Weirdly, MK did have time to put together this bizarre video.

Yes, it's been a very bad year for MK. They switched their online registration to some new system. I host MK locally, and I wasn't able to check to see who had registered at my site, or if my site was full. (Their old system, while a little clunky, on the whole worked really well for me.) I only received scores for a couple of students who in the top nationally and in the state, and I received their awards. But I did not receive any scores for any other students. Here is the latest message from my local MK rep: "Dear Center Managers - Math Kangaroo CEO informed the state directors this morning that they are having IT issues and have resorted to a manual email process for communicating the Math Kangaroo results to parents individually. As you can imagine this could me a time consuming process considering nearly 30,000 students took the test. Please proactively communicate to parents in your centers that they will receive their individual results by email between next week and mid-June due to this manual process. This will help avoid emails from anxious parents expecting to receive the results by now. As I've informed before, I'm not part of Math Kangaroo organization or management - I'm a center manager, like you, but volunteered to be the intermediary for shipping and communications this year. Like all other parents, I'm waiting for the results for my kids as well. So, I'm unable to provide any additional information." And this is the message I received from Maria at MK HQ: "Dear Manager of MK 18 “private” center, This is to let you know that you are entitled to receive scores of your participants upon your request, only. If you wish to receive the scores, we understand you are planning to inform families, one at a time to honor their privacy. To receive the results at your center, after the weekend, please send your email to monikw@mathkangaroo.org; include your name and all your center information( state, city, enter name) Request will be served first-in-first-served. Kindly allow some waiting time." HTH, and congratulations to your student. (If you want to PM his name to me, I can see if it is only any of my lists. Or you can send me your email and I will try to share that info with you.)

If you are using the AoPS online textbooks, do you enter the answers to the problem sets online, or just write them out on paper? Is there an advantage in terms of record keeping (or some other reason) to enter the answers online?

AP Chem, APUSH, AP Lang and Comp

The history of Ancient Egypt course is old (like it was created in the VHS days), but his enthusiasm is infectious, and a lot of fun. (I didn't use it for a class, but I wish I had.)

I will use this technique a fair bit with my students who haven't learned algebra yet.

Well, it depends on your student's work ethic and how comfortable s/he is with math. Dd17 (turned 17 today!) took AP Calc BC, APUSH, AP Lang and Comp, and AP Physics C (both halves) this her junior year (against my advice). And she did fine. I think as long as your student makes the AP classes a priority and resolves to not fall behind, she should be okay. (Dd believes AP bio > AP chem in terms of difficulty, but that assessment varies with the student.)

First of all, thank you for allowing me to be a bit harsh in my last post. I woke up this morning and the first thing I thought was that I was too mean. I hope I wasn't. Having said that... Of course not wanting to be responsible for the welfare of your frail FIL is not the same as wanting ill for him; false dichotomy. My MIL is a dear sweet lady who has always been nothing but polite to me. But our personalities are just so different, I can't even be alone with her or I'll go bonkers. But wow, you weren't kidding about the baggage! I think DH and I have become adept at zone defense, whether it's deciding who is going to drive which kid to what event 25 miles away, who is going to plan the trip to see family in Ohio, who is in charge of buying a birthday present for some niece in Wisconsin. We divide the family and conquer. You are in charge of DS, and DH is in charge of his parents. I mostly feel sorry for your DH because it sounds like there is a big probability he may miss a lot of the festivities. If you feel like you aren't pulling your share of the load, you can volunteer to be in charge of MIL's welfare? Also: Mustard, LOL!

Ooh, I'm so excited for you! Wacky Walk 2017

I didn't make the connection that you are coming to Stanford. How wonderful! You are going to have SO. MUCH. FUN. The Wacky Walk is not to be missed. (Does your ds have a costume planned?) I guarantee, there is so much to see and do, your FIL will be the furthest thing from your mind. (Who's the commencement speaker?) Really, I'm beginning to wonder (just a tiny bit...I know this is stressful but...) if this isn't more about you than your FIL. You've written that your DH is going to take care of it. So let him take care of it. And you get to enjoy your ds and all the wonderful speeches and the beautiful campus and great weather. It's really your DH's loss for not managing his family better, but whatevs. Be there for your son. Take some photos for your DH because he'll probably be too occupied to enjoy it. If you need alternate transportation because your dh needs to take FIL to the hospital, then you can get an Uber. (Be clear with your DH that you will be occupied with DS and unavailable to attend to any medical emergencies, no matter how dire. If necessary tell him you can wave up at the helicopter as it transports FIL to the hospital.) All this to say I give you permission to enjoy commencement and forget all about FIL. It's been taken care of. It isn't your responsibility, in the same way that my parents aren't your responsibility. I'm about ready to meet up with your FIL (or maybe you?) and give one of you a piece of mind. And what is the Roach Motel of which you speak?

