Haha, same situation in reverse here. My husband got an iPad last summer and I use it ALL the time -- Kindle app, email, WTM boards :D ... oh, and my son uses it for one of his online classes. We use it for GPS while on the road (we got the cellular plan). etc. etc. ... So we were thinking of getting (in a while) an iPad 2 with just WiFi; that would be for home and the older iPad with 3G for on the road, while waiting at math contests, etc. SO handy. We *never* take the laptop anywhere, but I love being able to do some business, reply to emails, etc. while waiting in the car for some activity to finish. Anyway with two iPads my husband would get to use "his" more :001_smile: ~Laura

Our library doesn't have it, but I'm thinking of suggesting that they do buy it! Hillary, I hadn't heard of the author before, but the article in WSJ made him sound very entertaining. Wow, Kathy, you read half of it? It must be a quick read (or your daughter was pretty late :D). What math book did you buy? :001_smile: ~Laura P.S. The photo in the WSJ article is of bicycles and arches in the Stanford Quad :001_smile:, so that's fitting, Kathy! I don't think the newspaper article identified it, but the online version does.

Oh, I know! My son was happy just to be *at* state, breathing the same air as these kids! He knows one boy who got a 42 at state and came in 18th -- he didn't even make countdown (top 16 kids) with that great score. I've heard that in some states the top score isn't anywhere near 42 ... And yeah, these kids put in countless hours ... one boy we know (who went to Nats on the CA team) is consistently the high score on FTW and Alcumus. Yes, snacks!!! :D Best wishes and please keep us posted! ~Laura

The posters who pointed out that there is a far greater risk of an accident while driving reminded me of an article in the New York Times, "Keeping Kids Safe from the Wrong Dangers." Excerpt: “The least safe thing you can do with your child, statistically, is drive them somewhere,†said Lenore Skenazy, author of “Free-Range Kids,†a manifesto preaching a return to the day when children were allowed to roam on their own. “Yet every time we put them in the car we don’t think, ‘Oh God, maybe I should take public transportation instead, because if something happened to my kid on the way to the orthodontist I could never forgive myself.’ †So we put them in that car and we drive — to the orthodontist, to school, to their friend’s house two blocks away — because “if I let them walk and they were abducted I would never forgive myself.†This despite the fact that the British writer Warwick Cairns, author of “How to Live Dangerously,†has calculated that if you wanted to guarantee that your child would be snatched off the street, he or she would have to stand outside alone for 750,000 hours. And while we are busy inflating some risks, we tend not to focus on others — like the obesity and diabetes that result when children are driven someplace when they could walk, or when they play video games inside instead of playing in the park. ~Laura

Has anyone here read this book? I read about it in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. It looks entertaining. (We're going to be starting the college search soon with our elder son!) ~Laura

LOL. We're geeks here, so *my* first thought was Artificial Intelligence. :D

Technically, PA Homeschoolers won't take you if you're in a charter school. From their website: Note: These classes are open only to homeschooled students. Students enrolled fulltime in a public or private ‘brick-and-mortar’ school, or a public cyber charter school, are not eligible. A friend of mine went back and forth with Susan Richman last year on this policy; she is signed up with a charter school whose reputation is so lousy (as Moki was asking about) that she's planning to write her own transcripts anyway to more accurately reflect the work her kids are doing ... Susan finally agreed (and then my friend's kids' plans changed and they ended up dropping anyway). But from a practical standpoint, I don't know how PA H/S would know unless you volunteered the info; my son is taking a class from them right now and IIRC they never asked us about this (we file R-4 anyway). And there's a kid in my son's class whose bio says he's at a public brick-and-mortar school that doesn't offer calculus -- I guess he was able to convince PA H/S to take him.

x

Chiming in really late here, but I love MathCounts :D and hi, Kathy! :001_smile: We had the privilege of being at CA state MathCounts last spring (Northern CA -- held simultaneously with Southern CA's), and got to experience the nailbiting wait to see who would go to Nats ... the wrinkle with CA being that the state is split. "We" had three perfect scores of 46, and no one in SoCal got a perfect score, so those three NorCal kids knew they were in, but kid #4 had to wait to see if anyone in SoCal got a 45, and if so, which questions had been missed ... there is some formula for examining the tests question by question to do a tiebreaker. There was some communication with SoCal (by phone? Skype? etc.) and then it was announced that the CA team would be made up of all NorCal kids (yay!). I think this was all going on during the unofficial NorCal countdown round. Very very exciting. We miss it ... best wishes, MBM! ~Laura P.S. I'm not sure, but I think the coach who goes along is the coach of the winning *team*; thus it's possible that the coach will not be from any of the kids' schools and that up to five different schools will be represented. I think that was the case for CA last year -- at any rate, none of the four kids went to the same school (although three of the four boys had surname "Chen" :D); they ended up winning the team competition at Nats, though, and got to meet President Obama!

