Yay, Kim!
![smile smile](/bb/images/graemlins/default/smile.gif)
I dislike the time that testing takes, but I do love getting that confirmation that the kids are doing well. It's such a relief.
What are you considering for math next year? I'm at the same place. I think we'll get the AoPS book and work through it ourselves, but I'm still mulling it over.
Testing with the Peabody is a piece of cake. It's oral, not timed and it's open ended to 12th grade level. It took about an hour in our dining room. Love it! We didn't prep at all. The tester warned us we're approaching the ceiling of this test though.
Ugh Kriston - great question on math for next year. I may start a thread on this! Right now I have Lial's College Math (which is like applied pre-algebra) and Life of Fred Algebra sitting around the house. I also have Zaccaro's Middle School Math, which looks fun. Before I had test scores, I was thinking of doing Lial's and playing around more at the pre-alg/early algebra level. But now I feel much more like we're real and rigorous algebra ready.
I know LOF gets great reviews, but the curriculum basically says
1 - hand book to child
2 - walk away and don't answer questions
And that's how it's designed to work. Which is just not going to work at this house! DS is already balking at the format. He just really likes me to sit down and talk through an example or 2 with him. It doesn't take much, but I think saying "figure it out" isn't going to cut it yet.
I am VERY interested in AoPS. But I don't feel like DS is at ready to do their online course in terms of deadlines and workload. And I'm not ready for that either!
![crazy crazy](/bb/images/graemlins/default/crazy.gif)
I'd love to hear from someone who has used them on their own. I feel really comfortable teaching math (unlike everything else!), but I wonder how that would go.
We also have a young talented math program at a local University that starts accelerated algebra with 6th to 8th graders that is very popular with the local gifted community. I think we could do it in a year, but the work load is really heavy and kids drop extra curricular activities to do it. So that doesn't sound great either.