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merylvdm

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Everything posted by merylvdm

  1. We used Runkle's in 8th grade. It is a good curriculum and covers mainly physical rather than political geography. The political geography part is the mapping workbook, so you could definitely do that part using something else. I think if you added a way for your child to learn where things are in the world, and some cultural component it would be a full credit. I would suggest you used videos rather than a text book to teach the cultural part - a lot more engaging and more powerful. And instead of tests for that section, you could get your child to create animated cartoons to explain other cultures, make posters about the countries, short videos etc.
  2. I used both with my kids. TT is nice and easy and works well for kids who struggle with math. If your child has been using AOPS, well then TT is definitely not for you. AOPS is MUCH more rigorous and a far better preparation for college - and ACT / SAT. My one son who used TT got 100% on all their tests and then did not do well at all on ACT math.
  3. This isn't a resource, but consider doing the National HIstory Day contest. I don't know if your kids are old enough yet (it's from 6th - 12th) but there is a theme each year and students get to select any topic that fits the theme and research it. Then they present their findings as a paper, exhibit, documentary, performance or website. This would give your children the opportunity to investigate many of the topics that are important to you. My own children and a number of other homeschoolers I know have made it through the regional and state levels all the way to nationals - which is nice to be able to put on college and scholarship applications too!
  4. icivics.org has free lesson plans and also lots of great games. I am going to be using a lot of it in the online class I am teaching. No text books! I am with your daughter in not being a fan of those!
  5. Thanks Arcadia and MarkT. I am sure he has a graphing calculator. Thanks for the placement tests - I will send everything to him. He is smart and hardworking. I taught him computer programming and he now works for me as a Teaching Assistant in my online programming classes. I am impressed he is motivated enough to work on this over the summer! I do think he will be able to test out. He is one of those kids who knows how to "self teach" - and he was homeschooled until high school.
  6. I had seen it and it looks great. Glad to know it is as good as it looks! I teach programming and like to be able to recommend things for the younger set. If you would be interested in writing a blog post for me, I would love that :) You can even just do it verbally and I will get it typed up. PM me if you would
  7. I used Teaching Company for Meteorology. I watched the videos with my son and we talked about it (I did my ironing while I watched!). He also worked through a college level textbook - I got one that had a workbook with answers so I could grade it. For Epidemiology my other son used this course from the CDC - http://www.cdc.gov/ophss/csels/dsepd/ss1978/ There are also courses on just about every topic on Coursera - you may need to do more than one to be able to give credit as some are only 4 or 5 weeks. Also look at edX - they now have quite a large number of options and some of their classes are specifically for high school. My kids had no problem doing college level ones though.
  8. One of my previous co op students is now at public school and trying to test out of precalc. He has taught himself using Khan Academy but the school just gave him a sample test and he has realized there are quite a few problems he doesn't know how to do. Do any of you know of free online precalc resources?
  9. My daughter is an IB student at a local public school - well she will be this fall. IB only starts in 11th grade - until now she has been doing pre-IB to get her ready. At her school they can take the full IB diploma course or the certificate one where you don't have to do the big project, get the volunteer hours and take Theory of Knowledge. Theory of Knowledge looks amazing and is taught by her favorite teacher, but after talking to older students taking the full IB program she decided to take the certificate one instead. As has been said before, the full IB program has specific requirements - and for her it would have meant having to do European History (nothing else would work with her schedule) and she is not a history fan. She decided she wanted to enjoy school a bit more and have more flexibility. She is taking IB Psychology, Theater, English SL, Math SL, Chemistry HL, Spanish HL. This way she still has rigorous classes so it looks good to colleges, but she also has a life!
  10. I didn't like teaching to the test so I only got the kids to write APs where I knew we would cover the material. I used whatever I had planned to and then just got them to work through the Princeton Review book for the subject 2 weeks before. We used Sonlight and did use their Brit Lit course which was designed so that students could easily take the AP Lit afterwards. Mine also did AP Lang. All 3 did AP US History - s used a course which I devised and I now make available free to anyone (it's on FundaFunda.com). One son taught himself Java and then wrote the AP Computer Science. Some did Economics, some did Government, some did Spanish (they did have a teacher for that) and one did Chemistry. They got between 3 and 5 on their exams (largely reflecting the effort they put in) and all ended up as AP scholars with distinction.