I LOVE kim!!!!! especially wrapped around rice, with a few vegetables thrown in, with some sesame seeds for good measure (kim-bap) :D now I'm getting hungry ... it's what my mother often gave me in my lunch when I was in school! ~Laura p.s. it seems horribly salty to me now ... but that doesn't stop me :D

I must respond, but am in a rush, so I'll just give a general answer. I consider basic musical training to be very important -- as a PP said, just after math & reading. And by starting young, as a PP said, it is just "what we do." That was my mother's attitude way back when my brothers and I were young -- we thought everyone played piano and another instrument. On the other hand, I think we knew we could quit if we absolutely hated it (for example, my brother's three weeks of trombone is still remembered fondly :D). What I would say is this -- knowing the basics of music is part of being an educated person. If a child wants to pursue piano or another instrument in greater depth, that's wonderful, but up to them. My boys learned to sight-read music so they can sing in parts, and started with piano around age 6. I told them that once they were 13 they could choose to continue or quit, but that by then they would have reached a level of skill where it would be possible to pick it up again as an adult. One of my sons, at age 13, recently "took a break" from violin, guitar, and piano because he's gotten busy with other activities. And frankly, although I enjoyed hearing him play piano, his violin wasn't the greatest -- b/c his ear just can't hear the slight differences in pitch. OTOH my other son, who is 15, is happiest when he's playing violin or viola in an orchestra -- he has played in high-school, community college, and church orchestras this year, as well as three pit orchestras for local ballet & drama productions. He just LOVES it. He has thanked me many times for "making him" start violin in 4th grade -- being able to play reasonably well (he doesn't practice much :D ) has opened a LOT of doors for him. I can't emphasize this enough -- he has found so much joy and camaraderie and his "niche" through music (however amateur) that I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't "made" him start violin. Best wishes to you and your children! Music is a wonderful gift you can give your children. Making music is a joy. I myself started cello a few years ago (it certainly helped that I had been playing piano all my life, but a string instrument was a new adventure!) and I am having a blast. Yes, I'll never be very good, but it's so much fun. And about teachers -- my son has had private teachers, but he enjoyed the group lessons at the local public school the most (they let homeschoolers participate), in particular the performances twice a year in the local gym :001_smile:. Something about the buzz of being in a show. If he had taken lessons only from a private teacher or a home-based program, he wouldn't have realized he loves that excitement. It certainly makes practice more meaningful if there's a goal. I know there are good home-based programs, but we gave up pretty soon with me teaching them piano, b/c our personalities clashed and we didn't have continuity. I shudder to add up what I've paid teachers over the past 8 or 9 years, but it's worth every penny. But anyway, if you do go with private or home-based instruction, try to look for performance opportunities -- maybe at a homeschool talent show or holiday party? -- or just getting together with other kids to "jam." (It helps to have someone in charge, however.) Anyway, best wishes! ~Laura

Thank you, Susan! I agree with every word you said. I now have one child in ps and one at home,* and I find myself biting my tongue a lot around my homeschool friends. Sigh ... ~Laura *ETA: and absolutely the best situation for each kid

The dirty golden bear is losing all his hair his teeth are out he's got the gout he knows not what it's all about ... ~Laura :D

WOW. $220 per credit hour? Here in CA people are whining about $26 / credit hour. It recently increased from $18 / credit hour, up from *free* originally. I guess when you take something that's free and charge for it, people think it's a hardship. I'm sure most people pay more than $26 / month for their cable TV, cell phone plan, etc. Whenever they talk about raising CC tuition here the papers mention that it is "still far lower than any other state," but they don't give actual figures. $220. Wow. Thanks for the info. And sorry -- don't mean to hijack! I have enjoyed regentrude's posts. My husband is a physicist and saw first-hand the difference between a large (50,000+ students) state school and a "top-tier" physics department. Night and day. Mostly, as regentrude says, because of the quality of the uniformly well-prepared, highly intelligent, hard-working, passionate students. Not to say AT ALL that those students don't exist at all schools; he's been hiring several people now who did their physics undergraduate work at giant state schools. It's just, as regentrude says, you can go SO much faster, into so much greater depth, at schools where the students ALL start at a high level and can keep up the breakneck pace ...

Hmmm ... do CCs in other states have entrance requirements?! Here in California, the only entrance requirements are that you are (a) 18 or older; (b) breathing. It's been that way at least since the 1970s here ... back when CCs were FREE for anyone at all. Now it's $26/credit hour, and they're raising it soon. Still a steal. ~Laura ETA: they also take under-18s grade 10 and up for dual enrollment; those classes are free.

