This was my son. We tried some other things for Pre-A when he balked at the difficulty early on, but he ended up requesting to go to back to AoPS ''Because it's hard, but at least it's not boring.'' Other places (KA included) have videos covering the concepts, but often the AoPS videos also cover ''the AOPS approach'' to a type of problem, which wouldn't be in the videos from other programs. His best bet is to communicate with other students and his instructors, like you said.

There are, and it's a popular choice in my area lately. The type of grass native to CA doesn't make for good turf, though, in the sense of kids playing on it. Having said that, that's what parks and other public areas are for, IMO. We live in an apartment complex, and our kids only play on grass in parks. Somehow, playing still happens. I don't think it's realistic in CA for people to expect to have private pools and grassy areas; such water-hungry things should be maximally used to justify their existence.

I have my first fifth-grader, too, with DS10. Math: We'll be starting an integrated math approach using all the Intro. books from AoPS concurrently: Algebra, Geometry, Counting & Probability, and Number Theory. I think I'll let him choose which book to work in, but possibly limit book-switching to only once a day, and set benchmarks for each chapter to make sure that no book is entirely neglected. He (like his mother) does best with frequent subtopic changes and never going too long without touching a topic. This isn't a single year's material; I think it'll take him 2-3 years to finish these. Update: my grad school schedule dictates that I do more outsourcing, so he'll do AoPS online Alg A in the fall, either Intro. to Counting and Probability or Intro to Number Theory in the early spring, then Alg B in the late spring/summer. Science: We're doing a science-y pre-history unit this summer, starting with the Big Bang and going through all the universe and solar system formation, geology with the evolution of Earth, and evolution of life/physical anthropology. In the fall, we'll start doing units with the How Things Work course on Coursera, astronomy with a textbook and syllabus from a local college, and introductory chemistry with Tro's textbook (maybe a Coursera course with this book). History: We're starting a new cycle with ancients in the fall, picking up where our pre-history leaves off in the summer, around 5000 BC. I'm aiming to get through 5000-1500 BC by January, and then start lingering a little more on the classical period for the spring, aligning somewhat with the WTM Academy Ancient Lit class he's taking. We're using a book of timelines as a spine, and I think I'll just turn them loose in the library each week to research more about whatever interests them in the timelines book. I also have a couple of world history texts to keep us in check. Well be working through an art history text, aligning it with our history study. Writing: he'll be finishing the New Oxford Guide to Writing and will be doing a bit of writing for the lit class. My sister is an English professor, and I'm going to ask to read a paper of his once in a while. I'm a math major, so I'll feel better having a ''spotter'' as I'm teaching writing. Lit: WTM Academy Ancient Lit class. We'll add some extra Greek mythology to it. Latin: GSWL Programming: he's working his way through KA's Java course, and I think he'd like to do Kid Coder as well (or possibly instead for a while if the Java gets hard). Philosophy: most of the philosophy texts were cut from the lit class's syllabus this year, so we'll read them on our own and have a monthly class with a philosophy professor friend. Extracurricular: he's been invited to join the partnering class in ballet in addition to his other classes, and that and rehearsals brings him up to a significant time commitment.

You know how much it meant to him, then. He has another show today, and I was afraid he'd have a hard time keeping his head on his pillow last night for all the air he was floating on. ;)

This weekend is the Spring Show for ballet (not a recital--the sort people go to to see a show, not because they know someone in it), and after the show this evening people kept coming up to the director and asking who was DS10 was, and where she'd found him. Praise doesn't come easily from the director, but she said she was so pleased with him that she really wants to showcase him, and is having a whole new Russian costume made just for him for Nutcracker this year (because it's usually danced by older people, and the costumes are too big). It's the best male part in Nutcracker until he's ready for a pas de deux, but that's a ways off. Tonight was his first pas de quatre, and he's been invited to join the official partnering class. DD8 wasn't in the Spring Show because she's too young, but at her demonstration/recital this afternoon, it was clear that she'd been put in the center so that the other girls could take their cues from her. She's up for promotion this summer, so she's very excited about that.

Welcome to the Association for the Collectors of WTM Bookmarks. We recommend creating a sub-folder specifically for this purpose.

When I was posting before, I spent a minute trying to remember the name of this book. Then I thought ''Eh, Ellie'll be here in a minute anyway.'' :D

Have you checked out fellow Hive member Rosie's Education Unboxed videos? Lots of great ideas there. And, of course, Miquon.

I echo the idea that it totally depends on the individual child. When my son was seven, he asked to read Douglass' Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, and when I expressed concern over the level of Serious Atrocity in the book, he said he knew it would be pretty bad, but that he thought it was important to read these things, be scared by them, and appreciate them. So I agreed, though I did disallow Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl due to the graphic rape. Based on the questions he asked and the thoughts he had while reading the book, I can say unequivocally that he did ''get'' it, and while he might well get even more out of a future re-read, that shouldn't invalidate the experience he's already had. He read War and Peace a year later (his choice, again). My DD8 hasn't shown any interest in books that challenge in that way yet, and that's fine. Interestingly, my son's been in a much more demotic mood for the last year or so, and I attribute it to more of his bandwidth being used by the beginnings of adolescence.