  11. I found this website recently and think some of your kids might enjoy it. It has a lot of Room Escape games to play AND you can create these games too. This might be a good summer challenge for those of you with students who need that! I have been playing one of the games and still haven't "escaped". I haven't tried creating my own yet so I don't know how tough that will be. Enjoy - http://doctorfou.com/room-escape-maker
  12. This past year I taught a high school geography class at our local co op and also online. I got them to create a variety of "projects" instead of essays etc and they really did SUCH a great job I would love it if what they created could be used to teach younger students geography. So, here's what you can use (I used a great site called Padlet which allowed the students to "pin" their work so everyone could view it. When you click on a link, click on "view original" as otherwise it doesn't always work correctly. Choose your own adventure ... in south eastern Asia - https://padlet.com/merylvdm/adventuregame. Although some don't look exciting as some don't show a graphic in the link, all do actually contain photos and videos and you play through and make choices as you go. Videos on Asia - during the class I occasionally used videos on Youtube on the "Geography Now" challenge. I asked the students to make videos following the same formula - https://padlet.com/merylvdm/asianvideos Chinese customs cartoons - their task was to take an aspect of Chinese culture and show what is and isn't acceptable. They used Powtoons to create their fun cartoons - https://padlet.com/merylvdm/ChineseCustoms ebook on a country in Europe - the target age for these is 5 - 8 years old and some of the students made truly beautiful books. Enjoy! https://padlet.com/merylvdm/europebook Fun ways to remember African capitals - they had to use graphics and memory devices - take a look - https://padlet.com/merylvdm/africancapitals I hope some of you can make use of my students' hard work.
  13. There are lots of online courses on Coursera and EdX and none of them have live components (which Landry does - it seems from a recent email from them that all classes have 90 minutes live each week). My one son did Artificial Intelligence online. That was when it was just starting to be a "thing". Now there are courses for just about any topic imaginable.
  14. How about Udacity or EdX or Coursera? I had an 8th grader take the Python Coursera class run by Rice University after he finished the one I teach and he got 96%! So if your son can program properly already, he will be able to pick up new languages with ease and will be able to manage college level classes. My younger son taught himself to program and I got him an AP book. The first time round he scored a 2. That was because he didn't prepare at all. A year later, still using the same book, he scored a 4. I agree your son might be ready to take the AP this coming year if he does know how to program already.
  15. I am teaching a class in this at our co op next year and also online. This is my first time teaching this class so I am also working on resources but I definitely plan on using iCivics - especially their online games! My daughter, who has just done AP Government, is helping me create the course she wishes she had had at school. I will use debates between the students, get them to write their own Bill of Rights etc. I also plan to find movie clips that illustrate things like filibustering. I will just use a textbook to find the topics I need to cover and then will search online for ideas on how to make each lesson as interesting as possible. I have already bookmarked a number of Youtube videos on different topics and I will also use some On The Media (NPR podcast) shows. There was a great one recently on the Supreme Court - really fascinating. I used a few PlanetMoney podcasts in my geography class and they went down really well with the students.
  16. I use Crashcourse as supplements in my classes - and my daughter used some of them as review before APs. Again, not a whole course though.
  17. We loved Sonlight's - but it is definitely high school level.
  18. My boys used Thinkwell Economics and took Micro and Macro APs. I think both ended up with 4s for one of them and 3s for the other. It's a been a while so I don't remember. They enjoyed the class and I would definitely recommend it. They did not put a lot of effort into studying for the AP ... so I think a 5 is quite possible from the course
  19. How about starting programming using Scratch Jr? There are also a number of other apps and websites that younger kids can use to start to learn about programming.
  20. I have taken a number of Coursera ones in eLearning and Python programming. I really enjoyed them. I have signed up for some that you can do at your own pace - and those I never get round to but I have completed a number now where I had to go at the speed of the class. It is hard to find time - so I usually have to do them in summer and fall before life gets too busy.
  21. Oh Option 2!! I did something similar with my oldest daughter. (Glad you could use my course for US btw!) And have you considered getting him to participate in the History Day contest if he loves history? I highly recommend the experience and my own kids plus a few from my co op classes have taken part and won at regional and state levels and competed at Nationals.
  22. My daughter loves Vocabulary.com. You can play online or through their app. Her vocabulary has improved A LOT since she started with it a year or so ago.
  23. I coach our Science Olympiad team and the students on the high school team often turn the events they compete in into science credits. The ones i know they have claimed Meteorology (Teaching Company videos and / or college textbooks) Epidemiology (CDC has a free online course) Earth Science (college text books) Ecology (college textbooks)
  24. We moved from Singapore to Life of Fred - with my youngest she moved to the preAlgebra books and then to the Algebra. They are fast-paced too and math is interesting with them. My boys did AOPS at high school. We did try a number of other curricula over the years but those were the ones that they liked the most and that they learned the best from.
  25. We did both the Linguistics ones - can't remember the names now. Both by the same guy. And I used them + a research paper for a 1/2 credit in Linguistics
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