Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Free learning material for young teens?

DD13 really wants extra material (math workbooks, science courses, book resources, writing lessons, history stuff; mainly math though) to do after school, on the weekends, or over the summer. Unfortunately, due to late gifted identification, she missed the opportunity to accelerate in math without missing algebra. So she will take that next year, but she already know s a lot. (She got a 660 on the math section of the SAT, if that helps). In fact, it's safe to say that she is years ahead in most subjects. So are their any online resources that she can use for learning on her own, for free? We are hoping that these are going to be on a high school level, so she can be challenged, probably algebra and geometry for math, biology and chemistry for science. (she really wants to take a free high-level biology course, and a chemistry one as well) Any suggestions? She really wants to avoid "babyish" stuff, btw.

Hi, Bassetlover (basset hounds or basset horns? I like both!),

Do you know the Mathematics Enhancement Programme Materials from the Centre for Innovative Mathematics Teaching at the University of Plymouth? I think they are really excellent, and they are indeed free.

Here's the address:
www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm

We've used quite a few things from there, and the math is both challenging and quite different from the way it is often presented in North America (it's an adaptation of a Hungarian teaching method); we like getting different perspectives on material. Some of the material is password protected, but I explained about being a homeschooler and asked very nicely, and they gave it to me.

Sorry to keep bringing these up, but we love them so! The North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad site has all kinds of great puzzles that involve both language and mathematical thinking. www.naclo.cs.cmu.edu/index.php

There is some free writing stuff at KISS grammar online; I find their website enormously confusing, and I already like what we are doing for grammar, but I know a lot of people enjoy the KISS materials (and they are free as well).

http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/PBooks/index.htm

My kids are much younger than yours, but there is absolutely nothing "babyish" about any of these sites; at least I don't think so.

Something I haven't investigated in any detail is the Stingy Scholar ( http://stingyscholar.blogspot.com ). As far as I recall, they have many, many suggestions for free learning materials on the web, in all sorts of subject areas. Your daughter is sure to find something of interest there!

Hope that helps a bit--

peace
minnie

PS Just remembered a couple of other things:

If she's interested in languages, you might want to look into this site, where there is a big list of links for free online language learning:

www.word2word.com/coursead.html#quechua

Another math site we like (this one is about topology):

http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/jbrubbergeom.htm

There's also BBC learning:

www.bbc.co.uk/learning/

mm

Not free. Get the Art of Problem Solving's Introduction to Algebra book (and solutions manual). If she does well learning from books that's all she'll need. Have her take the on-line class if she does better with that sort of teaching.

They're very good, and just right for mathy kids. Look at their little quizzes and review to see what her level is. The Alcumus game they have there is quite interesting as well.

Similar for their Intro books for Geometry, Number Theory, and Counting & Probability. All excellent. Their intermediate series I have little experience with yet, but I can't see any reason that they shouldn't be as good.

Regards,
Jon

www.hippocampus.org
Many free high school courses, including biology but they don't have chemistry.

Books from www.artofproblemsolving.com are great but not free. However, if you sign up for the website (free) you can access the Alcumus program which is free. It is great! You have to get through 60 diagnostic problems, but after that it is fun. Nice video explanations and then problems.

google MIT OCW for many free courses, there is a section called highlights for high school that points out courses well suited to gifted high school students.

free chemistry course videos here:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=2009-B-11006&semesterid=2009-B

Basset Hounds... and thanks everyone, we are trying them all out.

Try this page on Hoagies:

Hoagies Free Online High School Courses

Or MIT have some great open course ware available:

MIT Open Course Ware

Cheers,
Cassandra