Amazing resources! We've used AoPS so far--and find their feedback on the not-every-week challenge sets to be very complete and extraordinarily complete. BUT--the responses are not regular every week. If you are hoping for more routine, every-assignment response--AoPS may not meet your needs.

I'd love to hear what you think. Keep us posted!

I've heard good things about (but had no personal experience with) Virtual High School: http://www.govhs.org/Pages/Academics-Catalog

Congratulations, everybody! I hope we can be in this august crowd next year when DS starts Latin.

Thanks, Jann. Your comments are extremely useful to me as I try to figure out where we are going next year and in the following years. :001_smile:

I'm a huge fan of the TC lectures. _How to Look at_ is fabulous. It starts out with a discussion of big things to look for in art (like focal point or perspective) and ends with a big-picture overview of art history. A great introduction. I loved the prof's style but my husband fell asleep... I watched the Kloss lectures back when my son was about 6. Although I wanted to see them just for myself, I was thrilled when my son fell in love with the lecturer and decided he wanted to watch them all as well. Kloss is quite formal and not someone you'd necessarily think a first grader would love--but he is passionate and a terrific teacher. Best of luck! I can't wait until my 12yo is ready for AP Art History.

Wondering the same thing and would love to hear some advice/thoughts!

Do any of you have children taking Latin via Lukeion? Or do any of you know whether they prepare students well for the exam, in general?

I too use "mathy" to mean passionate about math more than other subjects. I think AoPS appeals to students who are strong "N" thinkers (on the Myers-Briggs personality). Interestingly, a lot of kids who are good at math computation are strong S thinkers. AoPS is very different from the typical math approach. AoPS is aimed at the big-picture visionairies (N) rather than the rigorous linear thinkers (S). (I am vastly simplifying what Myers-Briggs means by N and S...) In general, I think a child who has been convinced she is "NOT mathy" (because computation bored her) just might decide she "IS mathy" when she starts working with AoPS.

We're not there yet--but my son loves both Thinkwell and Art of Problem Solving for math. Both have Calculus books.

Will the "This kid doesn't need a photo ID" card that Talent Searches send out (or which at least our local Talent Search sends out) still work?

The deal is now up at HBC.

I'm so glad to hear good reviews! My son, almost 13yo, wants to try this next year. Thanks for the tip about HSBC's sale. Do you think it would be too much to do some major essay work during the same year?

I agree, Robin. There are a lot of interesting observations throughout the curriculum--and many of the end units are nice. Fundamentally, though, the curric is pretty disappointing as a presentation of literary analysis. I can't imagine using this with a high school group. It seems much better suited for a 7th grader who loves to read but hasn't been taught yet to read serious literature in an analytical or critical way. And as Robin said, a teacher really needs to do the work of connecting some analytical dots across chapters. My son and I zip through the plot summaries and vocab orally--but I can imagine it might make reasonable "suggested homework" or something. Don't make kids spend the time on this kind of busywork unless they are struggling with the reading. And don't let yourself get bogged down in this stuff with the whole co-op class. My son (12yo) has absolutely loved LOTR as a book--and he's enjoying the curric enormously. Doing it at this moment when he is going through this transformation from little kid to young adult (academically and emotionally) was absolutely perfect. I'm so glad we stumbled in to this now rather than later.

I'm currently doing LOTR with my son. I can imagine that it would work VERY well with a group. A great deal of the curriculum is guided discussion--sometimes hard to do with only one parent and one child. Does anyone have any experience doing it as a group? (My great apologies if this mention is against the rules--but I'll have a clean copy of both the teacher's manual and the student book at the end of the school year. PM me if you're looking for a used copy.)

I would love to hear other responses. My son is at the very beginning and we've been hoping AP would be a way to give rigor and have accountability. I am so disturbed to hear that some APs test just memorization and "useless trivia," as you say. Have other felt this, too? In most subjects? I think I need to head to the bookstore and peruse some AP practice guides...

Absolutely! What highly selective schools chose 30 years ago and what they chose now is pretty much identical: students who show they have thrived in an academically challenging and relatively balanced situation before college AND have had some passion that made their application stick out of the pile. When admissions folks are looking at a stack of 100 kids with 99% scores in everything they've done, the thing that makes that 1 who will be accepted stand out is where they've specialized and seem effervescent. When admissions folks are looking at a stack of 100 kids with passion, it is the kid who has done well is a complex mix of difficult studies who will win their support. If you're applying to less selective schools, I can easily imagine how either path might get you admitted. For the terribly selective, you really need both. And both passion and breadth has to be combined with a lot of luck, given the numbers these days!

Thanks for the note about Stats. I see great things on the list about her class! And you are absolutely right about the Int NT book. If we get to it before they have a book, I suppose my son might take the class. Has your son enjoyed it?

What do you think of the video lectures for geology?

Sounds like we're thinking about pretty similar trajectories. I'm eager to hear how other people answer your question! We're thinking: 8th: Astronomy for one semester and Earth Sciences for one semester (using TC videos as well as books) 9th: Environmental Science 10-12 Bio, Chem, Physics w/calc (unsure of order) (I have a pretty nerdy son and I can imagine that he might want to take AP exams or take college classes for all of his high school sciences. We'll see how things go.)

Your daughter shouldn't go to Chapel Hill if it feels wrong to her--but I will say that an atheist friend who recently graduated from Chapel Hill felt she had to hide her lack of religion because she felt a campus assumption that all students were Christian. YMMV, of course...

We loved the AoPS Number Theory and Counting and Prob books. There is an intermediate book for both subjects as well, which I think we may work through soon. I'm interested in the idea of my son taking Statistics before Calculus. Have any of you had experience with kids doing that? It would work really well for us. My husband thinks Calc is pretty straightforward where Stats is something that requires analytical/creative thinking which a more mature thinker might find easier. Any thoughts?

Thank you so much!

This might be a more useful page: http://www.labpaq.com/docs/eLP_Chemistry_ProductSheet.pdf

There are several labpaq options: http://lab.labpaq.com/product-overview/chemistry-overview-page