Reply to Can anyone talk to me about the YSP (Young Scholars Program)? Worth trying to "sell" DD on this?

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Reply to "Can anyone talk to me about the YSP (Young Scholars Program)? Worth trying to "sell" DD on this?"

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[quote=Anonymous]Mine adored it, and voluntarily stuck with it all three years, even after heading to a CES program (and well after her dad and I were totally over getting up early to drive her!)

She's a science-y kid, and did reasonably well in compacted math, although she's not necessarily a math lover. She'd always felt like the elementary science curriculum was lacking, that they just didn't do enough of it. She loved being able to learn more science stuff in a fun environment.

They definitely didn't do any test prep-type stuff or have any homework, and it was all very relaxed and not lecture-y at all. I remember my daughter coming home after the first session saying, "And mom—there were NO FLIP CHARTS!" Lots of hands-on experiments and creative problem solving, using real-world scenarios to help understand more advanced concepts. They did things like egg drops and balloon cars, or working together as a group to find mathematical patterns in a sequence of numbers.

I'd say it was more like enrichment than acceleration. They learned advanced concepts, but in a natural way, not necessarily trying to move them through the curriculum faster. She's now taking honors physics in 9th and says she's learning the mathematical underpinnings of a lot of the principles they learned about in YSP.

For my kid, it was definitely worth it. I know others didn't think so, though, so YMMV. And I'm sure the instructor can make a big difference, too. They're all MCPS elementary teachers as far as I know, and the one she had the last two years was a CES teacher.

I wouldn't say it dramatically advanced her academic career or anything, but it definitely helped my kid stay interested in science when the regular curriculum wouldn't have been enough.[/quote]

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