Boys versus girls: I have read that boys seem to be wired for unabashed geekiness. (Wish I could find a link to an article.) They throw themselves into pursuits of all sorts: math, electronics, comic books, Star Wars, robotics. When they find a kindred spirit they engage in a kind of geeky competitiveness. They don't view it negatively, but they strive to know more and be better at whatever it is than their friends. It's friendly, but also has the effect of driving them toward excellence. I don't think girls respond the same way to friendly competition. Asians versus Americans: I also think it's interesting that many Asians deliberately immigrate to the US because of deficiencies they see in the Asian educational systems. They seem to hate the soul-destroying competitiveness as much as they find it hard to leave behind.

More science-y and less techy: National Geographic

We received our scores in early January. But now it's been at least a week since I submitted our registration for AMC10, and I haven't heard anything. I called yesterday and was told to call again on Monday.

nm. I posted before reading through this thread. Lots of great info here, and I'm feeling better about hosting. The WTM archives are awesome!

I'm not familiar with the SC Rover, but my dd's have used other SC kits. They started the M:E book when they were in 5th and 7th grades. He begins with nice illustrations of how the components are connected together, then gradually transitions to schematics, so that you are never left wondering how to wire things up. It has a nice balance between fun hands on projects and theory. The Maker Shed sells a kit with components that can be used in his experiments, but we sourced our own components. I'm happy to help anyone with making purchasing decisions for these experiments or if you are having trouble with wiring any of the experiments.

Good point. They don't include them in the course description, but maybe I can call and ask.

