While I agree that she'll learn to deal with it, I would change him because I think there are better curricula than MUS for a mathy kid. MM is solid.

The sochi: pretty sure it's 'no injecting heroin (or any other injectable drug) in the toilets.

Anti-God and anti-young-earth are not the same thing, and there are many people who are anti-young-earth who are devoutly religious. When I see anti-God I think of one of Dawkins' screeds, which may have a fair amount of good information in them, but are so polemic I cannot read them. Please, let's not contribute to the conflating of the two.

You are going to have a very difficult time finding a text that does not ram the 'how stupid these people are to believe in evolution' down your throat, and is still compatible with a literal young-earth creation. I don't think the secular books go out of their way to discredit a creation theory, but they certainly do not give it any credence. You might look at one called Science Shepherd for biology. I think you are going to have fewer issues with chemistry and physics textbooks in general.

You can always just take the apush without studying and see how she does, if it's in your finances. A friend of mine, in HS, took a week to self-study economics and human geography and passed the tests -- now he was a generally well-informed type anyway, and great at taking tests, but still. His idea was that he had nothing to lose but some cash, and everything to gain.

I think one huge difference is if, when buying high school books for your child, you're *stopping* them from reading easy but age-appropriate books that they enjoy. I have seen people telling their kindergarteners "oh, you don't want to read that picture book, you want a chapter book" in bookstores and libraries. It makes me sad. There is nothing wrong with reading age-appropriate books (or lower!) AND intellect-appropriate books. Another difference would be if your child is balking and struggling, but you are continuing to push them because you have a plan for them. Another difference would be if you are putting your child rapidly through the easiest curriculum you can find. For example, I would much rather see an advanced 8 year old doing a challenging and rigorous algebra or geometry course, than plowing through the trigonometry or calculus course from MUS.

I don't think I've read things that are anti-God in a secular science book. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying that every one I've ever read has just not mentioned religion at all, other than possibly historical events involving religious people. You might mention which course and grade you're looking for, for more helpful answers.

This varies widely by area but I would say the second is more common. At my undergrad -- calc 1-3, linear algebra, discrete math, two electives At my grad school -- general -- calc 1-3, linear algebra, two electives At my grad school -- applied -- calc 1-3, differential equations, two electives At my grad school -- education -- calc 1-3, linear algebra, geometry, methods of instruction, and 3 electives from a short list Where I am now -- calc 1-3 (covers the equivalent of calc 1-2 elsewhere) and four electives

I would be especially concerned in math -- you have to take math at almost every university, unless you have an AP course (or at some a CLEP), and many students come in having not had math since sophomore/junior year in high school and place into Algebra 1. This is not fun. Even if they do place higher, they often struggle in their math classes. Furthermore, if math is omitted junior year this may hurt their SAT/ACT scores. I would be far more inclined to allow a very capable but very uninterested student to do math throughout, but take a day or two off per week, so that one course is completed per year and the knowledge is more fresh when the student comes to university. In other words -- if a student is capable of finishing a math course in 4-5 months working daily, they could work mon/weds/fri, finish in a more standard timeframe, and still have extra time for courses of greater interest.

There is very little difference between editions, but since you can get the newer one cheaper anyway at the moment you might as well. It is a good, solid precalc text. I cannot comment on the self-teaching part. I would highly recommend that your dd aim to finish by May and take the placement test at the cc then. That way, if she misses the placement by one level (many students do retake one level at university, regardless of curriculum) she can register for precalc in summer (not a good idea for a first exposure, but fine for a repeat) and still be on track for your plan. If she places into calc, she can do gentle review over the summer to stay fresh for the fall.

No, the material from college algebra + trig/precalc (varies by school) should all be covered in TT precalc. I'm only not sure about the depth of the word problems as I haven't seen TT personally. I would be really surprised if a student who did well in TT precalc didn't place out of college algebra, or CLEP out with some test-specific study. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, just that I would say that this should happen to a very small minority of students.

