Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Hothousing- did you, didn't you, will you?

Kriston,

You are SOOO correct to point out how basic a typical kindergarten program is. Makes me shudder to think that I would force him to sit through 6 hours a day of that if we sent him to public school! (No half-day public programs around here.)

Thank you for the advice. I very much appreciate it. I have started some of the things you suggested. We purchased a math book from Horizons math a few months ago, just to try it out a bit. It's kindergarten level, but I was told by several other HSers and the book store that it is more in line with first grade math. I thought it would be interesting to just see what he knows. While we skip over the majority of it, there have been a few little things I might not have thought about, such as counting tally marks, that were fun to learn. I also purchased Handwriting Without Tears, which I've read so many great things about. Haven't tried it yet but looking forward to using it.

The "curriculum" I'm looking at is Sonlight. It is loosely Christian-based, primarily because of Bible courses available,and is highly customizeable. Just seems like a one-stop shopping place, which, for me, takes some of the stress out of the whole experience. While I am not looking for anything affiliated with Christianity, per se, I am not opposed to it, either. My main interest in the program is its focus on reading - and there's a lot of it. There are books for the children to read aloud, and books for parents to read aloud. At a certain point, I believe it's third grade, the readers are integrated with the history, language arts, and some other components of the program. The books are typically award-winning children's classics - a rich list of literature, NOT books written by the curriculum's developer. It seems like a nice balance - not really a unit study design, yet a lot of the major components are integrated in certain ways. Not just a bunch of boring textbooks. And certainly not a box of workbooks. Ugh. I can't imagine how boring some of those programs must be!

Then, one can choose from a variety of math programs (Singapore, Saxon, Horizons, etc.), writing programs, science programs (even with the all-inclusive science project kit), etc. etc. So...a kindergarten "curriculum" would actually be some really great readers that have some sort of broad history/world-awareness lessons, and likely would include traditional topics. Math, language arts, science, writing, music, art can all be highly customized. It's probably marketed to parents like me who would love to have one place with a LOT of options, reviews, placement tests - a way to simplify getting started. If you check it out online let me know what you think. I'm still new to this. Our state has a huge homeschool curriculum fair coming up in May. I've heard it's amazing. I would like to go and put my hands on these books and talk to some of the developers and really see what all is available that would be appropriate for my little sweetie.

I think almost all of my stress about what to do next is based upon maintaining that little spark. We were so thrilled to see it return, I don't want to lose it again.

Thanks again for the advice. Keep it coming! I'm very appreciate of input from those of you on this site.

Thanks,
Allison