I remember a ruder playground saying from my school days. "I am Chinese. I am Japanese. Dirty knees, look at these." The kids would pull the corners of their eyes up and down to make slant eyes at me and then pull at the front of their shirt (simulating breasts). I also dreaded Pearl Harbor Day. Kids would routinely throw clods of dirt and rocks at me and my siblings when we walked to school.

If she loves SM, maybe take a look at Singapore's Dimensions math either 7-8 or 6-8 depending on where you are in Singapore. The style would be similar. 6-8 takes you through pre-algebra and algebra. https://www.singaporemath.com/Dimensions_Math_s/339.htm

Money always comes with strings. That's my two cents.

@goldenecho Yes, you can. I will pm you my facebook posts which I have made public. Some of my comments I made above I didn't make on my page. You can attribute it to me. I know you are in my local area. I think I will be rewriting my thoughts about this on my blog drawing in all my social media posts and comments on this thread.

@wathe I totally meant to tag you in there as well. Totally brain fog on my part. I think you are super aware as the dominant culture spouse in your relationship. All my in-laws on my husband's side are white. He has four sisters. I don't often get a sense that they are aware like you are. I can't really see them calling out anything because they just aren't wired up that way. Sort of opposite in my family, all of us married Chinese as did most of my cousins as well. Whoa...I just read your links. That's just...incomprehensible.

Hmmm...do you think it is worth continuing to pursue a diagnosis. I know nothing about it, but two of my nephews were not diagnosed until they were in college. Things really came to a head. Also, their mother is an MD so it is rather surprising to me that it was not picked up earlier.

You know I did not feel comfortable expressing my feelings afterwards about it because of this. I made a trade off decision about whether or not to engage and did not feel I had enough relational credit to do it with a guaranteed productive outcome. And that's often why POC just put up with things all the time. Otherwise, we get labeled as that angry POC. I will also add that I could never say what @HomeAgain said and call it that. I don't have that power.

I also want to write to say that I am really quite pleased by the tone of the conversation in this thread. I want to commend all of you for your desire to engage constructively. That is what I always try to work towards when I start conversations on these sorts of topics. Though to be honest, I do not start them very often because it does take an emotional toll because of the amount of time and effort. I am simultaneously engaged in this same topic in several forums. One of them is an adoption forum where it is majority white who adopted from China. I am a small minority there who has same race adoption. To be honest, It has been the most challenging place to have this discussion as you can imagine.

Spot on! That's precisely the main point behind the critiques of the VBS curriculum. While clearly no one is saying the Group intentionally did this, there are specific aspects of the curriculum that contributes toward perpetuating stereotypes. The larger issue is what is going on in the institutional group think and culture that led to this. I honestly do believe that the writers were well intentioned but lacked the lens and perspective to recognize these efforts were counterproductive to their intent. I do want to make it absolutely clear that I do not believe in anyway that there was any intent. This is why I actually take issue with labeling this as racist. That goes too far in my opinion. I think people can be well intentioned and simultaneously be racially insensitive. This does not mean that they are racists to me. It means that they lack awareness. Things are far too polarized when I do think people are really more on a continuum. When you know better, you do better, but you can't do better if no one ever helps you to learn to know better.

I think that if you are not a person of color, you may not understand the visceral reaction that POC with a mother tongue other than English would feel about the language aspect. I can tell you as a Chinese American, this vividly brought back the hundreds of times throughout my childhood when other children pretended to speak Chinese by saying "Ching chong chee." This was by and far the same reaction that was widely expressed in the Asian American faith communities when this aspect of the curriculum was brought up. So, I am gently going to say, perhaps if you are not a POC with a mother tongue other than English, you likely do not have the broader life experience of why using language this way is considered offensive and insensitive by POC. People mistakenly think they are honoring or celebrating a people's language by doing stuff like this, but I have to be honest in telling you that it is not perceived that way at all by POC. I doubt that any of you would have had my recent experience of going to a homeschool event with my son and a Korean American family for a Q & A with a World War II veteran and listen to him use the words "Chink," "Gook," "Jap,"and "Oriental" over and over and throughout the presentation. I think you can extrapolate what those stories sounded like. My great grandfather fought in WW1 for the United States, and this is what I have to listen to. Our family has been in the US for 5 generations. Despite that, I stayed seated with my son and respectfully listened even though I cringed every time I heard another racist term used. For those who don't know, these are akin to the n-word among Asian Americans. I still had my son shake his hand, thank the veteran for his service and for speaking and the organizers for the event. Not a single word from the organizers to either of us about recognizing what was wrong about his language. This is happening now. These are things are things that I live with every single day even in 2019. Every POC lives with experiences like these every single day. ETA: I wrote this only in the interest of continuing to have an open conversation about this in the hopes of helping majority culture people understand and hopefully learn about a different perspective.

