Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Frazzled Geek Mom Needs NCAA Curriculum

I have two gifted (not PG) sons who are in middle school and are competitive athletes. They are both asking to be homeschooled so that they can study advanced material, in a more efficient manner. My older son hit the wall when he was cutting out felt clothes for his medieval paper doll at 10:30 p.m. after traveling two hours to his sports practice. He is reading Burton Raffel's translation of Beowulf, but his English teacher suggested he read an "easier" version so that he could meet his 400 page/month reading rubric quota. My younger son is doing math 3 grade levels above his actual grade, but his teacher won't let him advance because he lacks "attention to detail" on tests when he skips problems by accident. We are definitely frustrated.

Both sons have been accepted into a public charter for homeschoolers that grants a stipend each semester so parents can select appropriate educational materials. I have to choose a curriculum by Thursday. Our designated "Educational Facilitator" is not going to be any help. My husband and I have secondary teaching credentials so we aren't overly concerned about the EF. This homeschool program is extremely impacted because it does offer a lot of choices, so I don't want to give up our placement. I've done many, many hours of research, but does anyone have suggestions for an NCAA approved curriculum? My older son needs high school (AP) level work. I'm considering Connections Academy because it meets my criteria, but I'm concerned about needless busy work. We live in California so UC eligibility is also a factor.

I appreciate your suggestions. This is the most informative forum I've found on the internet for gifted/homeschool topics.

NAGC's PHP that was released last has an entire article on this topic with many resources. This may provide the answers you are looking for.

Also, I can't speak directly to EPGY's/Stanford on-line high school content, but they were very helpful and great to work with for credit and curriculum questions for lower grade work. They may be worth a call since you are in CA.
Good luck!

Thank you so much for the reference. I'm going to check it out immediately!

We have had a good experience with Laurel Springs, esp the textbook courses, which are produced in-house. Their in-house online courses are great, but beware the online courses they buy from Apex or other vendors(Multi-choice, machine graded ugh!!) The textbook French is serious and well done. We hated the online Middlebury/Powerspeak option they offer.

They are very good about acceleration and very experienced with it. They will customize courses (eg adding more novels and essays).

With regard to cyber-schooling:

Try to monitor time sitting at the computer. We put on weight during our cyber-schooling.

There is busy work for cyber-schooling, but it felt more like office work, using the scanner, submitting work electronically. If you like office work (which can be therapeutic, because it tends to not require a lot of thought and you can veg out at that moment or think about whatever else you want to think about), then you might like that office feel. Gifted children like an office environment generally in my experience. Regular classrooms seem so loud and chaotic to gifted persons and can be so unnecessarily stressful.

If you do pure homeschooling, pick the books that you (if you are the supervising adult) and your child are dying to read together. Bring your gifted student to the library and local book store and notice what you are drawn to.

I think there is a site called hoagies for gifted that may be a main source of homeschooling info. Read all of the rules for homeschooling and meet the people in your area that are homeschooling to see if it feels like it will work for you.

When we purely homeschooled we felt like we had to document every discussion we had in a day and the copybook was getting so full that it actually created its own admin. restraints. We never log everything we read -- that feels annoying and intrusive to us (whether it should feel annoying or not, it's probably definitely an uncomfortable feeling of invasion of our privacy, although everyone might feel differently).

Good Luck. Sounds exciting. Sorry if we didn't have more specifics for you.