piecewise functions. My dd got quite bogged down in the polynomials, but by the time we reached chapter 8 (where we are now), she seems to hit her stride. Real roots, rational roots, complex roots, irrational roots, on and on and on. Eek. I just realized we have yet another polynomial chapter after this one!

My name begins with T, and I learned the Palmer Method capital T. I consoled myself that it looked like it was wearing a big floppy hat.

I bought a subscription through Homeschool Buyers Co-op and right away I knew I made a mistake. There is so much creative educational stuff on youtube, and it's easy to find!

Can we all agree that the cursive capital L is the best? I loved the efficient looping and it actually looks like an L. I wished I had a name beginning with an L so I could write it more often. Plus, it's right there on all of Laverne's sweaters.

Did they let you do team round with 3 students? (This may be my situation this year.)

Oh, too bad, you aren't in Peninsula Chapter? Because I could really use another student on our team. We don't have an umbrella group, we're all just a bunch of independent homeschoolers. On the homeschool participation form, we all write "<LastName> Family Homeschool," because that was what I was told to do when I called them. I've called them a few times with one question or another, and they are very helpful.

Check out the MathCounts Minis. They are problem sets and videos by Richard himself, so your student can self-study and prepare for the exam. Registering a team is easy, especially if it is just for your dd. I have a team of just 3-4 homeschooled students this year and we meet once a week to review old exams. MC is very friendly to homeschoolers. LMK if you have further questions.

Thank you!! It never would have occurred to us to ask. We'll do just that.

Snowbeltmom: My dd is a freshman and taking AP Chem. The SAT II is just the day after the AP exam, and she'll need a couple of SAT II's for the colleges that interest her. Does it make sense for her to take the SAT II right away? (Reading this, I'm thinking obviously it would make sense, but I am wondering if I'm missing something.)

Can I share a funny story about Mr. Moskaluk from AP Chemistry? When you join the class the student is asked to submit a photo to be her avatar. Since we err on the side of privacy, my dd submitted an old photo of one of our foster kittens as her avatar. Later she realized most students were posting actual photos of themselves, so she switched to her photo. Later she takes a test. Mr. M returns it to her with the photo of her foster kitten at the top of the test paper and writes: "Purr-fect!" You could have knocked me over with a feather. I mean, to take the extra bit of time to do that, particularly when an online class can seem so impersonal and the teacher so distant, it really humanizes everything. We love Mr. M.

My own dd's are in high school and middle school. My only 2 adorable nieces are a preschooler and toddler. They live 1500 miles away, and we see them 1-2x a year. What great ideas do you have to stay close to your nieces as they grow up when they live at a considerable distance? Social media? Gifts? Visits? Now through high school and even college. I did not grow up close to any family outside my parents and brother, so I'm really new to this, and I appreciate any ideas, no matter how obvious they would be to you. Thanks, and I look forward to reading your suggestions!

Another big WTM Forum fan here! So much support and constructive criticism but gentle enough for me to swallow. You are all amazing.

My dd is only a freshman, but we do not pay any attention to common core. I hardly know what it entails.

That's funny because we had the opposite reaction. We watched the movie first and then heard great things about the book. We just couldn't get into the book at all. It just seemed to drag with one not so interesting adventure after another. At the end of the book we had decided that the movie did a better job of distilling the adventure story and leaving out the boring parts. But then, we're not really a family of readers.

I think you can proceed with volume 2, and slow it down with additional activities. There are lots of kits for sale and lots of interesting science demos online and on youtube. That way you won't get too far ahead of yourself, but will also keep pace with their interests. Then again, my kids are much older now, so it's difficult to remember how it was back then.

If there are other BFSU "graduates" out there, please chime in, but I wanted to let everyone know how my kids have done since BFSU. My 2 dds were doing BFSU together. We did all 3 volumes, and we finished last spring. We spent the summer doing the thought experiments in Thinking Physics by Lewis Carroll Epstein for fun. Now my older daughter is a freshman and taking AP Chemistry from PA Homschoolers. My younger daughter in 7th grade is taking the Well Trained Mind Academy high school biology course. Both have transitioned to their upper level science classes smoothly and feel they are well-prepared. Hope that helps! My BFSU memories are starting to fade already, but I'm happy to answer any BFSU related questions. It was a great ride, and I'm sorry it's over.

Don't forget to ask your students what they would like to do with this extra time.

It's such an interesting topic, isn't it! A few years ago I read North of the DMZ. The author is originally from the Soviet Union and was an exchange student to N Korea in the early days. Looking at Amazon, there are so many interesting books I may read another one.

My husband and I warned our kids about the scary flying monkeys, but we completely forgot about the scary angry apple tree that threw apples at Dorothy and friends. That apple tree was scary.

I'm so happy to have found another fan of flashcards. It's like a little stack of knowledge. :thumbup1: Of course it doesn't work for many subjects, but for straight memorization, nothing beats 'em Plus, you can create your own little algorithms for determining mastery, like if I get it right without looking twice in a row, it goes out of the stack. I'm a big fan of these half size notecards.

She's taking the biology class and really enjoying it. I believe the reading is part of the Living Book Analysis as described in the syllabus. We don't have a lot of experience with online classes except AoPS, but WTMA is a win for us.