She did! Couldn't be happier.

I recommend WT Woodson, in Fairfax (suburb of DC). The person who arranges the exams for homeschoolers and other non-students is organized and welcoming. I'll PM contact information.

See who does training for your local Girl Scout council.

Stephanie Z, I'm resurrecting this thread to find out how your AP US Government & Politics went. I'm considering Woll vs. Lanahan as readers just now, and a Google search kicked up this old post of yours. Any reflections on your course?

Bumping!

Great news, Creekland! We live in a large metropolitan area, where you'd think it would be no big deal to add another chair. The numbers of kids doing AP testing here are huge. But one school might be clueless and another extremely helpful. In Fairfax County, Virginia this year and last, we've paid $87 for the exam plus $13 proctoring fee = $100 total for each exam. That's at the public high school 40 minutes away. Our local school (and my own alma mater) is much closer, but wanted to charge $87 + $100 = $187 for taking an exam, probably because the coordinator misread something. She sounded so apprehensive (!) and unsure about the whole thing that I just decided to move on. Thinking of Dicentra, I feel very lucky about getting to choose.

DD would love to know what y'all know about prepping for AP Music Theory. She plans to take it in 12th. She's done well in exams in the UK system and is now in Grade 7 ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music). We hear that: (a) US terms are quite different; and (B) the AP Music Theory exam is a bear. We haven't delved into the Course Description yet. We know it's a morning exam. Five hours? :crying: There must be something very time-consuming besides just the test-taking. Administration, set-up, logistics of a large group? Wildiris, can you fill us in? http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/AP_Exam_Format.pdf Section I 75 questions (approximately 80 minutes) Section II 45% Part A Dictation, Part writing, Composition:7 exercises (approximately 68 minutes) 10% Part B Sight-singing: 2 exercises (approximately 8 minutes per student)

I can't figure out the best way to link to my update, over there in the "AP Art History Study Group" thread I started last year, so I hope this works: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/391872-ap-art-history-study-group/page__hl__+art%20+history%20+study%20+group#entry4938742 Sebastian, I'd love to hear about your coop's AP government course. I'm offering AP US Government and Politics this year as a course -- in a more instructor-facilitated model -- and am now picking a spine textbook. Whew. Not easy to decide! And now I've totally highjacked OP FrogMom's tadpole's compliment. (Sorry!)

Nice! DD took AP Art History last week at a large public high school in Fairfax County (2,100 students). Of the 25 or so test-takers for this exam, we know at least three were homeschoolers, because they were members of our study group. There could have been others. I heard homeschooling came up during the break; DD says the other kids were curious and positive. When registering ours and others for AP exams at this (very helpful) school, we've realized there were other homeschoolers coming in to pre-fill bubbles, too. Probably something like ten folks we DON'T EVEN KNOW. It's a big old world out there, evidently. Even in a big metropolitan area, it can be a challenge to find somebody else in the exact niche you're seeking -- e.g. homeschoolers interested in particular AP courses & exams.

The exam is next Tuesday. Wish them luck! (And Sebastian, I wish your students good luck with AP US Government and Politics next year! PM me if you like -- we're also forming a group that starts next fall, but with a different format than we did for AP Art History.) We're so glad we did this. We had three bodies each week (one being a disembodied head on a computer screen). Two others joined us quarterly and for museum visits, during which a very knowledgeable adult gave us some great guidance. Our distance student hit different museums on the West Coast and told us about her adventures. The locals did multiple visits to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery, and the Hirshhorn. I'm super-pleased with my choice to use the Teaching Company lectures by Sharon Latchaw Hirsh, which focused on tools of visual analysis and some contextual analysis (we also used Ori Soltes' Art Across the Ages); Gardner's remains a fabulous spine; and the Annotated Mona Lisa is a good supplement. I relied heavily on the publisher's paperback study guides (2 volumes), which were not problem-free (or error-free) but they did save me many, many hours of development time. Oh, and I added to our household's insane number of postcard reproductions by buying Susan Benford's "250 Masterpieces" boxed set. Good quality. We could play art history Go Fish for years. Sebastian-a-Lady, I just asked my DD (the study group leader) what her main lessons were. On the tech side, she says you should definitely set up Google Hangout (or whatever you're using) BEFORE class and give the virtual person a phone call fifteen minutes before. (Her mom agrees! Even when we had tech worked out, there were a few weeks with glitches.) DD adds that when students prepare a glossary or side-by-side exercise for the group (we rotated these responsibilities), make sure they remember to share it electronically with all group members at least the night before. Finally, she says it's okay for study group members to have different goals -- not all of her members are taking the AP exam, for instance -- as long as everyone comes prepared for a real discussion. Agreeing honestly about this ahead of time made for a congenial atmosphere. The fact that each kid WANTED to be there was key. I know they had fun. As their adult facilitator, what I did for the students was to cook up a good syllabus based on the AP course description, with a calendar of detailed assignments, including essays and online exercises, and correlated lectures. I also built in exam prep using the REA book. There were blanks for the study group leader to fill in (e.g. group rules, coordination the week before each field trip, and who would supply various student-written exercises each week). After the first couple of weeks, they were on their own, with me listening on the sidelines -- except for some targeted help with essay writing for AP exam formats, a midterm, and review. It really has been a student-led experience, which worked very well with these students. As those who self-study know, there are advantages to having a lecture-format class taught by an experienced instructor who really knows the content (if you're a genuinely interested student) but you can't always have that, and taking the responsibility to learn is so very empowering. So I'd encourage parents who merely love a subject to give the study group approach a shot if their students have a passion for something. This cost us nothing but time, books, videos, and some gas. Finally, nobody has to develop a sanctioned syllabus to help their students prepare for an AP exam, but I'm glad I got my syllabus reviewed and approved. It really helped us understand what the course should be about. The College Board's EDG (electronic discussion group) for AP Art History is <not> as active as others I've participated in, but this is its first year on a new platform. I was grateful to get input from experienced teachers who really know teenagers and this particular course.