I will be adding and editing this post as we continue to use these and other books. Feel free to add your own favorite books and websites and resources to this thread. General Electronics If your student has no experience with wiring up a bread board, I recommend starting here. This will give you a good introduction to how electronics works from each component to soldering up a project. This dovetails nicely with studies in electricity and magnetism. EEME This is a subscription-based electronics curriculum. Every month they send you a kit complete with all the components to wire up the project. At his website, he has a series of short videos that show you how to wire up the project, and provides some background theory. He also puts in short online quizzes to check for comprehension. If you already have experience with electronics, then you can purchase the components more cheaply yourself, but EEME really is for beginners who don't know a resistor from an LED. He really steps you through the project slowly and carefully so you are unlikely to make any wiring errors. Also, each project is broken up into very short videos, so it's easy to stop and pick up again where you left off the next day. I got a lot of confidence with this program, and I am still a subscriber. (Disclosure: since I've become a subscriber, I've met the founder in person and he's a great guy. He's very responsive to emailed questions and suggestions.) Make: Electronics by Charles Platt Begins with detailed full-color illustrations and transitions to schematics. Good balance between hands-on projects and theory. Topics include: electronic components, soldering, transistors, logic gates, 555 timers, electro-magnets, high and low pass filters, a DIY AM radio and step motors. He also throws in science history! Make: Electronics vol. 2 I plan to alternate among projects using an Arduino, a RasPi, and an experiment in this book, simply because I couldn't pick only one thing, and they all seemed interesting. Experiment 1 has you using a transistor to amplify current that was passing through a line of Elmer's glue. It was a hoot and really drove home how transistors amplify signals. Experiment 2 also has you taking measurements with a transistor to show how the output varies linearly with input, and dovetails nicely with algebra and geometry. It was fun to use our multimeter as well as some dedicated analog meters. Also, measuring voltages across resistors in series was illustrative. Experiments 3 - 5 cover phototransistors and give us another opportunity to experiment with voltage dividers. We just finished the book's introduction to op amps. I had never heard of op amps until my electronics class in college so I was keen to introduce the kids to this. I thought the book did an admirable of job of explaining them and comparators in a way that combines the hands on with the theory. Programming Another important prerequisite is some programming experience. Python is a good place to start, although other languages like C are fine, too. There are many other threads on this topic, so I won't go into it here. Arduino Make: Arduino Bots and Gadgets I only found a couple of appropriate projects: the Stalker Guard (uses an ultrasonic sensor) and a walking robot that avoids obstacles (tricky to build, but very cool looking). But it's a good first place to start. Arduino Projects for Dummies by Brock Craft. We just started this one and it looks more promising. The Light Pet (chapter 5) was a hit. Dd12 put it into an enclosure and keeps it on her bureau. The scrolling sign using an LED matrix display (chapter 6) is fun, but the code was really hard to understand. If anyone understands bitwise comparison let me know. We are currently working on the programmable alarm clock using a 12x2 LCD display (chapter 7); we were delayed because my new breadboards had a short between one positive and negative power strip! That took FOREVER to diagnose, but it was a good learning experience. Next is the keypad entry system (chapter 8). Black and white photos and schematics, but look at the author's website for full color versions of most of the diagrams and figures! Raspberry Pi The thing about RasPi is that it was designed to be used as a cheap computer to be used by schools to teach programming. So it comes pre-installed with Scratch and Python. So in every beginner RasPi book you will find an abbreviated intro to Scratch and Python. Too abbreviated, usually. My advice is if you want to learn Python, do that separately. Then use your knowledge of Python to do cool things with the GPIO pins on the RasPi. Look in the books for the section on GPIO and go from there. Raspberry Pi for Dummies Has nice detailed instructions on everything you need to buy to accompany your Pi, and how to get Linux installed, and how to navigate their version of windows and lots of basic Linux commands. I still keep it on the shelf as a reference. We got everything set up without any problems, except the keyboards I ordered were way too small (not the book's fault) to be of any use and I needed to replace them for our sanity. I skipped the projects at the end because they seemed too difficult and complicated for us. Raspberry Pi in Easy Steps by Mike McGrath. A slim paperback with full color photos and large diagrams, perfect for kids. Skip to the end for simple python programs using the GPIO pins. I just went through them today and they are a great intro. May not be worth buying if you have a copy at the library. Again, I think some Python knowledge is a prerequisite because while the code is only a few lines, it is mystifying if you aren't familiar with it. Programming the Raspberry Pi by Simon Monk. I'm a little disappointed in this book. I knew going in that I would basically ignore all but the last 2 chapters (the clock and the robot projects) because it is a beginner's book and we already had our RasPis up and running. In reading chapter 11 (the robot), I became spooked because it appeared one of the components required a bit of DIY to create, and there weren't specific instructions. His website isn't particularly helpful either. The clock in chapter 10 seemed more promising: you get to solder up some Adafruit LED display onto a back pack, but the information was sparse. Minimal explanation of Linux commands required to download modules, minimal explanation of the python code (except the stuff that was obvious), not even an explanation of the the backpack and cobbler were really for. It's kind of fun, but not a lot of learning here. Getting Started with Raspberry Pi, 2 ed, by Richardson and Wallace. Assuming you have become acquainted with your RasPi from the books above, then go straight to chapter 12 for a neat demonstration of the Internet of Things. You will turn your little Pi into a web scraper (taking weather data from the internet and turning it into an umbrella reminder) and a webserver. The web page is cool, because you can click on a link, and the RasPi will use it's GPIO pins to turn on and off some device. You start by turning on/off LEDs, but it also points you to a nifty relay device that allows you to safely control other plug-in appliances in your home, the exemplar being the coffee maker for some reason. Otherwise we skipped the other projects because they were mostly review. Both: RasPi and Arduino Make: Sensors by Karvinen, Karvinen and Valtokari. We are just getting started with this , so I only have some first impressions. Lots of cool projects like a smoke detector, tilt sensor, an alcohol sensor. I'm very excited to try this one. Full color photos and diagrams. The list of necessary components isn't detailed enough for an absolute beginner, that is, there aren't any particular part numbers or vendors for specific items, but I've managed to get what was needed. Like other books I feel like this one glosses over explanations of the programs. While there is a line-by-line description of each program, I still feel like it is inadequate for our understanding. There's kind of a dichotomy between explaining everything in excrutiating detail to the point of boredom, and the other extreme of "here's a cool project! just type this in and bingo!" without much explanation of how it works. I feel like a lot of the projects in these books lean to the latter extreme. We did have a good experience with the project described at the end of chapter 3 with the IR sensor and the piezo buzzer. We've written so many arduino sketches that by now I'm feeling like we're actually understanding what's going on. HTH!

What a great thread! I hadn't thought about what my kids did in preschool in so long! Started homeschooling in preK with Singapore Math kindergarten level, US edition. Not sure if they even sell that anymore, but we enjoyed it. Had Beast Academy been available we would have used that. We did SM 4 days a week and on Wednesdays we did fun math: something from Theoni Pappas or Martin Gardner, e.g. Then at around 3rd grade, our Wednesday fun math day became a practice MOEMS day, while continuing the other days through Singapore 5B. At around 5th grade, the girls were ready for PreAlgebra, and we switched to 5 days a week + a MOEMS exam. By 6th grade, we moved on to MathCounts. In the meantime they had dabbled in AoPS number theory, counting, AMC/MC prep, either with the text alone or online. I plan to continue through the AoPS sequence, with my older dd now in Geometry and younger is doing Algebra and Counting/Probability.

