It sounds like others have had a positive experience, but I am not satisfied with the Biology 041 class my daughter is taking through BYU online. I don't plan to sign my kids up for another class through BYU. Part of our dissatisfaction has been that contacting the teacher through email for help hasn't worked for my daughter, something that is no fault of BYU online, just a learning preference we discovered this semester. My biggest disappointment with the actual class has been with the lack of depth in the material presented in the Biology text. In addition, the tone is informal, few examples are used, and very few examples of how to apply new concepts are offered in the text. It could be that this is simply the level of a non-honors Biology class, but that's my take on it. Good luck to you!

I would love some feedback on my daughter's high school plan. She's my oldest so she is our first high schooler. She has no idea what she wants to study in college, but she likes a challenging schedule. Time management is a growth area :) so rigor must be balanced with realism. Despite all the math in the plan, literature is her favorite subject. She's actually really creative, but this plan doesn't bring that out. Any comments on course titles or the rigor of the classes and schedule or anything else would be awesome. Thanks for reading! She is entering 10th grade so the 9th grade classes are already completed. Ninth is pretty thin. Surprise job relocation out of state for my husband about half way through the summer complicated life enough that we decided to downscale English and history. 9th At home classes - English 1: World Literature with Composition, 1 credit (Bob Jones text, completed every assignment) - Calculus AB, 1 credit (score: 3) - Physics, 1 credit (Saxon Physics, completed every problem of every assignment) - Rhetoric & Argumentation (I awarded one credit. This was well over 180 hours, but I'm still wondering whether I should award a full credit and what exactly I should call the class. She completed a debate curriculum and separate rhetoric curriculum, public speaking every week, 6 tournaments, wrote a speech, etc. At one time I worked in a law library and did research for a living so in addition to her own research for debate, she also did a couple of hours a week of guided research with me where she learned a ton of research skills.) Outside classes - Intro to Counting & Probability, 0.5 credits (AoPS. She did the class this summer.) - World History through Film, 0.5 credits (Potter's School) - Health & Wellness, 0.5 credits (Potter's School) - PE: Club/year round swim team 10th At home - US Govt, 0.5 credits (I don't think she'll have time to study for the exam, but we're staying on an AP schedule just in case.) Outside - Advanced Composition , 1 credit (Potter's School. I'd like to add an American Literature component and call it an honors class. Or maybe award half a credit for a separate American Literature class. ?) - Spanish I, 1 credit (Potter's School) - Calculus 2 & 3, 0.5 credits each (She's hoping to get into the local CC Calc 2 class. We'll find out next week. If not, she'll do AoPS Intro to Number Theory/fall, Intermediate Counting & Probability/spring.) - AP Statistics, 1 credit (PA Homeschoolers) - AP Physics C: Mechanics and Electricity & Magnetism (PA Homeschoolers. I think I'm awarding one credit for the combined class instead of a whole credit each. This one confuses me.) - PE: swim team 11th All outside classes - AP English Comp (Maybe also AP Eng Lit. ?) - AP US History (Unless I can find her an international course on US History. She really wants to take a US History course from an outsider's perspective.) - Linear Algebra (Local CC. Or she could take more AoPS.) - Chemistry (She doesn't want to take the AP class. She could just take the Chem series at the local CC? She plans to take AP Biology. Maybe she should take AP Bio this year since junior year seems to be in the spotlight on the transcript. ?) - Spanish 2 - AP Micro/Macroeconomics - PE: at home, she doesn't want to swim all four years 12th All outside classes - AP English Lit - AP World History - some math ? - AP Bio - Spanish 3 - Art: Drawing (CC class) - PE

My daughter is enrolled in the same class. :) And I was wondering the same thing about assigning credit since the Mechanics only course is 1 credit by itself. Please let us know what you decide. After a pretty rigorous search online and on the forums, I haven't found something about assigning credits specifically to the combined Physics C: Mechanics and Electricity & Magnetism, but I am leaning toward just assigning 1 credit even though the combined class covers more material.

From what you posted, I'm not sure that I would sign my kids up for that particular class. We've been all the way through Calculus with Saxon. Like the other posters, I would not recommend skipping the end of any of the Saxon books. Also, I can't think of a Saxon book that had more than 140 lessons so even with tests, that's only about 160 days. The usual number of days in a school year is 180. That means a student who spends 20 extra days reviewing any difficult topics can still finish an entire Saxon book in one year. The first 40ish lessons are review. Since our kids like math, at the beginning of each year before doing any lessons we allowed them to take the first test. If they missed two or fewer, we let them skip the previous lessons and take the second test, and so on until they reached material that was new or wasn't completely mastered the previous year. They loved being able to skip lessons that way!