I also didn't think AoPS intro geometry was as hard as people described on these boards. Except for the chapter on the centers of triangles. I can never seem to keep those straight. Anyway, since no one else has replied yet, I should preface by saying we don't do the AoPS core courses online, we study from the texts only. (We also school year round to accommodate the extra time needed for the AoPS problems. So I can't tell you what time commitment you'll need. In the textbook at least, there is a jump in difficulty, at least in the challenge and starred problems. Expect to see the hardest problems originating from AIME, USAMO, IMO and Putnam. My students and I attempted these problems, my dd's were more adept at solving them than I was, but there were several times when I got stuck on just reading the solution. (This never occurred in the intro level books.) We didn't sweat these so much. The four polynomial chapters in the middle of the textbook got to be a drag after a while, but then it gets easier with the logs, radicals, and piecewise defined functions. If you can get a head start this summer I might pick a chapter or two that looks interesting and begin studying.

FLL robotics competition offers a lot of opportunity for problem solving and applying what you have learned in scientific and engineering fields to specific problems. If he's eager to apply his skills in math and physics to solving real world problems, he may enjoy FLL.

I've heard of a student who used an economics class as a senior year math class. You might consider a consumer economics course for your student, if you think s/he might benefit.

If you think she may be taking the SAT or ACT, you can have her take one of practice tests and see how she does there. Then you can do some focused study in preparation.

Could he take Calc BC instead? A STEM kid with a strong math background should do fine.

Other things to consider: You can set up rules about what hours of the day the phone is allowed to be used. We require our dd's to charge their phones in my bedroom overnight. Dd voluntarily started keeping her phone in my bedroom while she is doing schoolwork during the day. Apparently, just keeping a phone on your desk is a distraction! You can disallow phone use until all schoolwork is completed or require cell phones be turned off at 9pm, or whatever works for you. It's easier to err on the side of being too strict and then becoming more generous, than the other way around.

I wouldn't skip 17.5, distance between a point and a line. Chapter 18 covers trig, law of sines and law of cosines. I would definitely cover those topics. You can skip chapter 19. But if you are burned out, you can take a break now for a few weeks and revisit in the summer or just before fall begins. HTH.

WTM peeps often post specific math or grammar problems on these boards, so feel free to start a new thread. I have a couple of students who are taking the online Algebra class, and I meet up with them once or twice a week to help with homework. I work with them in person and by google hangouts with an online whiteboard. Yes, it does get harder when you move up from BA to the intro AoPS books, though their solutions are pretty clear and detailed. When I started offering my services at the start of this academic year, I have received a fair bit of response from parents who can't help their kids with AoPS.

Did you see this online form? I got a pretty quick response to my question last weekend.

Somehow, we just forgot about 8th grade for some reason.

We had some sort of party for students moving from 5th to 6th grade (elementary to middle school). It was at my house, potluck, and I handed out free printable internet certificates to each student. No cap/gowns or anything, just a little acknowledgement. It was fun, and another excuse to gather some of my dd's friends.

What wonderful questions! This may be too advanced for your curious student, but we enjoyed Thinking Physics by Lewis Epstein. It's out of print but there are used copies available on Amazon.

Compared with other AP exams, AP CS A is easy, and a good first AP to get your feet wet for future more difficult courses. In fact, a few years back it was dumbed down from AP CS AB. The course assumes the student does not have any programming experience, but my kids did have a fair amount of programming experience in python before jumping to Java with Edhesive in 8th grade. I'm not familiar with the Edhesive's intro class, but I can recommend the AoPS python course, or for self study, Python for the Absolute Beginner by Michael Dawson. (The first half of the book is plenty of preparation.)

FYI, I notice a version of the Solutions guide (off by one year?) is available as a free pdf download from the MOEMS store.