Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Homeschooling Here We Come?

I do think I will be homeschooling one or both of my kids next year. The oldest will be a sixth grader. My plan is to have him do virtual school for Math, Science and Spanish. Those classes are free through the state. Also under consideration is another virtual school class called World Cultures but it is basically World History starting from the Ancient Period. I think he would enjoy it because he is Greek Mythology obsessed.

For Reading and Language Arts I thought the two of us could design our own curriculum with reading mythology the first half the year in prep for the National Mythology Exam and then novels typical for middle school students and novels of his own choice. I am a firm believer in just giving a kid time to read, holding a book discussion, letting him keep a reading response journal (to document the reading but nothing huge) and moving on to the next book.

And language arts mainly giving him time and space to write, teaching him to keep a writers notebook, write every day, and since he loves to write giving him the ability to without pressure (I have some ideas on what we would do and resources from children's authors who have written how to write books for kids) and maybe a vocabulary program that covers greek and latin roots (kinda keeping with the theme) that he could work on off and on throughout the year.

My youngest (will be in first grade) we are still waiting to hear if he got into the Spanish Immersion Program. If he doesn't get picked in the lottery then we will approach the school for subject acceleration...if they won't then it is just easier to homeschool him and do 4th grade reading with him and accelerate the rate of his math. The rest of his schooling I would probably let him help me design. Maybe Story of the World with him because his older brother would be studying the same time period.