I personally think it is easier to learn two languages at the same time if they are from the same language family, but French will probably seem like a piece of cake after learning MSA. Because there is so much brute force memorization required when beginning a new language, I think it depends on how motivated you are to learn them both. If you love languages, why not? In college I took Spanish, French, and Russian concurrently. Russian was beautiful, but too time consuming so I dropped it. I did end up fluent in both Spanish and French though I've lost so much of my vocabulary over the years!

My oldest used Saxon all the way through Calculus. My middle daughter switched from Saxon to Jacob's for Alg I and Geometry and will use Foerster for Alg II next year. I personally wouldn't hesitate switching her back to Saxon for Alg II if she hadn't gotten tired of Saxon. There is so much review built into every problem set. Anything unfamiliar could probably be learned in a day or two through Khan Academy videos, etc. Saxon is a great choice if you want your student to be able to do a lot of the lessons independently. The DIVE CDs really make that doable for many students. My oldest only read the lesson in the book, never used the DIVE videos and my youngest preferred watching the DIVE videos and never read the lessons.

My daughter self-studied for AP Physics B this year. One thing I wish we would've realized is how different the content in her textbook (Saxon Physics) was from what was covered on the exam. She rocked the problem sets and tests in her textbook and finished at the end of March. That left barely enough time to work through a test prep book and master that content because the two approaches were so different. If I could do it over again, I would use a recommended text, I'd look at any and every AP Physics syllabus I could get my hands on, and I'd have her start test prep in the fall. Next year she is taking AP Phys C: Electricity & Magnetism and AP Phys C: Mechanics through Pennsylvania Homeschoolers. We found an awesome Calc and Physics tutor, but we hope the online class will have help specific to prepping for the exams.

Do you know if any of the classes are online or are they all in person?

My youngest (6th grade) is finishing the AoPS Algebra book. He did the pre-Alg book last year so he's had a lot of AoPS practice. The first year each lesson took more time. - He normally does all the exercises including star problems for a lesson in one sitting. That takes 1-2 hours. - Certain topics really challenge him so he breaks up the exercises for those over two days. The first day is two hours, but the second day always goes fast. I think they learn while they're sleeping sometimes! - The following day we work through any missed exercises. He has a difficult time knowing how to show his work on the problems for which he visualizes the answer. For those I have him verbally explain to me what he did. That helps him identify the steps he took so that he can write them down. - The next day he does the problems for the following lesson in the morning which takes about 30 minutes. In the afternoon we discuss the explanations from the book which takes about an hour. It would be easier to just have him read the solutions, but that is totally ineffective for some reason.

Our daughter self-studied for the AP Human Geography exam in 8th grade. She struggled with the recommended college text for the first three weeks. It was super interesting but very dense with unfamiliar technical language. She grew so much as a reader through that class. I would recommend AP Hum Geo as a first humanities AP because there are many past prompts with rubrics available for the writing portion which makes it easier for a less experienced writer to prepare for that section. We almost had her take the AP Physics B exam as well, but thought two APs might be too stressful so we pushed Physics to the next year. I'm glad we did because one AP was plenty for her. The amount of memorization and learning how to write to a rubric were the two most challenging aspects of prepping for the exam. Testing with older students energized her whereas my second daughter doesn't want to take an AP because she doesn't want to test with high schoolers. I will say that it was difficult to find a testing site. We called every high school in our district and were turned down by every single one even though we offered to pay for a proctor or do anything else necessary. After calling about 10 more, we contacted our superintendent and a school that had previously said they were full called us the next day. So make sure you leave plenty of time to find a testing site that will accommodate your student.

Just moved to NE Portland.