@nwahomeschoolmom Not to derail this thread, but someone shared this recently with me. I thought it was so insightful. Completely changed how I understand autism, and I have 3 nephews with autism. https://theaspergian.com/2019/05/04/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/?fbclid=IwAR0FRdwssQmoNENaikmRj6kL9x8ZGDJ2uhbOPZg981kYED8x8x_1wxa-WLk

This is incredibly well written. It's the best piece I have seen in about this whole thing and resonates with my own viewpoint on this. It's from United Methodist Church. I would definitely share this with churches. It's not HuffPo or a blogger or a media news outlet. It's thoughtful and has a great guideline on how to think about and evaluate curricula choices. You don't have to follow it to a T, but it helps people who really have no idea how to begin to think about these questions to start. So incredibly helpful. http://www.gcorr.org/vbs-is-not-immune-to-racism/?fbclid=IwAR0yNtcyyOox_3q3iwfH0svyA1nd3pOz3UvGPUNzs5CwC0gsWsmntWhJZew

Honestly, even if you get a sample, when you really don't know what is in there until you buy the kit. I taught for years in children's ministry and was a youth ministry director for years. We often used Group's materials. The sample video they provided about this doesn't give a full picture of what was actually in that script. The kicker is if you open it that you can't return it. I am hoping that Group will consider offering a no questions asked return this kit for a refund or offer a credit to be redeemed in the future toward a replacement VBS kit. Something like that would be a signficant act that would restore a ton of credibility and faith in Group. That's what I plan to suggest if and when I talk to them as a possible path forward.

I wrote this: I am personally not joining the call to ban churches who have unknowingly purchased this curriculum. I am trying to forge another way forward to preserve relationship and engage in conversation. My own church purchased this as they purchase Group's VBS kit every year as long as I can remember. Our program is due to start in 10 days. It's too late to pull it. I am engaged currently in helping them respond to this. Right now, I have gotten agreement to modify the program. I am in progress on some other points I have made, and the senior leadership is meeting this morning about this. I am personally not going to allow my children to wear the shirts. I have asked the church to consider pulling the shirts and replace them with something else even plain t-shirts. I am working with them on a public statement and because we are a mega church, Group has been in contact with our church. I am hopeful that the dialogue with Group's representatives will be fruitful as they have expressed a desire to talk to me about this. I have asked our church to not purchase Group's products going forward until Group has acknowledged the wrongs and made some tangible steps toward reconcilation and restoration. I believe that this is an important step as Group is a large curriclum provider. Later this: I have really great news. My church is pulling it in its entirety. They are going to pull together their own with 10 days to go. I have been praying about my communications with the senior leadership. I am beyond words that they heard me out and want to step out and make a statement about the value our church places on inclusion and diversity in our pursuit of winning people to. They want our actions to reflect our words and this does not reflect the message of love and acceptance that Christ offers to all people. Adding this comment: i have been careful not to label this curriculum as racist. I am pointing out that there are flaws in this. Flaws that are significant enough to speak up about it. Perpeturating racial sterotypes and cultural appropriation are not acceptable. As a Christian and a person of color, I have to speak up. I am not condemning the whole company either. This company has a huge reach. Millions of children will be exposed to this. If they are given this, modeled and taught this as it stood, then then they will internalize that this is acceptable and normalize it. They do not have the lens or experience to recognize it as inappropriate and racially insensitive. Unless people speak out (hopefully and always in truth and love) to admonish andr rebuke, then no change will happen. There must be many (based on the responses I keep reading) of white Christians who are my brothers and sisters who do not see anything wrong with this. That is exactly why speaking up about this is important to start conversations with them in relationship and community so that they can learn to understand why this is a big deal and why these parts of this curriculum are problematic. When you have a big platform like this, it comes with a great deal of responsibility to use it wisely. Group can do better. I hope it does do better. I do not want their company to be destroyed by this. They are moving in the right direction, but what they have communicated so far still indicates that there is still work to be done. I often think the God does the greatest transformative work in our lives during the painful and most challenging times. I realize that this must be that for them. I truly hope that they would see that there are most people truly desire for them to come through this and to help them through to grow in this area.

