I think you'll find as you keep working through the book it will get easier. When you read the introductory problems and solutions, write them out as you are reading them. Don't just read the solutions. Write out all the solutions and draw all the diagrams, step by step. Make sure you understand each step before continuing on to the next step. Even if you get the right answer, check their solution to see if the solved it a different way. If so, then write out their solution and make sure you understand it. Line up your equal signs. Draw nice big clear diagrams. Good luck and have fun! You won't find a better math textbook.

My students aren't dyslexic, but we used AoPS "buddy style" (love that term). I read the text out loud and worked through the problems on paper as described in the book. My daughters did not study the AoPS textbooks independently of me.

We have a library room that's available on a limited basis for meetings like this, so that was free. Since my own kids were taking the exam, I hired a proctor. Often librarians will proctor exams.

Yes, MK is very homeschool friendly. They have it set up where you can either have a private site where you personally invite students, or you can make it public and anyone can sign up. You can also specify which grades you will accommodate. It might be too late this year, but check out this site: http://www.mathkangaroo.us/mk/start_new_center.html Maria responds quickly to questions.

You can find sample MOEMS on their website: https://www.moems.org/sample.htm What I love about MOEMS is that they are super-short, only 5 questions, and you get about 30 minutes. So you can spend the first half hour taking the exam, have the students turn them in, and then it takes about 20 minutes to review all the questions. I have the students describe their solutions while I scribe for them at the white board and assist them with vocabulary. They are done in less than an hour, so they don't get fatigued, especially for the younger students. If you do things officially, you don't need to meet more often than once a month, so it's easy to schedule. And in May I schedule an award ceremony with the trophies and other prizes provided by MOEMS and food provided by parents. It was really quite lovely and my kids made friends who went on to do MathCounts and AMC together. Plus, after my kids aged out of MOEMS I had them return to coach younger students, which was great for their self-esteem and public speaking skills.

Sorry, Math Olympiad is a kind of high-falutin' way of describing what is really an elementary math exam for beginning problem solvers. And to make things confusing, it holds the same name as the real USAMO and IMO, which I believe are properly called Olympiads. The elementary one I refer to is also called MOEMS, standing for Math Olympiad for Elementary and Middle School Students. If you want to register an official team, you can do so at their website this summer: http://moems.org/ You can use their materials informally at home to practice problem solving skills. You can order their books on their website or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Contest-Problems-Division-Richard-Kalman/dp/1882144120/ I recommend volumes 2 or 3 because those are divided into 2 levels of difficulty. I'm happy to dive deeper if you have further questions about any of these programs, including Math Kangaroo. I've been involved in all of them and I'm happy to answer specific questions about how to become involved as homeschoolers.

I know, right? I didn't think we would be able to either, but maybe they extended a grace period this year? Here is what I found on their website: https://www.maa.org/math-competitions/faqs Q. #7. What if my school does not offer the AMC tests?A. Urge your principal, math teacher, gifted education coordinator or anyone else you can think of at your school to help your school register for the contest. If your school doesn’t offer the AMC tests, then one option would be to offer the tests to your school. You could offer to pay for the registration and material cost for the school, making it hard for them to refuse. Organize a math club, or get the existing Math Club to sponsor and fund the registration for the contest. Please make arrangements for your school to register as we must send the contest materials to the school directly. Some colleges and universities also host the contests, particularly the “B” date of the AMC 10/12. Check our web pages for a list of participating Institutions of Higher Learning. Q. #10. How do we get our organization (home schools, learning centers, testing center, etc.) involved in the AMC contests? A. We prefer to offer our contest to public schools, a few government accredited private schools, colleges and universities. Before allowing other organizations to register for the contests, we would like to do further research about your academic structure. In order for us to do the required research, please provide American Math Competitions with complete information about your organization, including: Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for the research to be complete and a decision or determination to be made. You will be contacted by email. Someone really needs to go through the MAA website, because there are a lot of old links. I also found this: https://www.maa.org/math-competitions/amc-1012 Q. Who can proctor the competition? A. The proctoring of any AMC 10/12 should be by a teacher (preferably a mathematics teacher) or administrator at the school; a college or university teacher of mathematics, or a responsible adult such as a math club coach or librarian. The proctoring of the competition must take place in a public building, (e.g. school, library, college or university, church). The proctor should not be related to any of the participants. They also offer this advice: Q. #7. What if my school does not offer the AMC tests?A. Urge your principal, math teacher, gifted education coordinator or anyone else you can think of at your school to help your school register for the contest. If your school doesn’t offer the AMC tests, then one option would be to offer the tests to your school. You could offer to pay for the registration and material cost for the school, making it hard for them to refuse. Organize a math club, or get the existing Math Club to sponsor and fund the registration for the contest. Please make arrangements for your school to register as we must send the contest materials to the school directly. Some colleges and universities also host the contests, particularly the “B” date of the AMC 10/12. Check our web pages for a list of participating Institutions of Higher Learning. I don't know. I think they have an overly optimistic view of schools. I don't think it would be hard at all for them to refuse, but maybe I'm just cynical. I also suspect 2020 is my last year hosting, but we will see.