Their FAQ says "'My son is currently using your Algebra 2 course. When he is finished with that, what is the next course he should take?' If the student is headed for the Sciences then take Precalculus which includes a complete course in College Algebra, and a complete course in Trigonometry. Statistics is also available." http://www.chalkdust.com/faq.html

I can't pass by a toner thread without throwing this one down. I use apple cider vinegar and water in a 1:3 ratio, but started with 1:4. I just recently went through a bottle of Pixi's Glow Tonic acid toner instead and noticed no difference in effectiveness from my ACV mixture for pennies on the dollar, so I went back to the DIY, curiosity satisfied.

This. Math is something you *do*; it's not a passive experience. Also, OP, you said you were going to have your rising third grader work through 3A and 3B slowly over the summer, but that's a bit of a paradox, covering half a year's material "slowly" in a summer, since he's not accelerated. BA is cute and cuddly, but deceptively deep and demanding.

I'm going to dissent and say that for reasons of continuity, I often would rather have old threads appended than new ones created. I've seen threads about a particular curriculum bumped with a "Just wondering how this worked out for you," and then the response to that follows. So a subsequent reader also interested in that curriculum can read the information in its entirety, whereas if a separate thread had been created for the follow-up, a subsequent reader would only have the first part of the story, and no means of knowing that the follow-up exists. Really, the only thread-bumps that irritate me are the highly polarized political ones.

You don't need to wait until students are ready to write a formal analysis to start doing this; your kids are listening to what's discussed in your home from the very start. When you read an article relating to a scientific topic, discuss it aloud with your partner. Talk about the author's position, the background of the issue, and ask questions of yourselves. Model for your children what you aspire to for them, and be ready to answer questions, or to say ''I'm not sure. Let's look it up.'' And, of course, do good science in your homeschool. Keep in mind that in a very real sense, ''science'' is as much a verb as it is a noun.

Thanks so much, everyone. I've signed up for the Coursera courses, and put in some holds at the library.

Lots of people on here have worked Intro. to Counting and Intro. to Alg. concurrently, which is what my son will be doing.

I'm putting together a prehistory unit and have lots for the early hominids and forward, but nothing lined up for the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and early Cenozoic Eras. Any favorites? Books, MOOCs, and all other suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Just as an amusing aside, Modern Algebra is actually a thing, just not the thing you're looking for. Good luck in your search!

The bolded is why I prefer the BA way that I outlined previously. There's no such thing as skipping lines, and there's no mystery about what you put in the quotient. I don't understand the question about it being unrealistic to keep using this method for larger numbers: it's exactly the same number of steps as the ''drop down'' method, except adding up the quotient at the end.

So the first line of the calculation could just as easily read ''There are zero cats on Mars,'' and serve just as much purpose? Wow. ETA: Actually, it could be ''There are 17 cats on Mars'', because that's a false statement and so is ''8 goes into 3 exactly 0 times.'' 8 goes into 3 exactly 3/8 times, and 3/8 =/= 0. I know you're just translating so this isn't directed at you, but I can't stand this kind of nonsense.

I've not used MIF and don't know what the initial subtraction of 0 is about, but the rest is the way Miquon and BA teach long division, and is definitely my preferred method. I learned it the same way you did, and I think the MIF/Miquon/BA way makes much more intuitive sense and keeps what's actually happening at the forefront of kids' minds as they're working the problem. Actually, Miquon and BA both have students do the quotients like this: 400+70+4=476 R6 8)3798 - 3200 598 - 560 38 - 32 6 So the dialogue goes: ''How many 8s can fit into 3798? Well, 4 8s is 32, so 400 8s is 3200. How close did we get? 3200 is 598 from 3798, so many more 8s do we need? 7 8s is 56, so 70 8s is 560. 560 is 38 away from 598, so how many more 8s do we need? 4 8s is 32, and 32 is 6 away from 38. 6 is less than 8, so we can't use anymore 8s and we have a remainder of 6. How many 8s did we use? 400+70+4 = 474 8s. So 8 fits into 3798 474 times with a remainder of 6.'' It's functionally the same as the way you and I learned, but it keeps the place value crystal-clear and students never have to remember to ''bring down'' anything; it's already there.

Yeah, well, some kids end up with more education on dairy cows than they might need in their adults lives because of their parents' expertise, and my kids know the multiplicative identity. ;)

To me, it depends on how the association was formed. If two siblings meet someone at a class or group or whatever that a third sibling does not attend, then it's reasonable to only invite the first two siblings. If the association is a neighborly one, then I'd feel obligated to include the third sibling. If I were that mother, I would have considered it a little unkind to leave the third sibling out, but would never have said anything.

I think this is a perfectly great way to review after AoPS. It sounds like your DD remembered the concepts well and just not the names of things, which makes me think she could do with a little more dialogue while AoPSing in future. I'm in grad school for math so pedant has become my middle name, and I speak the names of the properties as we use them all the time. My kids get irritated with me for asking why b/a is the multiplicative inverse of a/b, but by doing so they remember that it's because 1 is the multiplicative identity in multiplication for the reals, which is because 1 is the element of the reals that can be multiplied by any other element to get the same element back (and the analogous argument for addition of reals). I start getting nervous when people can't explain things and just remember them, but that may just be that pedant in me.

I disagree. It's not uncommon for commutativity to be referred to without an accompanying example, so if a student doesn't remember what it is means they can't comprehend. I don't think most of them need to be memorized, as I said, but commutativity, associativity, and distributivity do. And again, most of them have such intuitive names that memorization is basically moot.