Hello everyone! I would love to hear the "late work" policies for the various online courses that your students take. How far in advance must students inform the teacher that work is going to be late? What are the lengths of extensions? Can students have more than one extension during the year? Etc. Just gathering info...thanks in advance!

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: This made me laugh out loud! (I need to look into this class for my own son. Thank you for this detailed review!)

And I'm down 8 pounds in the same 5 weeks. I absolutely LOVE this program. After so many years of trying to lose weight by completely abstaining from certain foods, I find this new WW plan to be rather enjoyable. :-)

AP Calculus: Thinking Out Loud Derek Owens: $15 registration fee; $522 tuition…payable by month (nice!); inexpensive worktexts; uses calculator son already owns WHA: $100 student services fee (for a returning senior); $740 tuition….not sure about textbook (they tend to be pricey and require solutions manual, too); PLUS in previous years calculus has required a higher-level calculator than the TI-84 that we already own (another $100++), and their refund policy has no room for error. Then we have to pay for the AP exam and proctor here (another $120 or so). So DO will cost around $600 and WHA will cost over $1000 for AP Calculus…not including exam. My younger son has done really well with Mrs. Stublen this year in pre-calc, but older son absolutely loved Derek Owens, too, and easily scored a 5 on the exam. Despite our fondness for Mrs. Stublen and my younger son’s success with WHA math, I do not think it is worth the $400 price tag difference. Just to be blunt…that price difference is the entire tuition for my Clover Creek physics course! Ha! Then there is this possibility: Dual enrollment: much cheaper locally…possibly free (depending on community college or uni)

I was curious about this, too, so I looked at the review from Rainbow Resource. Copied and pasted: Master Books assures us that there have been no changes in content even the problems in the exercises have remained the same. If you are familiar with the older text, one thing you will miss is some of the cartoons; however, some were kept in the text to add to the readability and a bit of humor never hurts. Although Master Books is a Christian company, this text doesnt proselytize there is no Christian content. I have the older edition, and I think you can get a good used copy cheaper than a new Master Books copy.

Perfect description! I made Skinnytaste's Baked Shrimp Taquitos last night, and they were absolutely delicious. My college son told me that he would eat those every week! I foresee us eating a lot more fish and shellfish.

Because I use the website instead of the app to log my daily food, I don't receive (or not receive) blue dots. This is probably a good thing for me since I can be a bit of a perfectionist about some things. I am eating all of my daily points and all of my weekly points and not worrying about fit points at this stage (but still gently upping my exercise levels). I am slowly but steadily losing weight, and I continue to be very happy with plan and the overall controlled freedom that I feel with it. I have cut my coffee consumption down from 3 cups a day to 1 cup (most days) in order to cut out my excessive half and half points. I've replaced it with hot tea. My husband gave me a wonderful package of loose leaf hot teas for Christmas, and it has really been a boost for me! I drink it hot with no added sugar or cream. It has become a "feel good" drink for me (whereas coffee with lots of half and half used to be).

We just bought an SE from Tracfone for $169 for our oldest son. He loves the smaller size.

I joined two weeks ago, and I'm loving it!! It took me almost the first full week to learn the emphasis of the points. Several foods (nuts and half/half especially) that I had enjoyed pretty freely on previous plans were sending me over my daily points quickly. I had to adjust to that, but now I feel that I'm already making serious...and dare I say it...enjoyable progress! I love, love, love the fact that no food is off limits. I ate a Chik-fil-a chicken sandwich Wednesday night for the first time in over a year. It was SO amazingly delicious and fun to eat! Yes, it was high in points, but I had planned ahead and eaten eggs and spinach and tuna salad and oranges that day, so I had lots of points to spare for that sandwich. I did pass on the waffle fries which would have sent me over my daily points goal, but that was fine since I ate the sandwich with NO GUILT!! :-) I am still avoiding desserts just because of my personal sugar monster but just knowing that I *could* have one (if I planned for it) keeps it from being a constant nag in the back of my brain. I am online only, too. I don't have a smartphone, but I can log my days on my laptop easily. I can also look at the Connect site...Weight Watcher's social media site...but cannot post on it. I've already seen multiple amazing stories on it and found some very helpful hints, too. I can see myself following this plan for a long, long time. YAY!!

Miffy at the Zoo by Dick Bruna for my then six-month old firstborn. He will be 20 in three weeks. So will the book...which is still on our shelves (despite being completely worn through and taped back together multiple times).

