Thanks, Regentrude. I always appreciate your insights, especially now as my very smart, severely dysgraphic son will soon be navigating the world of college classes and professors.

The method is good for any age. The dvds can be watched with middle schoolers or older. I really like the dvds as I wouldn't have been able to do it with just the workbook.

I think the requirement is two years of a foreign language OR demonstrated competency. It's kinda hard to tell from the website. Homeschoolers that I know have not had any trouble getting into UK or UofL and I've never heard of anyone jumping through hoops to get specific sciences or foreign language competence here in KY. Yes, there is a statewide homeschool association for KY - I don't know much about it as very few people belong to it. They do have a best practice guidelines for homeschoolers that is followed by many.

I don't think polls like this put people at ease - they are obviously skewed. It's interesting though. I think the WTM forums draw a lot of over-achievers that are in no way average in the first place. Also, no matter how anonymous, I'm not sure that the lower scoring folks will be as likely to bother posting scores or even clicking on the subject title. Edited to add that at the moment over 25% of the respondents have kids scoring in the top 1 percentile.

This thread just threw me for a loop as I'm from KY and U of L is somewhere to be considered. I know honors students from public schools don't generally do earth science/astronomy as one of their science credits, but I know they get admitted. I wonder what U of L says about the basic biology, chemistry, physics sequence - I may call them and ask. These obviously meet life and physical science, you can argue about whether they meet earth/astronomy requirements. My son will have a very competitive math/science background and high ACT so it'd be crazy not to admit him based on an earth science requirement. Note - both U of L and UK also have a fine arts requirement.

I find the dvds very helpful. They are also appropriate to watch with at least middle school aged kids.

My son is registered for physics with Jeff Lanctot for next year. The other teacher is new to PA Homeschoolers but is a known teacher and has sample classes and student reviews elsewhere on the internet. Both sound like good teachers, but with different styles. I made my decision based on what I perceived to be class format and style after reading reviews, looking at samples, asking some questions of the teachers and knowing my son's learning style. From everything I can gather, both sound like good classes, but very different formats (and books). I like the Giancoli book and am not familiar with the other textbook.

I agree with AAS. Also agree with watching the IEW teacher videos. They are very worthwhile even if you don't use all of IEW material in the future.

My struggling writer (high school) was tremendously helped by Brave Writer online classes. They are not cheap, but well worth the money here.

Physics in your Life Everyday Engineering Understanding the World's Greatest Structures - Science and Innovation from Antiquity to Modernity Understanding Greek and Roman Technology These are definitely not aimed at kids and they can be somewhat dry, but my little guy loves to watch these and it's amazing what he picks up. My favorite is Everyday Engineering of the above listed.

My 8 year old loves the physics and engineering courses.

The workbooks are available from lulu.com. I own the course on flashdrive, and no I'm not selling. If you have a motivated student, then you can do what I'm doing with one of mine - he doing DO physics at double time with me paying half-price and doing all the grading, support, etc. This makes it where I'm not paying for nine months, but much less.

edX is another source of free lectures.

I wanted to add that a strong math student can come from about any program and start in AoPS Prealgebra. Everything is taught from the beginning, but weaker students will struggle with the speed and not having done a lot of practice on easier problems. There are many of us that had students jump from 5th grade math to AoPS Algebra, but it isn't something I'd recommend. I've had both types of students in my home, and I've tutored a number of students that are having trouble with the transition to AoPS Prealgebra.

I would have a difficult time calling it introductory physics if that is all the physics he got as it is non-traditional. I wouldn't have a difficult time calling it introductory physics if followed up by an AP or DE calculus physics course later. ... of course that is if the workload (time and output) are sufficient.

I would first recommend Teaching the Classics, second the poetry program.

The things I find most kids (as well as my dd who has just started AoPS PreA from Beast) have trouble with are: Exponents - everything is taught in AoPS PreA, bu it is a huge step up from where most have been - especially cancelling exponents within fractions Negative numbers - especially distributing negatives over parentheses Distributive property - be good at using the distributive property as a prerequisite to factoring Order of operations Fractions - especially how to manipulate and cancel when multiplying and dividing fractions; also how to turn a division problem into a fraction to simplify before solving The first few chapters are the hardest.

Here's a resource for some free labs that go with Conceptual Physics. I tend to like many of these better than the lab book the goes with the textbook. http://www.arborsci.com/conceptual-physics-supplementary-labs Be sure to open the student and teacher pdf pages that go with each lab. While this isn't a complete list of labs for all topics, it is a great resource.

There are lots of ways to learn chemistry theory from books, but here are some suggestions for lab ideas that can be done with any curriculum. 150 Captivating Chemistry Experiments Using Household Items http://www.amazon.com/Captivating-Chemistry-Experiments-Household-Substances/dp/0971848025 Also 150 More Captivating Chemistry Experiments.

I don't really know what you should do, but wanted to reiterate some of the thoughts above. IF you think he's ready for prealgebra, I see no reason you can't do AoPS. I do think it is likely to be a hard transition from where you are at. Take it one step at a time and let him set the pace (in other words, don't schedule the pace at all - it won't go according to plan). Don't be fooled - the placement tests are deceptively easy. The books are tough. Consider Beast as a transition. Not all the 5th grade books are out yet, but even the 4th grade ones would be great.

If you grade it yourself and don't use any support, then you can pay half-price for Derek Owens. All the videos, homework, tests, solutions - just no support of grading or questions. Also you can go at your own pace and potentially can go faster than scheduled.

My daughter just transitioned from DO prealgebra to AoPS prealgebra. AoPS definately will be more of a challenge for her. IF you want to move on to algebra, I'd ask the school you are interested in for high school if he can test out of algebra. They may not accept homeschool classes for the transcript, but many schools will allow you to place out of algebra - though still requiring you to take 4 years of high school math IN high school.

I wouldn't start any new "curriculum". It's okay to wait until fall, but I'd be inclined to do copywork. Pick a sentence or paragraph from whatever she is reading. Have her copy it and discuss the grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc. orally. Nothing formal. Low key and easy to be inconsistent on but still do whenever you think of it. It's amazing how much they can pick up from this copywork.

Can a "basic" geometry course be covered in a month (in 1-2 hours per day, not full time) - No. Too much to cover if you want to do it well. Can you teach a student who has a good algebra base and good elementary geometry base, the geometry and trig required for college board testing in a month - probably. My main problem with this is that it is surface level teaching and doesn't achieve much other than teaching to the test, which definitely has some value.

I agree with much of what has already been stated. The placement tests for AoPS are deceptively easy compared to the books. Many students who can do all the problems on the placement tests are not ready for the challenge of that level of book. I love starting with the AoPS Prealgebra book. .. and I would recommend most anyone start here especially if your child is on the younger side. Go fast, try out other AoPS intro books, have fun, but the prealgebra book lays a great foundation and will make the transition to the Algebra book much easier. Alcumus is a great introduction to how AoPS does things, however I do think Alcumus is slightly easier than the textbook. All the answers have to be number answers whereas the textbook will often ask the student to explain something which takes a higher level of understanding. Don't be afraid to move away from AoPS if it becomes too frustrating for your student. As you go farther along, the books get very tough.