Has anyone joined the so-called AP Teacher Community on the College Board website? Is there a quick and easy way to do this? Are homeschoolers excluded from participating?

Parents and students must sign a "Homeschool Participation Attestation" form. I faxed this in advance of submitting my registration form, and it was all good, except for some issues related to which chapter my students would be allowed to participate in. Good luck!

Last year I coached a MathCounts team of homeschoolers, just 4 kids. They participated as both a team and as individuals. (Now if only I can recruit more kids to join our team!) I have found them to be reasonably accommodating of homeschoolers, though some of their rules are not well-defined. I would also add to this list of homeschooling-friendly math competitions, Math Kangaroo. I have found them to be very friendly to hs-ers. And I agree with above posters, you don't HAVE to be interested in competition math to enjoy AoPs. It's just that many of the homework problems are lifted directly from the above competitions, so it's nice if they at least enjoy solving those types of problems.

Is your student interested in competition math? If so, then AoPS will help a lot and is undoubtedly worth the extra work.

Same here. Also we did lots of competition math prep.

I found some errors in GWG3. For example, somewhere it states the sentence "I am." is not a complete sentence. (Or something similar...my memory is dim.) As far as I'm concerned it has a subject and a predicate. Which is more than I can say about some of my "sentences!" This was a few years ago, so hopefully it's since been corrected.

This is very interesting! Are these nationwide exams or specific to U. Waterloo?

Prismacolor. You can find them on DickBlick or at an art supply store.

What she said. Also, I want dd to do all the problems in the textbook (to get our money's worth, LOL). I don't want her skimming through the books if she needs additional time. AoPS online classes will always be there (knock on wood). You can always sign up later. Save yourself the expense and try it on your own first. HTH.

DD is doing Pre-Algebra, so for me, her performance on the AMC8 tests are most important. If her AMC8's are high and improving, then I figure AOPS is preparing her for college admissions. The universities we have our eye on want to see solid AMC scores. I'm going to go out on a limb and venture that SATs won't be so important to us.

Yes, I believe that is the course. Joe and Scott are pretty hilarious. In a low-key nerdy kind of way. Good luck!

Alohamaui is sticking with it (ETA: she's online right now!), but this isn't her first exposure to Python. We started with Michael Dawson's "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner." Then she took a Coursera Python course. She did a few independent programming projects, and now she's doing the AOPS class for more challenges and keep her from forgetting what she's already learned! PS, if you use Dawson's book, you can supplement with Hello World! (forgot the author's name). I'm using the Dawson book now with dd#2. It is a nice gentle intro to programming. Good luck! ETA: We had signed her for this class months ago when she had far less programming experience and dropped it then. It was so challenging, that at that time I decided to return to AOPS when she had more experience. So here we are again, and it's a better fit, though she does complain the lectures are review. But the assignments are still challenging.

This was very helpful for BFSU. I followed the advice of someone on the BFSU list and had the binding cut off, AND they three hole punched it. I stapled the individual lessons together, so I could pull out one lesson at a time from a binder. (I'm now sending silent thanks to whomever posted this advice.) :closedeyes:

Winners: BFSU#3 AOPS Pre Algebra text AOPS Mathcounts/AMC8 online class AOPS Algebra online class Caesars English Meh: History of US (Hakim): I'm terrible at teaching history MCT (not CE): I also suck at LA, but have hired a tutor to help me out

Are the Canadian MK exams different from the US?

Waldorf is HUGE in my area. Everyone and their uncle is doing some sort of Waldorf education. We are odd because we just don't like fairies.

Are you sure he didn't get this mixed up? If he's thinking about the math olympiad students who earn their positions based on AMC/AIME competitions, these students pretty much walk on water, IMO. As someone else mentioned, MathCounts is a middle school competition only, and while it does teach problem-solving skills and correlates well with AMC, well, MC just isn't as DEEP as Math Olympiads. Although there are at least a couple different math olympiads out there, so maybe there is some confusion. No to dis MC or students who do well on MC; those students are awesome and I'm sure many of them will go on to score well on AMC, too.