This was just delightful to read and get to see your wonderful young man, Quark! :-)

We followed Kathy's advice several years ago and carefully read each course description multiple times... My son wanted a small class size and a course that was organized by weekly assignments rather than daily (he always "front-loaded" his weeks). I wanted a varied and interesting booklist for him. I also looked for evidence that the class covered material and had writing experiences OUTSIDE of the AP syllabus. In other words, I was not interested in a class that solely "taught to the test". But I also wanted built-in review for the exam along the way (instead of heavy hitting at the end of the course). It was a lot to ask! :-) We went with Kathryn Walker and were completely happy and satisfied. She was so kind and encouraging to my son, and I think he would agree that her course was one of the top three most beneficial courses he took in high school.

Now we're talking! Tibbie...I'm not worried about it at all. I cannot see how NN would affect my business in any way...but I am a "head in the sand" type of person so maybe I'm ignoring information I should be paying attention to. Regardless, I'm just going to keep on doing what I'm doing until I can't or don't want to anymore. Then I'll do something else! :-)

I'm not sure if you've received any responses by pm, so I did a quick search through my virtual records for my son's scores. He took the course his junior year in high school, so it has been 3 years. He made a 96 first semester and a 93 second semester and scored a 5 on the exam. He thought the exam was relatively easy and felt very prepared for it without doing any extra studying outside of what was assigned in class. My son received 8 credit hours from his university for that score...which was nice...but because one of his majors is earth science, he had to take geological sciences to fulfill the gen ed requirements (so the chem credit is superfluous). Hope that helps some!

We have this situation in our house, Derek. Our older son was an academic superstar in high school and continues to be in college. I'll refrain from momma-bragging his stats! ;-) My husband and I determined long ago to teach each child to his (and now, her!) strengths and interests, so our younger son's high school path has been very, very different from older son's. He has taken different courses, and we have used completely different materials for those classes which are required for graduation (and done them at different times). Younger son may not even take physics...he has requested marine biology for his senior year!?! We also went so far as to use a different umbrella school (required in TN) with younger son because we did not want to rehash the same graduation ceremony as older son's (who received numerous accolades and had to make a speech at his graduation--and yes, younger son was VERY proud of his brother for those awards). Younger son did not take the PSAT or SAT nor any AP classes. He may not even take a dual-enrollment class (still making that decision for his senior year). He has taken two years of online math with Wilson Hill (thank you for the rec!) and a couple of short online writing courses but certainly not a plethora of outsourcing. He is one-and-done with the ACT...making a score well below older son's but high enough to go either to our local 4 year university or take advantage of our state's free 2 year community college degree. The interesting thing in our situation is that younger son is a phenomenal all-around athlete, and I've seen some instances of older son's jealousy regarding younger's skills on the pitch/field/court/course. But I've also seen many moments of outright pride and complete support. They both know that they are gifted differently, and I hope and pray that those gifts can complement and assist each other throughout their lives! :-) So in a nutshell...we made second son's high school experience completely different from older son's. Doing this has worked well for all of us. Both boys will be long gone when our daughter reaches high school. Good thing...because she is AMAZING and is going to show both of them up in all regards!!! LOL!!

I bought a Darth Vader Tervis tumbler with lid for my almost 17 yo's stocking. It is awesome-looking; I'm quite jealous of it. AND it takes up a good bit of room in the stocking. Also...nice pair of socks,bag of goldfish, craft soda, bodywash, earbuds, I-tunes card. And a room air freshener. Ha!

I am so sorry.

I'm just seeing this today, too, and I'm so glad it got bumped back up so that I didn't miss it. Congratulations!!!! What an awesome accomplishment!

Thank you, Lanny, for mentioning this phone. I've since researched extensively and determined that this is the best phone to purchase for my almost 17 year old son. We are not serious smartphone users, so at the current Amazon price point (and with low-end Tracfone service), this is doable for us. The Moto G5 Plus (32 gig WITHOUT Amazon offers and ads) is selling now on Amazon for $170. Interestingly enough, the one with Amazon ads is $185.

