I've finally had the time to track down this old post, because I'm on board with your conspiracy theory. Why aren't the student quizzes in the--I don't know--STUDENT book? Why does the parent book include all the essays about Greek history, all the word lists, all the exercises? There's no need for the TM to contain more than the answer key for the quizzes and exercises. But you'd have a hard time justifying a higher price for a 15 page answer key. Despite this we just started on WWW2 and we're skipping everything except reading the word lists, going through the flash cards, taking the quiz, and moving on to the next word list. I also agree with another PP who said the word definitions are not ideal, and we've all but given up on the analogies, since they usually make no sense to us at all.

This. I agree that you and your students need to get in the habit of re-deriving things they have forgotten, NOT memorizing. Maybe not even formal derivations, but motivations can help spark a memory. Next time they forget the formula for the area of a triangle, open your pad of paper to fresh blank page and draw a rectangle with diagonal. See how the area of the rectangle is base * height, and the area of each triangle is half that? Spend a good amount of time discussing triangles and the area formula, as if it were for the first time. Do this every. single. time. they forget the area formula. One day, my dd forgot what negative exponents meant. This despite having just learned it a few weeks earlier. So we began again with the motivation for our definition of negative exponents. 3^3 = 27 3^2 = 9 3^1 = 3 3^0 = 1 3^(-1) = ...see the pattern? We had already gone through this exercise, but it's important that she think about these derivations so she can do them herself when she needs to.

One section of a chapter per day. 1-3 days each on review problems and challenge problems.

My dd is working through the book (not the online class, that's too fast-paced for us), and she's currently wrapping up the chapter on Pascal's triangle. Whoa, Nelly, that's tough one: so many proofs! Congratulations to your ds! It's a dense book. My dd will probably be working on it through the summer still.

Online G3 Advanced Biology Good, bad, meh.

I am certainly not going to defend the reprehensible actions of your friends and relations who criticize your students' area of study. (I had a relative criticize my then future husband for studying computer science because--according to her--it was a low-paying field, lol!) But this thread is timely to me in light of an email I received yesterday from a distant cousin who has just graduated college with a degree in communications. He was asking for help in his job search. My fist instinct was to tell him to go back to school and study computer science or some other technical field. That would make my assistance in beginning his career a much happier endeavor (for me, that is!). Of course, he might not be happy at all as a computer programmer, but it makes me sad to think of the odds against him at this point.

Regarding team dropouts: I am familiar with this phenomenon. This year I had a mom of a MathCounts team member email me the day before our competition, the one we had been prepping for all year long, to tell me they had a conflict. Wow. At least it didn't impact the rest of the team, since I don't have enough students to fill all my spots and he never showed up for meetings any way. But still. I had ordered a t shirt for him. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...

This is great. Thank you for all this specific info. (Why was I unable to find this info on the website?) What is my timeline for preparation? I suppose I should wait until July when the 2016 rules are published before starting anything? Did you participate in practice tournaments, or does competition begin with the regional tournament? How were homeschool teams received?

Thank you, Lucky, this is good news: that is, the part about not needing to facilitate weekly meetings all year long. I'm happy to hear that most of the preparation happens independently of me. Thank you for the heads up on popular events. I was thinking first-come first-serve for selecting who gets to do what, but I also like your idea of evaluating a students' commitment to the project. Did you ever find some students flaked on their commitment, and what impact, if any, did that have on other students on the team? My next question is about materials and additional costs. The SO store sells kits, CDs, teaching manuals, etc. Did you buy many of these, or are they required? Did you have the students purchase what they needed for themselves? What would be our budget for additional materials?

Now I know I'm in trouble, lol, since I don't know the difference. I was thinking about coaching a small team of homeschoolers.

Thanks, Lucky! I've started a new thread on the middle school board if that's okay. Please anyone join in the Q&A.

I want to start a new thread of questions and answers regarding Science Olympiad, particularly division B for middle schoolers, but you are welcome to post about other divisions. My first question that will ultimately determine whether I pursue this further is how much time is expected of a coach? I will already be coaching a MathCounts team, and I suspect I won't be able to devote more than the minimum to this project. What is the minimum amount of time I'll need to contribute? (I expect in addition to my dd12, I'll also recruit a handful of local kids to participate.)

Oh, I'm glad you posted here! If you don't mind, I'd like to contact you later, maybe in a separate thread, with questions about SciO.