I'm glad you spoke up. I love solving problems. I get a little rush ("yes!!!") when I check the answer sheet and find I got the right answer. I'm not such a big fan of open-ended problems, but I do enjoy them sometimes. But I also like calculus. I like rotating 2D shapes around a line to create some 3D object. We were just doing a MathCounts problem last week that involved rotating a trapezoid that has two adjacent right angles around the rectangular side to form the frustrum of a cone. You didn't need calculus to solve the problem but it reminded of all that cool stuff.

My dd is considering attending Center for Summer Studies at Duke TIP. Does anyone have experience with it? She's trying to pick a campus and her classes. Thanks!

What time are AP exams scheduled in Hawaii? I heard that no matter the time zone, exams are administered at the same time, which means (if I remember correctly) 7am in California.

Unless this teacher is familiar with AoPS or has participated in competition math herself, this may be an extra burden for her. Ask her if she took the AHSME when she was in high school. Was she on the math team? If she has this background, then yes, it is doable to do some work at home and some work with independent study, having the teacher pop in occasionally to provide explanations or feedback. Better still, he could do the work at school, and come to you with any questions he has. Good luck!

Hi: My dd is perusing the Duke TIP summer camp catalog. She is interested in many classes and having a hard time narrowing them down. What classes have your students enjoyed or not enjoyed? Is one location (Duke, Trinity, Wake Forest, etc.) better or worse than another? ETA: Dd is in 8th grade and qualifies for the Center.

Thank you; yes that book does look intriguing. Is it much like Phantom Tollbooth? I ended up buying Mathematical Adventures for Students and Amateurs by Hayes which is based on a lecture series. I'm combining it with "Sink or Float? Thought Problems in Math and Physics" which also looks very good. Sadly, it's written in Comic Sans, lol! I haven't read any of these books, but they are going onto my reading list.

I remember this incident. The CB ended up punishing the students by voiding their scores when it's pretty clear they were not at fault. Why didn't the CB punish the school?

I just stumbled on the Vernier website, which appears to have a lot of interesting engineering and science projects. Is anyone familiar with Vernier?

Indeed, NG is a great magazine for homeschooling families. I think a subscription is less than $20/year.

LOL!

I should preface by saying I love BFSU enough that we are nearly finished with all 3 volumes. Having said that... I could really use some worksheets and quizzes and tests. By middle school level I want a better assessment than just their science notebook. Plus, I'm too lazy to make one from scratch. Getting correlated readings from the library is great and all, but BFSU can be really forest, not the trees, and it's hard to find books about the forest. For example, every elementary botany book published is obligated (under penalty of jail time and a fine) to describe xylem and pholem. Xylem and phloem, xylem and phloem. Which is which? Who knows? Who cares? What does BFSU care about? STEM CELLS. Yes, stem cells, cell growth, division, and differentiation. Why? Because that's what ties plants to the entire kingdom of living things. How many elementary botany textbooks cover stem cells? At my last count... zero. Other than that, BFSU is pretty awesome.

My Maker Space is derived from books. I find a book with lots of interesting projects, and buy or repurpose the materials I need to build them. Many of these same materials can be reused for other projects. For electronics, you can start with Charles Platt's Make: Electronics (Maker Media). Then you can move on to arduino projects and Raspberry Pi. We are at that stage, and I have several library books with intriguing projects. I source the materials and they join my collection. Good luck!

This month's issue of National Geographic has a lovely article about Nigeria's growing entrepreneurial class.

Volume 3 contains the most recent MOEMS exams. I used them with my elementary students as a weekly break from Singapore Math. It also prepares them to solve problems on a variety of topics--number theory, counting, geometry--in the same exam. In that way it's great prep for MOEMS elementary and middle school teams, and then MathCounts and AMC after that. Organizing your own MOEMS team is also pretty straightforward and fun. Good luck!

I did receive my results last week. My librarian missed the email for a few days, but we have it now. Congratulations, everyone! Who's taking the AMC 10?

Thank you for your detailed reply!

We've been hosting the exams for several years and it's always been fun. And I've found the people who run MK in the US to be very accommodating of homeschoolers. I do have a small quibble with the quality of the exams. For example, when I use the word "midpoint" I'm usually thinking of the point on a line segment that divides it into two equal lengths. On a recent exam, the MK describes the "midpoint of a hexagon." I would have described it as the "center" of the hexagon. Again, it's a minor thing, but I wonder whether English is the first language for the exam writers?