This is what I wrote on social media about this: This is their revised (multiple times) response on their page which still underwhelms. They have since pulled twitter and facebook. Especially in the revision file which reads as follows: "We’re thankful for VBS leaders who have alerted us to several concerns in Roar VBS that could be considered insensitive. We sincerely apologize, and offer these modifications to help your Roar experience be the very best for all your children and community." The comments on their FB page are making me sad that so many people are failing to hear and listen to POC, and that so many white people are commenting that there is nothing to apologize for and trying to racesplain to POC. Conditional apologies are NOT apologies. Apologies that do not actually acknowledge a wrong are Not apologies. It WAS insensitive. It WAS racial stereotyping. It WAS offensive. https://www.facebook.com/groupvbs/posts/3675269029172426?hc_location=ufi

If your church is using Group's Roar VBS program, please start a conversation with them and ask them to reconsider. It's racially insensitive and completely tone deaf. We can do better. We should do better. Christian publishing needs to listen more to ethnic faith communities because apparently they did not learn from Lifeway's debacle. Group's posts about this on Twitter and Facebook responding to this were also tone deaf and have since been pulled down. https://faithfullymagazine.com/africa-vacation-bible-school-plan/

I came back to comment that Mark T wrote this review about UC Scout's Physics 2 course in the pinned high school forum thread about physics courses.

I agree that OP's son can use credit by exam for her application, but that doesn't necessarily solve graduation requirements for the schools she is looking at. That is individual to the school. Some might let you test out. Others may not. There's no consistent policy on that.

One other question I would suggest you get answered before you commit to doing these APs in 8th grade is whether or not you need your B&M school to give high school credit for the courses completely. For example, in my area, they would only allow you to count math and foreign language toward high school credits, but not any other courses. So physics would not solve finishing a high school credit for science unless that is not a concern for you. By any chance are you in CA? if so, you must be even more careful about this with the a-g approved courses which will affect you as well as how geometry will be validated. A non-issue for private homeschoolers, but a big issue in what your future institution will permit on the transcripts. 3 potential APs exams is a lot for an 8th grader who sounds like he has zero AP experience. The other issue is being able to secure a spot to actually test which this being the first year when registration has moved to October...no one actually knows how this is actually going to play out in terms of access.

Be very careful, if you are homeschooling privately for high school and want to do BM high school midway through, then be prepared for them not to accept high school credits for homeschooled courses. I would find out now what they will and won't accept or you might find your son forced to repeat courses to satisfy the school's requirements.

I would work on fine motor skills. Lots of stuff available online to help with that have nothing to do with writing but will help with the underlying muscles that he needs for writing.

I personally don't think you should skip PA. There is a lot of really deep math in there. It goes way beyong other PA programs. You do have the option now to do their self-paced course. My son just finished it this past year at the same age. It took him about 10 months. I think others have said they have taken 18 months or longer. My son grew a lot this year and had really taken the driver seat with his math and self-taught through the text. It really helped him (or rather forced him) to organize his work neatly, write out solutions, think more thoughtfully and deeply about maths, and develop more stamina. It is most definitely not a waste of time to do it. While we could have moved right on to Algebra, we are taking a side journey into Jacobs' MHE which has been great fun for him. I like that he is enjoying the side journeys that we are taking along the way since we have time on our side.

If you think instructional DVDs might help, there are the Dr. Callahan DVDs which people do sell used.

look on abebooks, thriftbooks and alibris by ISBN #, loads of used bookstores list on there. For used curriculum, the most action these days are on facebook homeschool groups. I frequent Homeschool Curriculum Marketplace. There are several with this name, but the one I have bought and sold on has 70K people.

Just throwing it out there that Singapore's DImensions math series is visually pretty appealing. 6 to 8 cover pre-algebra through algebra. So you could do a placement and she where she lands. Singapore Math Live is adding DM 7 & 8 to their offerings so there are lectures and solution recordings. https://www.singaporemath.com/Dimensions_Math_s/339.htm https://www.singaporemathlive.com/dimensions-math.html