We were also using Standards edition. We went straight from 5B to AOPS Prealgebra. It was a rocky start, but I don't think doing level 6 would have helped the transition. Now we are just finishing the fractions chapter and it's going much better. HTH.

This probably more than what you were looking for, but it raises an important point about the importance of how to write a good scientific hypothesis. I am copying this explanation from someone else's homeschooling blog: "Another big problem is one I lay at the feet of the teachers. Few students have any idea what a hypothesis is. Almost all of them think that it is a random guess about the outcome of some predefined experiment, but a hypothesis is not a guess. It is a prediction from a theoretical model of what is happening. For a hypothesis to be meaningful, there must be at least two competing theories of what is going on, and the experiment has to be designed so that these two theories result in different predictions (different hypotheses) in the context of the experiment. For example, if we were interested in the effect of temperature on the bounciness of rubber balls, it would not be good enough to randomly guess that warmer balls would bounce higher or less high. One needs a theory of bounciness that would predict a change in bounciness. For example, if one were considering tennis balls, one might predict that warmer tennis balls would have a higher air pressure inside, and hence be stiffer, causing less frictional loss from flexing the rubber of the ball, and hence bouncing higher. But for solid balls, the warmer ones might be less stiff, due to softening the material, and hence bounce less high. The theory comes before the experiment design!" You can read more here: http://gasstationwithoutpumps.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/science-fair-time-again/ This is probably overkill for your young kids, but it's good to keep in mind for the future.

That's a great idea. I actually use this technique to find books at my library, since their search is also pretty bad. I hadn't thought to use it with Netflix.

Thank you for the suggestions! I had never checked out the "Special Interests" section before, but it's contents were sparse. I had never been to the neok12 site before, but I have seen their videos on youtube. I agree youtube has been our best source for educational videos, but I was hoping we could watching something on tv while snuggled on the sofa.

Is there a way to search for topics in only the documentaries? For example, if I want to find a video that explains chemical bonds, I must wade through all the search results that include James Bond and other unrelated adult movie titles. (There are also a lot of movies with 'chemical' in the title that have nothing to do with chemistry!) Is there a way to restrict my search?

I agree the videos are very helpful (and more entertaining than Khan, IMO!). I think if your average student is guided by a mathy parent or tutor, and is willing to work hard and take some risks, she can be successful with AOPS. Good luck!

Thank you. I think I found it at the end of section 3: "... he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed..."

As I understand it, the executive branch is given the power to enforce or carry out the laws. But I am unable to locate where in the constitution this is actually stated. Could someone help me?

I now host a book club whereas before I actually ran it. I pick the books, classics and challenging literature, simply because my dd would rather read light easy reading about girls just like her. I want to expose her to more difficult vocabulary and deeper concepts. Ultimately, it just became too time consuming for me, (I just started a second book club for my younger dd), so I hired an English PhD student from a local university to run it for me at my house. Currently we have 3 girls who meet once a month. HTH!

What she said. The vol 1 exams are older, and it isn't clear what level they are for. Vol 2 is separated into middle and elementary levels, and they are more recent exams. Vol 1 has plenty of hard problems to solve, but vol 2 is probably more relevant for prepping for moems.

MOEMS, or Math Olympiad for Elementary and Middle Schools. Go to moems.org and purchase (or locate at library) volume 2 of the old tests.

FYI: The MAA just introduced a new feature (long overdue, IMO) on their website that enables you to locate an AMC exam near you: http://amc-reg.maa.org/amc_external/SchoolSearchByZipCode.aspx Hope this helps.

LOL! My daughter just used that expression yesterday. I thought she said, "drat!"

FYI, I just heard back from Dr. Nebel. He asserted that when BFSU3 is completed, the student is prepared for either AP or college level courses. If true, that will rock.

Does anyone know what would be a good age to read this trilogy?

FYI, we've found the people at Math Kangaroo to be very accommodating of homeschoolers, quick to respond to emails, and just nice in general.

I'm so sorry to hear this! Can you elaborate on what had changed? It sounds like hosting your own AMC exam may be the route for you. I've hosted MOEMS and Math Kangaroo exams, and it hasn't been too bad. --Vida

I agree I found the AMC people to be very annoying regarding homeschoolers. When I called they told me to find a priest to proctor the exam for me. (I suppose I ought to expedite my conversion to Catholicism first?) DD will be participating in AMC8 for the first time this year at a "math circle" at a local university. They have registration open the public as long as the AMC isn't offered at your local school. Or you're a homeschooler. MOEMS is also getting funny about homeschoolers. They have new rules this year about homeschoolers having to take the exam a week after their regular dates. I have additional paperwork to complete. Basically they've lumped homeschoolers with the afterschool math classes that also offer the exams. And their forms are contradictory and confusing. I'm hoping MathCounts is easier.

Does anyone on this list have plans for a science curriculum to follow the third, middle school level of BFSU? We are just starting BFSU3 and are looking ahead.

If you want to prepare him for the kind of problem solving found in AOPS Pre-Algebra, I suggest you obtain a copy of Math Olympiad Contest Problems shown here: http://tinyurl.com/moemsv2 After taking some of these exams, he can build up more persistence in math that he'll use in AOPS. Good luck.

For programmin: Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner by Michael Dawson. Takes you through CS by creating computer games of increasing complexity. Good luck!

We just finished BFSU2 a few weeks ago. Off the top of my head... The microscope is used to demonstrate Brownian motion directly. It's a really cool experiment and shouldn't be missed. As I recall, you take whole milk and dilute it substantially with water. Put a drop on a slide, and there it is. The little globules are jiggling as if something invisible were bumping into it repeatedly. Very cool. The other brilliant experiment I recall is about unicellular motility: flagellum, cilia, and amoeboid. I ordered samples of cells demonstrating these: euglena, amoeba, and I forget what the third one with the cilia is--from Carolina Bio I think. Carolina makes a big deal about aerating the solutions to keep them alive and healthy, but actually when they are good and healthy they are super fast...especially the euglena which just whiz by on the slide. Wait a day or two until they are closer to the end of their lives and the flagella are much easier to visualize as they are moving more slowly. Sorry, that was TMI, but it gives you an idea of what you'll be using the microscope for. Frankly, much of this stuff is probably available on youtube, so if you really need to save money you can do with one. HTH.

I think the advantage of the AOPS books is that they offer challenging problems (taken from MOEMS, MathCounts, and AMC), that you won't find in other textbooks. If you plan to skip these problems, then you really should consider another textbook, IMO, as this the "value add" of this curriculum. Also, as previous poster mentioned, there are otherwise not a lot of other practice problems to solve. OTOH, it seems demoralizing to let a student struggle for hours on a problem. I encourage dd to give it her best effort, then we attempt to solve it together at the white board. I do this without looking at the answer key, so she can see my false starts, educated guesses, attempts to simplify the problem, etc. I think sometimes students need to overcome a kind of "writer's block" for math. They need to have the confidence and faith to put *something* down on paper, even if they aren't sure if it's the path to the solution. It might not be. Or it might give them a lightbulb moment to the real solution. HTH!

I agree with earlier posts about the difficulty of scheduling. I haven't seen anyone else mention Richard's videos available on the aops website. They are indexed by each section of each chapter in the book, and they serve as a nice supplement. IMO, they are far superior to Khan's Academy videos!

I read aloud from the book with my dd11, and sometimes take notes either on the white board or on paper. Reading about math is *hard* and requires an active attention and some copywork, IMO. I like to model that kind of active reading and note-taking to my dd, who hasn't had much experience in that area!