I was so stunned by the $100/200 an hour estimate above that I decided to work out a closer estimate for my particular case. I've never actually calculated this before because I do not teach online physics for the money. If I could make $100 an hour, I might be more interested in doing it for the money. Ha! I have no "middle man"...no entity between myself and my students. So being self-employed, I handle all the technological side (including website costs and maintenance), and of course, I pay quarterly self-employment tax. But let's ignore all those costs for the sake of ease of calculations. For the 2017-18 year, my course was $350 per student. I have 25 students for an "official" 35 weeks, so I make about $250 a week (before taxes and administrative costs). I have grading tests and labs down to a science, believe me, but in a best case scenario, it takes me about 20 minutes per student to grade a test. This includes downloading documents to One Note (there might be a better way for me to do this), carefully grading the problem-solving sections (I do not just grade the answers---I grade the process), saving and uploading the document, and emailing it back to student and parent. I also grade the online conceptual portion of the test which includes discussion questions and then enter the total grade in the online gradebook. So about 20 minutes per student if there is no issue (but there are often missing pages or faint, small handwriting or dark, blurred scans that slow me down) which adds up to 8.3 hours to grade one set of tests. Labs do not take quite as long as tests. I can usually do the whole process for a lab report in about 10 minutes per student. I keep a fast and furious pace in my course, so there is something "due" almost all the time (just ask the students!). One thing that Lori didn't mention in her reply is the amount of time an online teacher spends emailing back and forth between students and parents. If any of my current or former parents are reading this, please know that I ***love*** hearing from you. I want to know if your student is struggling silently or is sick or particularly liked an assignment, etc. Your feedback and interaction and involvement is very important to me. But the time I spend emailing back and forth does add up to several hours a week. The one hour plus a week class meeting doesn't seem that time-intensive. I now have two sections, so considering about 3 hours of actual meeting time (I'm almost always in class 15 minutes early) plus time spent preparing for the class and then uploading/posting class notes and video links brings it to about 5 hours a week. So I added all these things up for a normal week and found that I spend about 15.5 hours a week on average on physics. I make, therefore, about $16 an hour before tax and business costs. Of course this doesn't include the time spent interacting with future parents or the time spent setting up registration and taking applications for future classes or the time spent during the summer at the post office mailing textbook rentals or looking for the best prices for lab materials or setting up the new year's website, etc. etc. etc. I understand that my estimates might run a little on the lower side because I do try to keep my course fee in a semi-affordable range. But still...no online teacher makes $100/200 an hour. Or if they do, my own children are not in their class!!! :lol:

Hi Roadrunner's kid! :-) I hope you are having a fabulous year! Okay...I was considering adding chemistry to the mix for the 2018-19 school year, but after having a heart-to-heart talk with my dh about it this past weekend, I've decided NOT to do so. I will continue to offer two sections of physics, but I will not expand physics any further or add chemistry next year. It will be our younger son's senior year, and dh wants us to really concentrate our energies on that son's goals/plans/needs, and I agree with his wisdom and foresight. For some unknown reason, our younger son wants a second year of biology, so I will have to dig deeeeeppppppp to do that. :confused1: Thank you all for you kind words and encouragement. I love teaching physics to your kiddos!! It is a dream-come-true for me. :-) Now...let's all keep watch on Dicentra's course progress. I know her chemistry course will be AWESOME!

World of Chemistry online quizzes (These are decent although they do not exactly match with my edition of WoC--2005) World of Chemistry online site (I haven't explored any of this) I am teaching chemistry with this text to a group of local students this year. I think the text is fantastic! It is clearly and engagingly written (very easy to read!), and it has LOTS of sample problems to study and review problems to pull from. We are only on Chapter 6, but I am very pleased that I don't have to supplement this text very much at all. It is solid and can stand on its own. I found a reasonably-priced used TE online that includes a lot of help (almost too much! lol!). It has planning calendars, teaching hints and ideas, mini-lab and demonstration activities, additional problems, and answers to all the review questions (but not solutions). Let's Not Burn the House Down has plans with web links to the topics in Zumdahl's Introductory Chemistry. Although that text is a bit different, I have found quite a bit of help for WoC there. Hope that helps! Jetta

I vote for geology. :D

My older son took Meteorology as a senior in high school using a college textbook, and he paired it with a Coursera course on GIS mapping. And yes, now he is in college double majoring in Earth Science and Math and will most likely be one of those who goes on to get a PhD in the subject. My vote is for you to find the branch of science that your son is most interested in and build a course from there. :001_smile:

Math is Fun I send my students to this site for help; it often has very clear explanations.