With specific respect to difficult -- I really don't think *every* course has to challenge a student. I think it's perfectly fine if a STEM-focused kid takes an english/history course that's still college prep but very much lower than they really could have managed, because they want to put extra time into trying to make it through the entire AOPS sequence or something like that. What's really important and underrated (jmo) is that a kid learns how to work hard on challenging work in *some* area. I had homeschooled friends who did all git-r-done coursework (solid, but much easier than they could have handled) because their main focus was music, and with doing less challenging academics they were able to get it done and have much more time for music. They were still able to do fine in college because they were able to transfer the work ethic and focus that they had learned in music to their other coursework. Please note that I'm specifically not saying 'it's okay for kids to skip algebra 1 if they want to work harder at something else.' A college-bound student should still be following a college-prep curriculum in all major areas and especially in math and english.

Yeah, if he is that upset at mistakes I think AOPS would drive him mad. If he's never done anything that's difficult for him before it may take him a long time to acclimatize. I don't think it gets better with age so much as it gets better with getting used to not getting things instantaneously. FWIW I was a lot like your kid. If something didn't come naturally (as most things did) I decided that I sucked at it and shut down and refused to try. It didn't really get better until I started doing martial arts (which did NOT come naturally) but fell in love with it enough to persevere.

A good place to start is: Where do your transfer students go, and how do they do once they get there? What is he looking at taking, anyway? One course I took that proved to be really interesting and unexpectedly challenging was meteorology. I found out that that was because it was required of the aviation science majors so it had to be a very serious course.

I think that this would be a great idea if possible. Bear in mind that not all departments are equal - a college may be great in foreign language and terrible in STEM, or vice versa. You may also be able to find individual professors who offer challenging classes even if the classes as a whole are mediocre. I found the key to finding these was to look for the ones who had a reputation as being a hardass but fair.

CC's definitely vary a lot by area. One of my siblings started at a CC and transferred to an Ivy League school has a junior. Although the courses for non-majors were nowhere near as rigorous, the 'for majors' courses were actually excellent and he was well-prepared. This specific CC transfers a few of their best students there every year.

I would definitely *try* your DD on grade level. R and S doesn't finish arithmetic until 8th, so it should be a bit of a step back and consolidation, which sounds like what she needs. I would also definitely start in the beginning of the book. I don't think I'd ever start a math book in the middle during elementary school. Were your younger kids struggling too? If they were not struggling, why not just have them continue working where they are in the MM you already have, instead of worrying about placement in a new program? If it ain't broke ...

Yep. There's nothing wrong with a high schooler reading it for fun, but just like english, the books that are perfectly appropriate and even challenging for an elementary school child are not really worth high school credit.

How behind are we talking? What were they doing before?

This is what I would do. Yeah, your kid will have done more than the public school, but if you label the precalc class something more technically accurate like 'trigonometry with an introduction to linear algebra' it will just confuse the admissions people. Much better to just call it precalculus and let the test scores (because I would be astounded if someone who made it through AOPS didn't do very well on SAT/ACT) speak for themselves. The only issue would be if you started running out of time. If I had a student who wasn't on track to get precalculus done by the end of senior year even with omitting NT and C/P, I would consider transferring them to a less challenging curriculum. I also agree with regentrude that the people who were referring to a supplement were probably talking about the problem solving books.

Do the placement test. He might hit anywhere between 65 and 87 depending on how well he's learned from Singapore. I'd be really shocked if he hit lower or higher than that.

Some CC's also have intro to criminal justice. Navajo sounds like a really interesting elective but it might be better for him to take that after graduation so that he can take I and II (unless it would be an at-home course).

I think it'd be enough more basic that it'd be relatively pointless after doing Jacobs algebra unless Jacobs was a complete and utter failure.

The antibiotics should produce relief within 24h. That's the real key. Clove oil or a whole clove on the root of the tooth can help dull the pain before that.

I would just keep with Singapore.

You can switch. With respect to using the teaching guide: The only thing that I'd want to make sure is to incorporate the bar models, especially for your younger two (the oldest is old enough that he might just find algebraic solutions easier anyway). The bar models really help build algebraic thinking in younger children.

I really wouldn't worry about seeking one program to carry you through high school. After pre-algebra is a perfect time to switch programs anyway.

I would switch. I think the immediate feedback would help him a lot. Another option could be to continue with Saxon, but have him bring the problems to you for grading after doing 5-10. It would break it up and help stop him from getting into a rut. I would not just start cutting problems out from Saxon as so much of the learning is in the problem set.

Could he do it and understand it when there were only two things to average? i.e. Jeremy got a 54 on his first math test. After his second test, his average was 62. What did Jeremy make on his second math test?

Depending on how she's doing when she gets there, you might look into the Power Basics series. They're designed to deliver on-level content to students who are reading below grade level -- I believe they're at about a 5th grade level. They have basic math, algebra, geometry, consumer math, biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science. They are PS texts but you can buy them through rainbow resource.

Right, if it were already dead and were endangering the other two that would be a no-brainer although still gut-wrenching to pull the plug. I'm thinking more of cases where the baby has serious abnormalities which will likely prove fatal shortly after birth. Personally, yeah. I agree with you. I do vote pro-choice even though I do not believe I would, for myself, consider an abortion for anything other than my own life or a dead baby (severely and possibly fatally ill would be a very hard choice that I pray I need never make). But I also think that people who are saying "Well, of course I would have the baby" frequently have no idea what they'd do in a similar situation, because they have never been in this situation.

I don't know what I'd do if I were in an advanced state of pregnancy and found that the baby wouldn't be able to survive regardless of what I did. And I pray I never have to find out.

I don't think Intro + Intermediate would be a good fit -- that's usually more intended for an accelerated algebra 1 + 2 class for people who had it in high school and forgot. Intermediate usually has a fair amount of review in it. This is because intermediate algebra is usually a developmental university class and students place into it having forgotten a lot of their high school algebra. I would go ahead and do intermediate, and if you find that he really has completely forgotten something, review it using the beginning algebra book you used.

BEDMAS, BIDMAS, and BODMAS are more used in commonwealth countries, where the E/I/O stands for Exponents, Indices, or Order. PEMDAS is more common in the US. I have heard both PEMDAS and BEDMAS from Canadians in different parts of Canada.

Yes, exactly. And on those silly order of operations questions which float around facebook, I have had multiple people argue with me that it was supposed to work that way because PEMDAS is all they remember from high school. In other words -- this is a very common error. Nip it in the bud now before he internalizes it this way.

Remember, it is not multiplication then division, then addition then subtraction. It is multiplication and division together, left to right, then addition and subtraction together, left to right. If this is troublesome, rewrite all the subtractions as additions when you get to that step, e.g. 24 - 10 + 5 = 24 + (-10) + 5. Then it will be more clear. Another way to think about chains of addition and subtraction is money. You have 24 dollars. You spend ten dollars and then find five dollars in the couch cushions. When phrased this way, you should see clearly that you have 19 dollars and not 9.