For the AMC you will need to find a place that will let you test, either a local school or a university, an after schooling center or a math circle. I have been working with the local library to host every year, but it looks like next year the rules will change and we won't be able to host again, but you'll want to call them and ask to confirm. Because of this rule change, I might call them somewhat homeschool unfriendly, but we'll see. MathCounts is a team-based competition, but students can compete as individuals. It's better if you can find at least one other homeschooled student, so your student will have a buddy because most of the other teams will be arriving in big groups. It's ideal if your student can participate in a team of 4 students so they can fully participate in all rounds. (I can discuss MC in more detail if you like to follow up.) MC is very homeschool friendly. In a full MathCounts team, you will have 4 students competing as individuals and as a team and 6 more students competing as individuals only. Students can qualify for State competition as individuals or as part of a team. (LMK if you want more details about this.) Generally whoever qualifies gets to go. Substitutions are allowed only if a student is unable to attend and gives up his/her spot. There's a whole big thing where the parent of the student and the student himself needs to sign off that they are giving up their spot, since they are so coveted. I would say this very rarely occurs. School teams and individuals from each chapter advance to State where they again compete against other schools and individuals and advance to Nationals. There is no mixing and matching of students from different schools, except where you might have individuals from different schools and a team from another school. Students can not join the teams of other schools, nor can student enrolled in regular schools join a homeschooled team. Math Olympiad is terrific because there are few other math contests for younger students. Again, it's more fun to do it as a group, though technically your student can participate as an individual. I would have between 3 and 8 students on a team, but the students are still competing as individuals because the team score is the sum of the highest 10 scores. We received nice prizes like trophies, pins, patches and certificates for our registration fee, though the fee is high for what you get. You can also participate unofficially by using old exams. ARML is a high school contest, similar in format to MathCounts. I'm not as sure about the details here. Math Kangaroo is an individual competition, but it's nice to have a group of kids take it together. They make it easy to run your own MK exam, and it's only once a year, and they provide t shirts, certificates, and a toy to all participants. I'm not sure which might be best for a 2E kid. You'll need to sample the old exams and see which resonate with your student. Happy to elaborate on these or other exams.

I am about to submit my workshop proposals for our local homeschooling conference, and I want to find out what you found valuable or not valuable about conference events you've attended. Be as specific or general as you like. My expertise is math, so I'll probably submit a couple of ideas related to math. But I may also branch out and discuss homeschooling without screens. Any advice regarding topics, handouts, style, format, time of day, length of presentation, whatever you like or dislike is helpful. When you thumb through a program, what catches your eye and makes you want to attend?

I can top that. DH teaches a class at a local university as a volunteer. He does it to stay in the industry after he retired, advise new entrepreneurs, and network. And it's fun for him. So yeah, no money, no benefits, except the intangibles described above.

Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner by Michael Dawson. It is not written specifically with kids in mind, but the assignments are all about games, so it's pretty fun. After working through half of the book (through OOP) he can sign up for the AoPS online python classes.