I really like mathmarm's advice. I would emphasize the use of the distributive property for multiplication and things like that because that IS algebra, and teaching it that way may help her remember how to do it. I would forget any algorithm that was just presented as an algorithm, but when multiplication was presented that way I found myself able to understand it and remember how to do it.

Kym Wright has a Botany curriculum -- http://www.christianbook.com/botany-adventure-2nd-edition-kym-wright/9781427620736/pd/259005 Ellen McHenry has a Botany curriculum -- http://store.ellenjmchenry.com/?product_cat=botany as well as some free resources

You know, I see a lot of students who have learned that at some point, you can +2 on both parts of an equation, but they don't really understand why you can do that. They've learned an algorithm, but don't understand the underlying mathematics well enough to understand when it will work and when it will not. The same students often struggle with word problems such as "If $40,000 is invested, with some at 7% and some at 12%, and the interest for one year is $3,550, how much is invested at each rate?", and one of the biggest things they struggle with is setting up the problem. They can understand that we can assign 'x' to be the amount invested at 12%, but they can't figure out that if 'x' is invested at 12%, then '$40,000 - x' must be the amount invested at 7%. There is no relation between addition and subtraction for them. The only way that they can reach that step is to let 'y' be the amount invested at 7%, and observe that x + y = $40,000. Then they can solve for 'y'. I would be reluctant to skip straight to the algebraic solution algorithm.

Yes, it absolutely depends on how much of the book the school actually covers. It is of course possible for a homeschooler to not cover all of a textbook and still assign credit; but most (here) seem to err on the side of caution and cover the whole book, or ask the advice of a math teacher on chapters to skip.

This may be true of university courses, but usually not for high school courses. For a specific example, TT Precalc (not usually one of the stronger ones) covers more than we cover in our college algebra + trig sequence at the university. We do not do an equivalent to chapters 12, 13, and 14. We usually only cover one of 10 or 11, and the choice depends on who is teaching the course.

If she likes workbooks and you just want facts, I'd check out dollar store/walmart workbooks -- cheap, convenient, easy to look at before you buy. If you'd rather just print your own, try the free ones here -- http://www.mathfactcafe.com/

Stats/statistical literacy.

I don't have direct personal experience with these, but if he's doing well with one course, why not have him take two -- probably History and Science since it sounds like that's getting shorted more? And out of curiosity, does your curricula list for your younger include what he's doing at school? If so, yes, I'd feel free to cut down a bit to make sure you can meet your older's needs.

The OP says he has already completed a fair amount of MUS Alg I. Clearly he's not running into difficulties, otherwise he wouldn't be prioritizing it as easier. Foerster's algebra is very much more challenging than MSU algebra.

I do not think vito has given you good advice here. I would definitely not skip the word problems and come back later. But if there are an unusually large number of word problems in a section, I would see no problem spacing them out over a few days. Taking two math classes at once may be too difficult. I don't see anything wrong with finishing MUS geometry before going back to Algebra, but I think that finishing in half a year is an overly ambitious goal except for a strongly motivated and talented student.

There definitely are poor test-takers, but lack of knowledge should be ruled out first before declaring oneself 'just a bad test-taker'. I routinely have students in math classes who declare that they are just bad test-takers. They are doing well on the homework because they do it with the book open to example problems, but cannot do well on tests without the book. This, in my mind, makes them bad studiers rather than bad test-takers. But I have also (more rarely) seen students who in class were interested, engaged, answering the questions as soon as I asked them with correct answers, who received unbelievably low test scores. It does happen.

If he can't do Foerster's problems because they're too hard, he's not ready for dual enrollment. He needs the word problems for electronics. It is worth spending time on them. Math is useless without word problems.

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Given that she is doing this consistently in many places, I would doubt it. I am sorry, but I still do not think it's reasonable at the pre-algebra level to teach them to use a decimal approximation instead of an exact value. Pre-algebra is getting them ready for algebra, and practice manipulating multiples of pi is exactly like manipulating multiples of variables. Furthermore, substituting 3.14 for pi, multiplying the resulting decimal by 6, then dividing it by 2 (as most students will do, rather than cancelling the 6/2) adds a completely unwarranted level of arithmetical difficulty to a rather simple problem.