As there are now two AP Curricula to consider (CS A and CS Principles), things have gotten a bit more complicated. With my 3 year program, I offer both levels. Students can officially write one exam or the other or, for my top students, both.
It should also be noted that I have a 'Regular' Computer Science stream at my school too. This is for students who are usually a bit weaker and therefore do not wish the stress of the AP requirements. I had about 80 second year students in 2017/18 about two thirds of which took the AP stream and one third took the Regular stream.
As you will see in my lesson plans, my first year students are programming primarily in Processing plus a unit in Web Design (Focusing on HTML, CSS and a bit of web theory) and a unit in Computing Science Theory (binary, logic gates, trends in technology, etc.) . In my second year, we switch to Java. This switch to Java is to give us 2 years to prepare for the CSA exam.
In year 3, my students complete all the activities necessary to do the CS Principles exam, even if they are only intending to write the CSA exam. This means they complete the Explore Task (emerging technology exploration) and the Create Task (major programming project) but only those who intend to write CS Principles actually submit these tasks.
After these projects are complete, I do what I call an AP Prep Unit.
What you should consider, however, is that I have only done this for one year. My students did very well on their respective exams with averages well above the world averages BUT this could be an anomaly. With CS Principles only 2 years old, things are still in flux.
I am currently working on plans to have ALL my second year students write the AP CS Principles exam and have all write the CSA exam in their third year. This will first occur in the 2019/20 school year. However, if my students do well again this year under the current system, I may reconsider my plans for change.
These activities are done in the AP Prep Unit. They are designed to supplement and review all the AP CS Principles topics that we have loosely covered throughout the preceding 3 years. See the Teach With... CS Theory page for assignments that cover a lot of the CS Principles concepts.
These activities are done in the AP Prep Unit. They are designed to supplement and review all the Java assignments we have completed to date. See the Computer Science 20 and Computer Science 30 pages for those activities.