My dd tried the AOPS Python course in 2012 and it started right off the bat with programming assignments that were way above her level, being just a bit beyond beginner. So we dropped the class for a refund and continued with self-study. Now that she has some competency in Python, I'm having her take it again for extra practice. The first homework is WAY gentler than the first homework assigned in the earlier class. No actually programming assignments, just analyzing algorithms and writing pseudocode. I'm wondering whether they are still working out the kinks of this class. DD's user name is alohamaui, but she had to miss the first class. (We aren't from Hawaii, just fans of the state, LOL.)

I thought the book Competition Math for Middle School has an excellent treatment of counting for beginners. It emphasizes understanding rather than just memorizing formulas.

Very inspiring! Congrats to you and your daughter!

It's too bad he's already attended the 3rd class because you can drop the class for a refund after the 2nd. If he's fine learning from the book, and feels the class is boring, then let him self-study from the book. I found there was a lot of downtime during the online classes as the instructor waited for more people to respond to questions. Sometime I was left wondering whether my browser was frozen because nothing would happen for several minutes. It is an inefficient way to learn, compared with just reading the text and doing the problems. Try watching him over his shoulder because you won't get a sense of this downtime just by reading the transcripts.

I took the AMC10 class to see if i could learn to do the so-called final five. It didn't help in that regard, but I did learn that I'm quite weak in geometry. I've decided to work through the AOPS vol1 and 2 chapters about geometry.

Before obtaining my copy of BFSU, I had bought a bunch of Singapore Science MPAH books. I thought the MPAH textbooks dovetailed nicely with BFSU, but I certainly don't think you NEED to buy them. I just happened to already have them. But if you have a good library system, with lots of nonfiction science picture books, you shouldn't have to buy anything.

It helps if you are a bit Type A, and like to plan things in advance. I thrive on that sort of thing, but it may not be a good fit for you. Having the materials ready is more of an issue in vol. 2 than vol. 1 I think. It is also imperative that you have access to an excellent library system. I argue that the recommended reading lists are integral to the curriculum. If you don't have access to a large number of science picture books for children, this may also not be a good fit. ETA: Having written this, I have a funny story. I was using up my charter school budget at the end of the year to purchase BFSU materials. Among all the stuff I ordered was a sample of live euglena. Along with everything else, I put the euglena into my cabinet and didn't get to use it until 6 months later! When I pulled it out it was all brown and dead. Lesson learned...some things you can't buy in advance!

I'm doing BFSU3 (middle school) now, so this info may be less relevant for vol. 1. I begin by putting books on hold from the library so they'll arrive more or less during our lesson. I also scan for any materials that need to be ordered. I don't just stick to their recommended reading, but also add anything else that appears relevant. You never know what gems you'll find. I more or less stick to the sequence dictated by the prerequisites for each lesson. I believe someone has already posted a sample sequence of lessons. Lesson times vary a lot, depending on how much experience my kids already have with a topic. Some lessons are just more dense than others, and I found it difficult to plan my lessons. We take our lessons slowly. I like to let difficult concepts "sink in" so I make sure they have had time to sleep on it before we move on. I partition each lesson into several small pieces. I believe by vol. 2 he wants you to end each lesson with time spent documenting the topics in a notebook, which we do. This notebooking time is also broken up into small parts just because it can be fatiguing and in order to let it sink in some more. We end our lessons with a Bill Nye video. I think Nye's videos are fast-paced and superficial, but fun to watch. Therefore, I wouldn't use it as an introduction to a topic, but at the end, when you feel your students already understand the topic. It's a fun way to tie everything up and see it in action. I also supplement with educational videos I find on YouTube, and you'd be surprised at how much quality stuff is out there for free. What does it look like? Sometimes there's an inclined plane with cars attached to a cart made from legos. Sometimes there are microscopes on my dining table with live organisms in jars to examine forms of motility. Sometimes there are molecular models to show how photosynthesis proceeds, but frankly, in vol 3 there is less hands on work because you can't directly manipulate atoms, molecules and cells. There always seems to be diagrams on the white board. Lots of socratic questioning. Lots of after-bedtime science questions for Mom and Dad. Enjoy BFSU!