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My dd was excited to start AoPS Pre-Alg (at 10), but then was a little shocked and overwhelmed at the effort it took. She's flown through everything thus far, so having to really, really think about something was a bit much. I had to make her do it at first, and then she had a bit of a break down and just sort of went blank, like it was all too over-whelming and hard. We had a big talk about it all, and took a short break. We had company for a week, so it was just sort of coincidental. During that week, she kept going back to the book on her own, and keeps coming to tell me things she's discovered from reading/working through it. I was debating about making her push through, or finding something else after her first dismayed reaction, but now I'm glad we waited it out. She LOVES it now, and now that she isn't choosing to be scared and overwhelmed by it, continues to shock me with how quickly she's moving through, and the connections she's making. It is definitely a superior program to anything I was offered, and making friends with it, while difficult, I, personally, feel is a good thing to do. So, if you decide to go with it, give it a little time, and see if she clicks with it. It's not as bad as it seems after you get a feel for it.

What is it called when a child is gifted, but does not process information quickly? What about when they are gifted, but can't remember things? Thanks.

Awesome! Thanks, Everyone!

I forgot about the short history book! She'll love that! The space book is Failure is Not an Option, by Gene Krantz.

Dd is really into science, specifically physics and engineering, and the space program. She is really enjoying reading a book by the director of the flight program through the Apollo missions. She's gathering so much random knowledge, and big picture understanding, as well as tidbits about the people who contributed to the space program itself. The other day, she asked me if there was something like this book, but with a chemistry focus? She is already working through a basic physics book, and we have a chemistry one in the mail. Both are conceptual, and don't require advanced math, beyond the bit of algebra she can already handle. She said not history, or a story, or a workbook/textbook, but a pick up and read book about chemistry that is meaty, yet accessible to an 11 year old. She's already pretty much memorized the Basher books, and the cartoon chemistry book. I think she's looking for something that brings Chemistry to life, like this book about the Apollo program has done. Chemistry is not my thing, and I'm feeling a little unsure of where to go with it, besides biographies, which she specifically doesn't want. Any ideas?

My dd (almost 11) is doing a chapter every other week, about an hour a day. Some weeks take a little longer, and she is doing every problem. I'm not teaching anything except to give her a bit of a hint which direction to be thinking when she gets really stuck. She went through Singapore about a semester a month, 20-30 minutes a day. She was hoping to do both AOPS pre-algebra and algebra before she turns 12, but I think it's going to take her more like 9 months each. ETA: It's been really good for her to struggle and have to think really hard, but her fast computation/conceptual understanding skills have made it possible to not be extremely frustrated. I am considering letting her go through another algebra program afterwards to rebuild her confidence a bit.

Nevermind.

It might be helpful for her for you to start at the end when you are teaching her. Most of my children learn this way, also, and it makes them seem like they are more ahead than they are at times. Let's take music theory. If I teach my child a scale one day, and then another another day, they tend to get confused and frustrated. It seems logical to do it in parts and pieces, but a different approach goes far better. I start at the other end. First I define a scale, and explain how to create one. I mention major and minor and chromatic. Then I tell them exactly how many scales there are. I mention modes and the like, and tell them that isn't something they need to think about now, just know they exist. I'm typically drawing a diagram that looks something like a family tree as I'm talking. This is brief, just a few minutes, but it places everything into perspective, and answers the "What if" questions kids like this find so distracting. Now I can say, usually, the first scale we spend a lot of time practicing is c major. It's fun and easy to play because you don't have to think about flats and sharps. It's used for x kind of music. Like, this song. And now I can finally introduce the song I want them to play. We still don't just play it, though. We look at the whole thing and see the parts that repeat, the limited number of notes, and etc. Big picture kids can struggle because they have more questions than answers. It's not that it's arbitrary, necessarily, it's that everything is relevant, and until we know what things aren't, we are trying to sort all of it, and are waiting to draw conclusions or solidify anything in our minds until we know that's all. We find it incredibly frustrating to be told another little piece of something. I feel like the instructor has been holding out! What ELSE do I not know?!? How can I possibly be sure that 2+3=5 when something like a - comes along? Does it matter if the 3 or the 2 come first? What if....and on and on and on... My oldest dd is flying through Japanese, finally! I told her that once people learn about 5000 words, they can be reasonably conversational in most languages. All the pieces of learning kana, and some grammar, and lists of vocabulary about colors or clothes or what have you, wasn't working. Now that she knows exactly what she is trying to do... BAM! She learned 200 words last week, and can go from English to Japanese and back, and can write them in kana. She just needed the big picture. When are we done? What are we accomplishing?

