AEC
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Posts posted by AEC
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we did nothing other than mostly unstructured, interest-directed, fun science till DS started HS Bio. Totally not an issue. IMO, the only purpose/goal of science prior to HS-level (when you have the math and logic background to dig into it) is to create a sense of joy and interest. I'd totally NOT stress about written work.
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ohhh....
DD12 has been asking for more 'fun math' to go with Alg.
02 - Base 8 alternatives binary, base 3 and 5, base 4 and 7
05 - Addition Puzzles these are logic puzzles and you can use an alternative too this.
11 - Modular Arithmetic clock math, Modular math, modular arithmetic and more modular math
sounds exactly like what she's looking for. Thanks!!!
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Absolutely. IMO, definitely yes. DD is going to have to type, reliably, without looking at the keyboard on a daily basis. Further, she'll have to be able to do it with only brief glances at the screen more often than you might think. (taking notes in class, documenting an interview as you're giving it, transcribing a whiteboard or book or...tons and tons of stuff. REALLY REALLY fluid typing is an incredible advantage.
rather than a napkin, consider getting a keyboard w/o the letters on the keys.
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re: computer science....
if you were actually learning Computer Science then I'd argue yes, it's a science. Yes, you can do labs (as in, demonstrate a repeatable experimental result predicted by a theory). The problem is that what you're likely to be doing in HighSchool is not really computer science - its software engineering. That's not to denigrate its usefulness - I'm a software engineer and believe it's an incredibly useful skill. But it's not computer science.
Compute Science is a fundamental science. Information theory is at least as fundamental as physics in describing the 'natural world' and possibly more so. A course that included Shannon's information theory, computational complexity hierarchies, examined issues like entropy and enthalpy through spin-glass optimization strategies or something similar would totally count as a science, IMO. It's probably beyond what most HS students have access to or are prepared for, though. If you're interested I can recommend a text or two - it's spiffy stuff....but it's not light weight.
If you're not going to do that - you're going to learn to program in some language...call it 'software engineering' (or programming) and go for it. But it's neither a science nor a foreign language.
IMO, of course.
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I am one of those & always have been. The best thing, for me, has been writing(typing) constantly with a spell-checker enabled. The immediate correction has helped me learn better than anything else ever did.
I'm going to take a contrarian position here and say....why stress about it? Spelling is a fairly arbitrary, non-orthogonal set of rules (which is probably why I can't remember them) and the world has invented fantastic tools to help the poor humans who can't get this right.
I can't spell to save my life, and except that my family giggles at the mistakes on my hand-written shopping lists it has no impact on my life. Seriously. Yes, people will think you're stupid if you send important emails w/ mis-spellings in them. My spelling is comically bad and yet that happens to me less often than my peers because I remember to rely on spell-check.
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you've got 8 months till Sept. Assuming you were willing to do science through the summer you could easily fit a whole year of 'regular' 9th grade bio in there and just skip the anatomy portions. We're pretty happy w/ the M&L text. If you skipped the human anatomy portions it'd be not too difficult to fit in the time you've got.
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The AP Bio exam covers some topics that M/L doesn't, particularly chemistry. It has more depth in cellular biology/chemistry. I don't think the AP exam covers human anatomy, which Miller Levine spends quite a bit of time on (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
In my opinion, having done a solid Biology course and a Chemistry course (hopefully), AP Biology will be different but not harder than the honors Biology he is doing now.
thanks everyone for the replies.
Yes - that's the plan..Bio this year, Chem next, AP Bio the year after. I haven't decided on a chem text (I'm not in love with any of the options yet) but we'll find somethign decent I'm sure.
thanks again.
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How did he like the Spero BB-8? My boys ask for that for their birthday but Target and Brookstone was out during Black Friday so it is now very much belated.
DS13 got one for xmas...and LOVE LOVE LOVEs it. It is ridiculous just how much he adores this thing.
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about 1/2 done..
DD - 7th grade
Math: tlast bit AoPS Geom + AMC10 contest prep + NumTheory. Probably won't start Alg 2 - we'll see.