Thanks! SandyKC - thanks for the Marshall link. I'm going to check them out. Kiana - what you said about the usual math series is what I was afraid of. I'm hesitating to go the community college route because calculus has been her least favorite year so far. The content doesn't interest her. On the other hand, She is taking physics for the first time and loving it. So the idea of some applied math classes that MarkT suggested is probably something that would interest her and it's also an idea we hadn't thought of yet.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Has anyone gone an alternate route after calculus? What have you thought about the high school level AoPS? We are planning for next year for our 9th grade daughter who is taking the Calculus B AP exam this year. She has used and loved Saxon all the way through, no AoPS yet which means she has completed Saxon Algebra I & II, Advance Mathematics (precalc and trig), and Geometry (not a stand alone, a full year is supposedly contained in the previous three texts). Last year our son switched to AoPS so we're familiar with the AoPS books through Algebra I. We're trying to weigh out which would be a better plan for her 10th-12th years: the usual college math sequence or taking some AoPS classes or a different sequence altogether. Would it be worthwhile to take AoPS Calculus next year? What are the pros and cons of going the community college route up through linear algebra/differential equations over the next three years vs. taking AoPS counting and probability, and number theory? She likes, not loves, math and prefers the practical over the theoretical which makes me wonder about going the AoPS route. She wants to be a writer, but I could also see her enjoying any number of jobs that would involve math so I'd like to help her keep that door open. Thanks!

We had our youngest son tested (IQ and achievement) by a psychologist last year. And that was only because we took him to a math circle where the professor took me aside after the first day and insisted that I sign my son up for a math camp during summer and to try for Epsilon camp. I was so taken aback that I actually decided to take his advice. To be honest, it was a really difficult decision for me to get my son tested. Labels can be so constricting, even when they're supposed to be positive. But I decided to view the results as just a snapshot of my child on one day of one developmental stage. I'm so glad we did have him tested. Was it helpful? Yes. A few things really stand out to me. It was lovely hearing the psychologist describe my quirky daydreamer as "a very centered individual." Although the IQ test was enlightening, the achievement testing was the most helpful in a practical sense. My son has had a ton of practice writing because I love writing and literature. He loves to read, but writing is difficult for him. I've always assumed he was just not interested or trying very hard in writing, but the achievement test showed a gigantic gap between writing and every other skill tested. He's had more practice in writing than almost anything else which made it pretty clear that his difficulty with writing is not an attitude issue, but a developmental one. And the IQ test results helped explain why my son can clearly "see" a complex math solution in his mind, but has such difficulty showing his work or even clearly explaining how he got the correct solution. I felt like I got to know this wonderful little person in a new way. It can be difficult to engage and challenge all of my kids academically now that they're 15, 13, and 11. The testing really helped me understand that there is a reason for that. Before I had my youngest tested, when I had a day where I wished I had multiple bachelor's degrees so I could have a deeper discussion on some topic they're learning about, I'd tell myself I was probably crazy. Now I realize that when I feel that way, I'm not crazy, the degrees would truly be of use! The psychologist also provided a detailed recommendation for accommodations in case we ever enroll our son in school. I imagine that would be a great resource for advocating for a student's needs. Did it change how you work with your child? Yes, though I didn't expect it to. The writing thing was eye-opening. Now I'm providing more scaffolding in my instruction. We also spend time every math lesson writing out his mental solutions together. He's improving! I have also provided more of a challenge in his reading, since I didn't realize just how developed he is as a reader. I wasn't assigning easy texts by any means, but I was saving most of the great high school level books because I know he can't write a good essay about them yet. Now I realize he's hungry to read them and to think about their ideas even if his writing won't do them justice. What resources have you found helpful? I haven't used any "gifted" resources that weren't already open to us before we tested. We have used some though. We used Dr. Palmer in Laguna Beach, CA for testing. He was very relaxed and professional and charged a flat fee. My son attended Epsilon math camp this summer. Great experience for my son and I learned a lot in the parent sessions. Fullerton Math Circle. The Orange County Math Circle hosts MathCounts practices and an all girls tournament among other things. My son has participated in the AMC 8. Awesome challenge! Athena's Advanced Academy. http://www.palmerlearning.com/ http://www.epsiloncamp.org/ http://news.fullerton.edu/2012fa/Math-Circle.asp http://ocmathcircle.org/ http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/amc-8 http://www.athenasacademy.com/

Hi! I'd appreciate your suggestions - I'm looking for a math program for prealgebra and above that explains conceptually why things are done, not one that focuses mainly on the methods used to solve problems. We've used Saxon math all along with our three kids and supplemented with Singapore math. Last year our middle daughter (6th grade) hit a wall in Saxon 8/7. She started to consistently get about 22 out of 30 on the problem sets. I figured out that the problem is that she doesn't clearly remember the underlying concepts and can't tell you what happens in a complicated problem. Somehow she got through the other books by getting excellent grades by just following the steps, but now the problems are too difficult. I switched her mid-year to Singapore math 5A/5B to review, but now what? We don't want to use Singapore's high school series.