The College Board's course description for AP Government and Politics (which covers both US and Comparative) is a terrific resource for understanding what the content is supposed to cover and which skills are practiced. You can find it at the College Board. While parents, instructors, and institiutions may have our own axes to grind, the course is supposed to focus on informed, critical thinking rather than a strictly ideological approach. In other words, the course is not intended to teach apologetics. For those preparing syllabi for approval by College Board, there are samples to look at. I happened to read your post shortly after reading these, and one exercise stood out in my mind. You can find it on p. 9 of Sample Syllabus 4 here: http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/courses/us_government.html 3. Book Review: Each student must read one book on modern politics. Students with conservative ideologies must read a book written by a more liberal author. Students with liberal ideologies must read a book written by a more conservative author. Your book review should be approximately two pages in length and should include the following: a. A brief summary of the book, including specific examples taken from the book b. An analysis of the author’s purpose in writing the book, including evidence used by the author to support his or her position c. Evaluation of the validity of the arguments—are they logical? Are they convincing? d. To whom would you recommend this book and why? Good stuff. If anyone's used Thinkwell's AP US Government & Politics, I'd love to know what your experience was.

I'll repeat the excellent advice of using what works for your goals. TT served us well for two purposes: (1) math desensitization and (2) independent prep for more rigorous Saxon courses. The DD who is "fine with math" independently used TT Math 7, followed by TT Pre-Algebra (skipping the lengthy review at the beginning), then TT Algebra I as a very young 7th grader. She loved the independence and enjoyed TT's approach. She scored in the A range in Algebra I. She found it went very slowly in some lectures. Sometimes this exasperated her. However, I do not think she would have been totally ready for a standard Geometry or Algebra II at the end of TT Algebra I, and she wants to go to a challenging 4-year college. So she's taking Saxon Algebra I this year, as a very young 8th grader, in a class of two. She studies with her year-younger buddy, who used Life of Fred last year. Both are sailing smoothly through Saxon together, but definitely benefit from the Saxon curriculum and hands-on teaching by my wonderful mathy friend. It takes MUCH more time, obviously, but the pay-off is worth it. Learning to write out your work and show the steps is invaluable. TT alone can't get you there, because students simply type the answer into a blank on the screen. Given our goals, TT was a fantastic prep, with nearly zero involvement on my part. My friend will be skipping/reducing some portions of Saxon Algebra I, so the kids won't get bored and can use their time wisely. If the girls finish early this year, that's just more time for the many other things life presents. I'm sure she'll KNOW this math, so next year will go smoothly.

So when do we start getting smarter again? Based on my own performance lately, I'm beginning to think maybe my teenage belief in adult idiocy was well-founded.

Tell me your stories. Any success (or point) in revisions? Parents who NaNo along with their students? I'll start. Two years in a row, my husband asked for printout for Christmas. (Oh, how we tried to dissuade him.) I wonder if he'll ask this year or not!

Any recommendations for music theory workbooks or maybe software for preparing for ABRSM's Music Theory, Grade 7? We need some help! Seeking something more broken down and sequential than the books published by ABRSM. DD scored a merit on the Grade 6 theory exam, though she'd been earning distinctions before that. She loves the subject and is beautifully motivated, but needs some better study materials now -- early in the year! While we're on it, has anybody used an online music theory paper scorer?

Bumping Pamela's question!

Dentist, doctor, supermarket cashier, neighbors, dry cleaning lady, letter carrier, local firehouse -- as long as the GIRL is doing the asking, and wears her gorgeous uniform, this is a beautiful way to get to know the people in your neighborhood. In your neigh-bor-hoo-oood . . . (Sesame Street song in my head now.) Tia

So some schools are evaluated on the number of AP exams taken, rather than (in addition to?) scores. Hmm. That might explain some stories I've heard about unprepared or uninterested students being pushed to take tests. Nancy in NJ, do you know if this is a county or state measure in your area? Just curious. Our AP scores make no difference to the proctoring school, since we use our state's homeschool code. As far as I can tell, other than the $13 proctoring fee for homeschoolers, there's no benefit to schools in my county for making it easy for local homeschoolers to take exams. I guess it comes down to someone at the school having a friendly attitude and being organized. Our schools are required by law to offer exams to homeschoolers, but some are much easier to work with than others. WT Woodson in Fairfax, VA, gets five stars from me. Their lovely AP Coordinator mailed us a little form with return envelope (which we sent back with our check), made sure to include us in the "fill in the bubbles" session, and even gave us a map so we wouldn't get lost in her great, big school. Tia

Resurrecting bump!

Starting tomorrow, with four bodies at the table and one disembodied (but beloved) head on a screen! Tia

Joan in Geneva, here's one. I haven't used this or any other. Yet. http://www.hometrainingtools.com/microscope-digital-camera-eyepiece-pack/p/MI-DIGICAM/

We're signed up for the Chem Lab intensive -- maybe that's the one where they do the laundry!

About 25 hours per day? Which is bad 'cause I think the Earth only takes 24 to turn about once. DD just asked if I could come up with an eighth day in the week.

Bump! What do y'all know about the little USB doohickies you stick in the tube (after removing a lens), then hook up to your computer? Any good?