Science: HS Chem w/ DS - text TBD
History: SotW 3 & 4
English : WW 8 + writing TDB
CompSci courses TBD
German : Rosetta Stone German + have to find other stuff to go w/ it
DS - 9th grade (oh my)
Math: finish up AoPS Geom + Alg2 (unless he decides to take the AMC10 and prep for that as well).
Science: HS Chem w/ DD - Text TBD
History: HotMW
English : TBD
German : TBD
feels like I'm missing something here. He's taking a basic programming course, so he's seen what I consider the minimum of that. I doubt he'll be interested in doing more. Not sure what else to stick in.
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A gallbladder :) (actually, two-a cross section on a slide, and a stuffed toy version).
where did you find a toy gallbladder? Who makes this...and why? How large can the TAM for stuffed gallbladders possibly be?
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DS13 is doing bio this year. We're using M&L (the Macaw book) and some of their labs. He'll do all the chapters and is taking their standard (on-level) tests. I'm calling it 'honors bio' because he's doing all the chapters and someone someplaced suggested that qualified <shrug>...but what's in the book is what he's doing.
He's doing fine (averaging 92% on the chapter/unit tests) but today he's suddenly worried that - two years from now - he'll take AP bio and it'll be harder. :glare:
So, because we like to worry about all possible things that can be worried about...what's in the AP Bio exam that's either not in the curriculum he's currently using or is covered in substantially greater depth?
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I guess I don't understand how a student can earn a 4 or 5 on calculus BC without a firm understanding in math.
I got a 4 - I had, I think, reasonable comprehension of calc but in retrospect not an especially good foundation of trig , stats, probability or numerical theory (the last 3 were, as far as I remember, never covered in HS in any detail). In any event, I could have opted out of taking the first two terms of freshman Calculus (went to a university on a quarter system, so 2 terms would have been 2/3rds of the first year). I elected to take it anyway and I'm glad I did.
The biggest shock was the transition from HS to college math. HighSchool was 'here is a technique/theory - let me show you how to use this then you can do the same'. College math was 'I will derive or prove a theorem for you. Since you've seen the proof you understand what this means and how it works. So, you are now able to use that proof technique to derive corollary theorems and of course you're all smart enough to figure out how to use this yourself'.
It was probably helpful that I'd actually seen the topic before.
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I'm not familiar w/ Dreambox, but...
"(We have already completed Singapore 5A and B and Life of Fred Fractions, Decimals, and Pre-Algebra with Biology)."
IME, the above is a good list to do before AoPS Pre-alg, but not a substitute for it. So if the Dreambox topics are similar to the above then no - I wouldn't suggest skipping pre-alg.
Is there a topics list for Dreambox? I didn't see on on their website. That might help compare the two.
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Any suggested outlines for General Chemistry: The Essential Concepts by Raymond Chang ? The comments suggest:
"VERY rigourous honours course, would not suggest attempting to complete the entire text"l
I'm not sure what to leave out.
Also, any opinions on taking this concurrently w/ Alg2? (AoPS for both Alg1 & Alg2, if that matters).
This is for a 9th grader. Needs to be enough to enable AP bio in 10th. The plan is that he'll take AP Chem in 11th - so he'll see this again - but would like him to go into that w/ a decent background so it's not 100% new.
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I think we need to outsource English & Lit or it won't happen.
DS13 will be in 9th next year. We've not done a lot in this area - we had intentions to do BraveWriter or FLL or whatever...but it didn't happen. I feel badly, but it is what it is.
He's done grammar (EasyGrammar series), Vocab (WW), Spelling and writes regularly as part of history (currently HotAW 'study-guide' questions) and logic...but that's not the same. He's a prolific reader, but again..that's not the same as a good Lit course.
Despite this, he's actually a decent writer. He's naturally fairly linguistically oriented, but of course rather untrained at this point.
I'm not sure where to start. A CC course would bury him. We're not part of an umbrella org and I'd rather not be.
We could customize it and do something different every year, but he very much likes to know what to expect so something that would cover him for all of HS english would be better.
Suggestions??
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It also has a bit of conservative politics, mentioning that "global warming is speculative."
Good to know.
I think an unsupported stmt of that magnitude would be enough to damage the credibility of a science text for my DC. Sounds like we'll stick to the secular texts and just avoid the issue.
thanks.
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Just starting to look into this - planning ahead for next year.