I have rosacea, and after some trial and error I was put on doxy after I developed cellulitis on my face. It cured the cellulitis and also worked like a charm on my rosacea. Huzzah! Later, I started to experience pain in my biceps tendon. (I write a lot as a tutor, and I knit and crochet, and I used to play tennis, so this arm gets a lot of use.) I couldn't figure out what was causing the pain. I went for weeks favoring my left (non-dominant) arm, writing with my left hand, trying to rest my right arm as much as possible. No improvement. Then one day, completely at random I read a NY Times article about antibiotics and tendon problems. O M G! I discontinued the doxy immediately. (I had basically been taking it chronically for months because I was afraid of a recurrence of my rosacea, and I didn't think I had any side effects.) Within days my tendon pain went away. A few weeks later my rosacea returned. Now I play a game where I take as little doxy as possible to keep my rosacea symptoms minimized, while trying to avoid pain in my biceps tendon, which I still have. If I reduce my frequency of doxy, the rosacea flares up, and my tendon feels better. I've been meaning to contact a dermatologist and see about an alternative. But I'm convinced the association between doxy and tendon problems is real. I found a scientific article about how it interferes with regenerating collagen fibers or some such I didn't understand. I also hear that in the elderly it can manifest as achilles tendon rupture. oy.

PA Homeschoolers with Mrs. Richman.

I don't know. A kid who can study from AoPS textbooks independently sounds fairly gifted in math to me! Or maybe just globally gifted and able to self study with independent reading. (This is a great skill!) I would have her continue with AoPS since it's such a great curriculum and she seems to be enjoying it.

I love the yoke design on that sweater. Lovely technique.

I was researching homeschooling when my kids were in preschool, and I got very excited about it. I was sharing how great homeschooling is with the other preschool moms, and they all nodded and smiled at me. I thought they were all on board. I was genuinely surprised when none of the other moms joined me in homeschooling their kids. Hilarious to think about it now, SMH.

My dd was homeschooled through 8th grade and then enrolled in private high school. Because she had already been taking high school level classes what helped was: (1) Being well-prepared for the math placement test. Ask for a copy of the syllabus or ask what the placement test will cover or anything else that will help to get the placement you want. (2) Surprisingly, having a high SAT subject test score was helpful for avoiding summer school. At this particular school, if you hadn't taken their middle school science class, they make you take summer school before AP bio. We argued and they only relented when we provided a high SAT subject test score. But schools vary and YMMV. You can ask questions about placement at your particular high school.

Thank you, I missed that part. I signed up too.

I think I'm confused what college algebra is. Is that the same as algebra II? I'm surprised that someone who seems on track (geometry sophomore year seems fine) is not able to enroll in DE bio or chemistry. I know for chemistry you need a solid understanding of logs (for pH), but not really sure about biology, except perhaps unit cancellation or something. Maybe you want to double check those prerequisites (or just educate me). If that prereq is real, maybe he can take a placement test in lieu?

I'm jealous! You are so going to enjoy learning with AoPS. I agree with pp's to start with PreAlgebra. Work slowly and write out the problems and solutions as they are described in the textbook. Post to this thread if you have any questions as you go along.

Thank you for posting! I heard this on the radio this morning as well. I found the Marketplace article and the book. (I also found the book for sale on Amazon, since I don't like reading online.) And I agree they made it sound like it was going to be a read-along/book club/econ course: "we’re hoping you’ll read it along with us." But I couldn't find any other information online about reading and studying the book together. I'm not even sure now who the "us" is? The Marketplace hosts? The book's author? Was it a real invitation, or more along the lines of "let's do lunch some time"? I only occasionally hear Marketplace if I happen to be in the car at the right time, so if you hear anything, can you post it to this thread?

That's terrific news, RR! When my dd was looking for ap calculus bc, PAH and AoPS were the only options. I'm glad to see Blue Tent is offering alternatives. IMO we don't have enough alternatives for AP level coursework in many subject areas. Hopefully this proves to be a trend.

You can take calculus-based AP Physics C concurrently with AP calculus BC, and some say it's better to do it that way. My dd earned 5's in AP Physics C (Mech and E&M) and Calc BC at PAH. She preferred Kernion to Lanctot, but I don't know if that's a widely shared view. (She started with Lanctot for mechanics 1st semester and switched to Kernion 2nd semester for E&M and was glad she did so.) Don't bother with AP physics 1/2. My dd is an AoPS gal, but switched to PAH for AP calc BC because she thought she'd get better test prep at PAH. She wasn't happy with the quality of the teaching compared with AoPS, but she got a 5 without working very hard. I'm not as familiar as the PPs with G Tech admissions specifically. Good luck.

I remember hearing about college internships for mechanical engineers. These days they seem to be about software and ML: Lucasfilm s/w engineer Pixar computer graphics research

I thought this would be a good place to share this article about falling iguanas in the NYT.