Wow, you guys really came through for me! You've all given me a lot to research this summer. For those following, I'm also investigating forming a Science Olympiad team. Thank you all for your suggestions.

My dd12 is finished with BFSU3, and I need 2 more years of science for the rest of middle school. DD picks up science concepts quickly and is just starting geometry and is very solid on algebra. I'd like to do some pre-AP level physics or chemistry or biology. We are finishing up the year using Thinking Physics by Lewis Carroll Epstein, and will probably continue with his Relativity Visualized this summer. My questions for 7th and 8th grade science: What subjects? What secular curriculum for a slightly accelerated science student? What else that's out of the box should we be considering for science the next 2 years?

Okay, here's my plan in case anyone is following. I've bought 100 regular dice. We start with one die and pretend it's a cancer cell. Each roll represents a unit of time. If the roll is a 2, then we double the number of dice, that is, we now have 2 dice. That represents a cell division. Then we continue by rolling the two dice, until another 2 is rolled that represents another cell division. Continue on, keeping track of the number of cancer cells/dice at each moment in time and graph it and put the data into a table. In the table have 3 columns: time, number of cells and log(number of cells) base 10. Now graph log(# cells) versus time, then by eyeballing it with a straight edge, draw a "best fit" line. Compute the approximate slope, m, (again by eyeballing) of this line. Now y=log(#cells) = mx. Or 10^mx = # cells. Now go back to the exponential plot and plot y = 10^mx and see how well it fits the original data. Repeat these calculations using Excel. I tried it myself and got m=7 and when I plotted y=10^7x, my model rose more steeply than my actual data, which I thought made sense, since shouldn't I expect m=6? What do you think of this approach?

dd13 had pretty decent python experience, and she started by using the TeenCoder book for the first half of the school year. By January she didn't feel very solid on Java, so she joined the Amplify class midstream. She was able to catch up doing about a unit per week and has been with the class for the last month or so. Now she feels very confident. The exam is next week and we'll get the results in July. Despite the glowing reviews for TC on this list, it just didn't seem to be enough for us. I was glad to have Amplify as a back up. We used the free service and didn't bother with the coaching that you pay extra for. Ms. Dovi has a way of inspiring confidence and seems to have a lot of AP experience. FYI, it looks like the author of TC is going to be updating his book, so I might look into that for my younger dd in another year.

What is everyone putting down for their school code on the AP exams? The Amplify people want dd to use their code, but we only recently jumped into their class midstream. I suspect the local proctor will want us to use their school code, or maybe we should use a homeschooling code. What should I consider?

I can't find anything in my physics textbook (Serway and Jewett, Physics for Scientists and Engineers). Is it typically taught in precalculus or some other math class?

I'd like to introduce my kids to plotting on log-log and semi-log graphs, but frankly I hardly understand why this is necessary myself. Is there a good teaching resource on this topic and can someone explain why we even do this at all?

I generally don't approve of sarcasm, but HA! You daughter is the greatest.

Hi: It turns out that there are no public schools in my town that participate in MathCounts, which I think is adding further insult to this already underserved minority population. I have the opportunity to help change that by coaching some students in competition math and hopefully bring some to a MathCounts chapter competition next year. I have little experience working with minority students, and I don't want to turn them off to math. I take it for granted that math is fun, but I am haunted by an experience I had a few years ago in MOEMS where a girl from a respectable private school left the exam crying because she has always been told she was "good at math." I don't want any girls crying and deciding they hate math because of me. Or maybe I'm underestimating them? Anyway, my thought is to start with an elementary MOEMS exams to warm them up and get them accustomed to these sorts of tests. Then move them to middle school MOEMS, school-level MathCounts exams, chapter level MC, etc. Does anyone have experience with underserved (primarily hispanic and pacific islander) minorities and gently pushing them to greater academic challenges beyond what they get in school? Any advice is appreciated!

I just put my copy on hold at the library. Thank you for the recommendation!

If he wants to be an engineer, you can introduce him to electronics and microcontrollers. I have been documenting our foray into electronics and arduino and raspberry pi if you want to check out some of the books we've used.

Dd tells me she's finished all the assignments for Amplify MOOC, so we have a couple more weeks to prep for the AP exam. We have the green Litvin AP prep book that she's been reading through, so she'll take some practice exams there. I also have some practice exams that I've printed, but it may be redundant to what she already has. She will also continue to participate in the webinars. What are you planning to do?