When I was 22 -- a college graduate, and after college had lived in Europe for a year -- a nurse insisted I was 14! I was :glare: at the time, but now wouldn't mind if someone thought I was 8 years younger than I am :D ~Laura

How wonderful for him! And what a nice consequence of being responsible and conscientious! Congrats to your son :001_smile: ~Laura

I'll tell my son that! He was thinking Mitchell was out of reach ... he joined at their Christmas party a few months ago, and this is his sophomore year too. So, basically the same time as your son! Although he has missed one meeting because of a previous orchestra commitment, and he'll have to miss another for another school orchestra concert ... (why do these concerts have to be on Tuesdays?! LOL) Except for that, CAP takes priority! -- he is even going to miss things like the orchestra trip to Disneyland this April to go to a CAP camp :001_smile: Congratulations to your son! He obviously has a lot of drive and focus. I'm SO glad we found CAP -- it's given my son some focus, too; it's a great group of kids and adults, plus he's learning cool stuff (like doing proper pushups :001_smile:) ~Laura

Our squadron must be a relatively active one, then, since in the last 6 months I know they've gone up at least twice -- one was an in-flight refueling that they got to see up close! (This all happened right before my son joined, unfortunately. They also did security for the Blue Angels at October's Fleet Week in the SF Bay Area!) On the other hand, there was supposed to be a ride over President's Day weekend coming up, in which the cadets would be able to "fly" the plane once it was up (sit at the controls for a while, at least), but my son just told me it was canceled for budgetary reasons. Hopefully there will be other flights soon ... ~Laura

That's good to know ... confirms what we felt. So far we've been SO impressed with CAP. Yes; in fact my son *couldn't* join until he had attended three meetings. I think they want you to be sure it'll be a good fit before you/they go to all the trouble of signing you up. ~Laura

You might want to cross-post your question on the high-school board -- that's where I first heard of CAP (perhaps because you do have to be 12 or older to join). My son *just* joined CAP, at 15 (not a moment to soon -- he hopes he can advance far enough to look good for academy apps), and LOVES it. It has taken priority over all of his other activities. I must say, it's a great program and he is learning a lot, doing a lot of physical training, leadership, "orientation rides" in airplanes, etc. Plus he looks very handsome in his uniform :001_smile: I've never heard of Young Marines, but it sounds like a good program. We only have CAP in our area, not junior ROTC or Young Marines, etc., but apparently we're lucky to have CAP -- not every area does. ~Laura

Several men have told me they hesitate to open doors for female strangers because they've gotten yelled at. Years ago I read a column in the Wall Street Journal where the author said a woman had said to him, belligerently, "Did you open the door for me because I'm a woman?!" and he answered, "No, because I'm a gentleman." Love it :001_smile: ~Laura

Four years ago, we used Iowa -- only because (of the two options available from BJU) it allowed me to test kids in different grade levels in the same room (I was testing my own kids and two of their friends, spanning three different grades). At the time, at least, the Stanford test would have required me to separate the kids into at least two groups and do the testing at different times, doubling my time commitment. If you're only testing one kid, obviously, this wouldn't affect your decision. ~Laura

We've had good luck taking the AMCs (8, 10, and 12) at nearby public schools. This year my son will take the AMC 12A at a middle school (!) (yes, they have *very* bright kids ...) in the next town over, and the AMC 10B at our local high school. You just have to find out who the math teachers are, and ask if they're offering the tests and if a homeschooler can come. One of the two high schools in town is not offering any AMCs this year owing to budget cuts, but the other one is -- but on only one day, so to take both the 10 and the 12 I had to find another test site (you can't take both the 10 and the 12 on the same day). It's worth it to me to do all this legwork, because, as a PP says, good scores lead to AIME, USAMO, etc. Homeschoolers can offer these AMC tests, and I did last year, but got few takers (OK, no one except my son :tongue_smilie:), and it was a fair amount of work to arrange a room at the library, a neutral proctor, mail the tests in, etc. AND my son did quite a bit better taking it at a school, in a room with 30 or so very serious kids. I think it helped him focus better. Which was the opposite of what I'd expected. Anyway, that made it worth it to me to scrounge around and find local schools where he can take them this year! Oh, and as a PP said, you can find all the old AMC questions at AoPS, to get a sense of the difficulty level. They're good questions using creative, multistep problem-solving techniques -- well worth the investment of time. As Richard Rusczyk said in his talk on math education that Kathy in Richmond linked to (at last year's Math Prize for Girls), kids who do well in high-level math contests will ace the AP Calculus exam; the reverse is not necessarily true. ~Laura

The LED lab sounds cool. If only my son hadn't upset the vial with the solution (it was tricky layering the liquids, and the vials are so small and light ...). He actually spilled some of the ethanol for the flaming gel lab, too, so we had only about 7 ml instead of 20+ ml of the ethanol, but it still worked great. It made a pretty blue flame. I suppose it would have burned a lot longer if we'd had more fuel. Oh, and Brenda, we did it inside, on the stove (we put the aluminum boat on a metal burner cover). We just made sure there wasn't anything nearby that might burn. I think it's quite do-able indoors. (I'm envious of your snow, as it's warm & sunny here -- 60s. I grew up in Buffalo :001_smile:) ~Laura