I think it's pretty awesome that she has a paid internship for her technical knowledge. (I hear a lot of college kids aren't getting paid internships.) Whatever she is applying for, I would feature this work experience prominently on her applications. Good for her!

I've had a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-240 for a few years now, and I'm happy with the choice. I love the volume control and the handy metronome. The UI isn't so great, so I needed to keep the manual handy at first. The manual itself is not so well written either. However, as my playing has advanced I do reach one technological barrier. It has a limited number of notes that can be played at one time. If you are using sustain and playing several chords one after the other, the first notes you play will drop out to be replaced by new ones. (This isn't an issue for beginners.) I'm searching through this manual now, but I can't find the information about this sustain issue right now. Honestly, the manual is so dense with features I never use on this thing, but I would love to hear all the notes I'm playing. Actually I think I've found on p. 85 of the manual...the max "polyphony" is 64, but to me it seems much less. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this, or is it all in my head?

:thumbup1: I used the US ed. with both dd's from the old kindergarten books up to 5B. Dd12 transitioned to AOPS Prealgebra, and I plan to do the same with dd10 soon. Like you, I never saw reason to fix what ain't broke.

I'm late to this, but there's a book called What is Smaller than a Pygmy Shrew by Robert Wells. It starts with the shrew and goes all the way down to quarks! It's a hoot, and really gives you a big picture...of smallness.

Thank you, Violet. For someone like me who is learning grammar (we didn't get THIS far in high school) alongside dd, this is fascinating. And disturbing, because your explanation makes way more sense than MCT's. I'm glad my dd's instincts were right that it didn't seem like an infinitive, but we couldn't figure out what it was. MCT doesn't even mention modals in his text. I wish I was brave enough to post this to the MCT yahoogroup, but I don't think I understand this as deeply as you!

Yes, that's it exactly. I have a hard time identifying helping verbs and distinguishing them from action verbs, especially when placed next to a verbal phrase. Thanks!

Can someone recommend a flash card app for iphone? I was thinking there was one where other users had populated it with caesars english vocab, but that's optional. TIA!

From Practice Town... The acrid smoke pervaded everything; we had to leave the city. HAD is shown as an action verb predicate and TO LEAVE THE CITY is an infinitive phrase acting as the direct object. Can someone explain this a bit?

Toastmasters has a program for children. We haven't tried it yet, but it's on my radar.

You know how some profs will often stop their explanation of a solution to say "The rest is trivial." (with a bunch of us students thinking it isn't trivial at all!) Osgood's version was to say "The rest you can do with your spine." Thank you for your links and resources! That will keep us busy for some time! If anyone has tips on obtaining a copy of the solutions manual to Zeitz's book, I'd love to hear them!

This may be small consolation to the OP, but this discussion has really helped me. We've given our 6th grade dd the vague impression that she would have input into whether she would be homeschooled in high school, and which high school she might attend. OP's experience helped me to understand that I need to be crystal-clear about her actual decision-making power, ie, that Mom and Dad can overrule her decision about homeschooling. I would hate to have her carry the wrong impression for the next 2 years, dreaming of how wonderful high school will be. (She's never attended school, and thinks it's the bees knees.) So thank you.

Thank you for your offer. :) We've looked at the MathCamp quizzes and sadly there are solutions posted for only 2 years. Those sorts of thought problems are very different from what we find in AoPS. Is there a source for more problems like the MathCamp quizzes? What would you recommend as preparation for someone who may want to apply in the future? PS. I took honors math/calculus with Brad Osgood way back when! (It was 43H/44H/45H.) I saw Osgood is still there, but maybe in the school of engineering now. Unlike your dd, I barely scraped by, and dinged my GPA for it!

If you're like me and didn't know your school number, call the help line and tell them that you homeschooling and your state and they'll provide the code.

This is exactly what I was thinking.

Does your student have a lot of experience and enjoy doing competition math? If so, then he can jump from 5B to AOPS. If not, you should have him try some math olympiad or mathcounts or AMC problems to see how he does.

Does he have some ideas about what he wants to study? Is he interested in research while he's in school? He can consider making an appointment with a professor during your visit. In addition to a regular college tour, see if there is a special tour for prospective applicants. Sometimes certain schools within a university have their own tours, like the engineer college versus a humanities college. It doesn't hurt to start your search early! Good luck.

I ordered my subscription and exchanged a couple of emails with the guy in charge. He tells me that each project can be re-used for more than one student, so no need for multiple subscriptions. I can't wait to see our first project!

Very cool. We are scared away by the crowds at Maker Faire anymore, so thank you for passing this on.

Look in the library for the following: Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner by Dawson Hello World! by Sande

I can't find a citation, but I've heard California public schools are REQUIRED to purchase all new textbooks every 7 years whether they are needed or not. (Do I smell a publishing conspiracy?)

Cakemom: You and your dd both seem like lovely people. I can just tell. Keep in mind if she does pick regular school, she can always change her mind. (and vice versa, but we won't worry about that). Show her lots of love and support and hope for the best!

Lisabees: This is OT, but I read your signature, and I am intrigued about Bill Gates Big History Project. How are you liking it? Do you participate independently or through one of the pilot schools?

Another way to build a math community is MOEMS (moems.org). They have a middle school level, so your dd12 can participate. The nice thing about moems is you meet monthly to take half hour exams. That leaves another half hour for discussion of solutions. Since we're all meeting regularly (not just once a year like AMC), by the end of the season, the kids really get to know each other. Plus they can earn certificates and other prizes if they do well. We do AMC, MC and MK, but it's been through MOEMS that we've made math friends. The nice thing is so far, all these groups are friendly to homeschoolers.

LOL! My parents had my certificate framed and hung on the wall! I was so embarrassed.

Do your middle school students do school work in the evenings or on weekends? We have only had minimal work with my 6th grader outside of 8am-2pm Monday-Friday to date, but I need to find more time. Or maybe just use the morning time more efficiently. Or start waking them up earlier.