Yes, I'm much like that, too. You might find some answers by reading about whole to parts learning. The whole system idea the pp mentioned is how I see things. I can listen to a 40 minute lecture, and pretty much get zero out of it because he didn't tell me at the outset what he was trying to say. I spend the whole time trying to remember all the random parts so I can reorganize them to my mind's liking. By the end of a talk that long, there have been so many parts, I'm done. I might walk out with a neat new quote, but that's about it. I don't particularly enjoy museums for the same reason. All those random placards everywhere mean nothing to me because they don't have clear enough context. Numbers as what they are make sense, but numbers as an abstract figure do not necessarily follow. Written math is a language that is separate from understanding math. It's okay that she isn't ready for the representation of written math. The same thing with the song. It does sound a little odd to me that she hasn't memorized it yet, after a whole year? But I do know that I don't really memorize things that way either. Again, I have to reorder it and make associations to other things to remember it. For the record, I was a straight A student with no learning disabilities, and I didn't really do homework. I can memorize just fine, and have a great memory. It's not my ability, it's the teaching method.

Wow, I love the plug and play idea. Good call. My younger kids struggle with these, too. We have talked about switching animals around on a scale, which can be done with pictures. Miquon...I want to say the first book of third grade? has some scales with blocks and circles that work this way. d+c+m=12 c+m+m=10 d+m+m+m=14 So, if I were trying to keep the scale balanced, I could put a d, c, and m on one side, what do I have to do to the other side? Well, I could put a cat and two monkeys and a two pound weight (just draw 2 blocks) over there. Oh, so what if I had a d, c, and m on one side and I wanted to do something with the dog and 3m? I could add a two lb weight to the d c m side. Or! What if I started with weights? I could put a 10 pound weight on that side, and the cat and two monkeys on this side. I wonder what would happen when I took the monkeys off? And then after just playing around like that for a while, with no particular place to go, we start wondering things like, if I had 10 pounds, and I took off those two monekys, I guess I'd just have a cat left. So, does that mean 10 pounds minus 2 monkeys is the same thing as a cat? Huh, then I guess maybe I could switch my scale around like this...d + 10 pounds -2monkeys, plus a monkey = 12 pounds. So maybe 14 pounds minus 3 monkeys is a dog? Then I could trade the dog for 14 pounds-3 monkeys plus 10 pounds minus 2 monkeys...plus a monkey. And by this point we are really laughing. But then we work through the pile of stuff we've made, and realize that 24 pounds - 4 monkeys is 12 pounds. And I could put less stuff on the scale if I just took 12 pounds off both sides, because that's the same, isn't it? It's just extra. And then, it's kind of weird to keep remembering to subtract these silly monkeys, so maybe we should just PUT monkeys on the other side, and then we don't have to think about it. So these twelve blocks, and those 4 monkeys...if I separated THEM...one monkey gets 3 blocks. And we just keep playing and playing and eventually we know what everything weighs, and who the friends are, and who can sneak off the scale and no one notice, as long as his friends help... Obviously, they don't have the time to play these games while they are taking the test, but I think it really, really helps them get a feel for what equals what and how to get where they need to go. It becomes a lot faster and a lot more intuitive with time. Miquon is helpful because they start with just two variables, but by the end of a couple of pages, you are doing three.

Brandishing a weapon? Anything illegal about that? It's his body language (and dress), not his gun that makes that picture so awful.

Stalking? He is harassing that poor woman. Open carry and intimidation aren't the same things. I don't care what color of skin is under that mask, that guy is highly inappropriate. He's a vigilante looking for a fight. Not okay. At all. And I'm okay with open carry, by any respectable looking person, of any color.

I didn't read all the posts, but I did select "additional...not listed." I think there should be MUCH stricter consequences for foolish uses of a weapon. If your weapon causes an "accident", 30 years to life. Minimum. If your weapon is the cause of an accident, or crime, whether or not you are aware of it, 30 years to life. Or whatever. Very strict. Sometimes I feel like more regulations are simply telling people, "Yep, you can't handle it. We knew you were incompetent and untrustworthy. You need the government to protect you from yourself." And that really only goes so far. A downtrodden and untrusted person will eventually revolt. Heavily regulating guns in the short term will work, but it will not be the same America it once was. Something else has changed...maybe it's our culture and not our guns. Instead of stripping an entire country of its ability to control itself, perhaps a government by the people and for the people returns to regulating itself. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. Edited to add I actually did read them all. Oops.