I'm really surprised to see the various curriculums and discussion about them being 'christian' or 'YEC' oriented. How does this even come up in a chem class? Biology I can see - evolution and all...but chemistry?
Is there really something that appears in the actual thread of the class, or do the theology-influenced texts just have little anecdotes here and there that are only tangentially related to the science? I am just not seeing how this has any bearing on Chemistry. What have I missed?
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Logic puzzles? Critical Thinking has some books with progressively increasing difficulty for those.
http://www.criticalthinking.com/critical-thinking-series.html those??
or is there something else I missed?
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I'm looking for fun/challenging/different to add to DD11's math work. She's a relatively recent convert to the 'I love math' club. She cruised through AOPS pre-alg in ~4 months. She's decided she wants to take the AMC10 next year (Feb 2017), and has made plans to cover both AoPS Alg and Geom between now and Dec 2016. For that, she's doing a section a day - that's easily a fast enough pace to get them both done in a year.
I'm concerned it's too easy for her. Not easy in that she doesn't have to do it - that's a ton of material she doesn't know - just easy in that it's only taking her like 20 minutes a day. She's not really being challenged.
I don't want to just say 'why don't you move faster - how about 2 sections a day...maybe 3?' I don't want to just add another AoPS book concurrently. I think that will feel like the reward for being good at work is more work (which I recognize is a truism of life, but still).
I'm looking for something that will appeal to her problem solving joy, or shows how math is fun or explains things in the real world or will seem like nifty math that most people don't get to do. The catch is she's only had basic algebra - up through systems of linear equations. (I suppose if I just wait another 4 weeks she'll have had quadratic eqn's <shrug>).
Any suggestions?
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'real' physics needs Calculus. There's a reason Newton invented both. It's totally fine to do HS chem w/o calculus, however.
It's pretty reasonable/common to do physics and calc concurrently, but I don't suggest doing physics w/o any calc.
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still haven't received scores via the school where they took the test - but it looks from the MAA website like they're done scoring them (no longer says 'updated nightly).
and WOW are the scores lower this year. Avg last year was 11. This year it's 8. (shocking since you should expect to get 5 just by totally guessing). DD11 is disappointed - she was hoping for the 6th grade achievement award but apparently didn't get it. You need a 15. In prior years that looks like about the 70% percentile - this year it's the 5th. oh well...she's sad, but I'm still thrilled. She set a big goal for herself and learned a lot in the process.
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Based on the earliest comments and DD's (mostly uninformed) preference, she had decided to do them in chronolical order...which means starting with the first BekaCooper book.
It just showed up from the library today. I figured I'd give it a go and see what she's in for. I gotta say it's a bit hard to get into. Part of it is the same struggle I think many have with Tolkien - the world is so rich with so much backstory and it's described to the reader as though they were just as familiar with it as the characters in the book. You almost have to read through it 2x. By contrast, Harry Potter is pretty easily accessible because the main character knows nothing, just like the reader, so the reader learns along with the protagonist. Here you have to pick it up by osmosis. Challenge is good, but I'd like to ensure she doesn't get turned off before she gives it a legit shot.
Are they all this way?
I think I'll order the first Alanna book from the library and have her start with that.
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So Algebra 1 in 8th is still a solid college prep plan? I don't know what dd will want to do down the road for college but florida schools are incredibly competetive and I want her to be prepared to go where she wants to.
IMO, yes.
Alg1 in 8th is on pace to take Calc as a senior. I've met/heard-of relatively few students who go beyond calculas while in HS.
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they started publishing partial results 3 days ago, I believe. They're updating it nightly.
How many days does this usually last?
Do they send out individual results to schools once they're all done?
DD11 is, I think, going to implode waiting.
Homeschool High School Chemistry
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
that makes no sense - not even from a religious prospective. I thought a central tennet of transubstantiation was that the substence was transformed, but the accidents (meaning everything physically observable) were not. I'm not religious, but I think if I was I'd object to that on the grounds that it's comparing something sacred, holy, and miraculous to a mechanical process that's mundane and completely quantifiable. I don't think we (the collective we that is humanity) do ourselves any favors on either the science or theology fronts by insisting that they must convolve on all topics.