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Hi all! I am brand new here. My DD4 was just tested a few weeks ago, about a month after her 4th bday. I am a bit clueless to the results and didn't even ask for a copy. I think her IQ was 139, but I am not even positive about that. Just emailed the tester for verification. A brief history of our family- I am a teacher, laid off due to a school dropping half its students. I was pregnant at the time and now have a 3 month old DD. So, we are pulling DD4 out of preschool. I have had multiple conferences with her preschool teachers, heads of departments, and even the head of school for 2 years. It's the best private school in New Orleans IMO, and I am really upset at having it turn out so awful. I was basically told she would learn social skills and that was it. Now that I am unemployed and home with DD3mo anyway, we have decided to homeschool. I have taught school for 10 years and have a Masters in Early Childhood. Still, I feel overwhelmed at the thought. Any advice is hugely appreciated. I need information about structure, curriculum, computer games, sites, etc. She is ready to read but not past BOB books (self-taught) and DRA 6 or 8. She had mastered all kindergarten math skills before her 3rd bday. (Then came the 2 wasted years of preschool.) I have tons of materials that all seem too easy and I taught first grade, but the second grade books I looked at seem too hard. Could be lack of exposure? I guess I am needing direction. We are hoping for gifted preK placement for next year, but it's a lottery (Find out March 7).

Thanks!
Holly

Welcome from another new mom here. I wish you luck for the lottery, but maybe you'll enjoy homeschooling once you get a feel for what works with your daughter. I'm planning on homeschooling my son (currently he's 2y4m) for a few years to start off and I've gotten a lot of good ideas just by looking around on here, so I bet you will too. It's a great place for support.

Hi Holly. I'm from the North Shore and my DW homeschooled our DD for her K year last year, so we might have something to offer in terms of parallel experiences.

My DW took some classes in early childhood development but never went anywhere near the level of a Master's degree, and though she was wracked with doubts about homeschooling initially, she did a wonderful job. I think the biggest qualification is knowing your DD and being responsive to her needs, which means nobody is better qualified to teach her than you are.

The structure can be tailored, which is one of the most awesome things about homeschooling. In DD's case, her "school day" was only three hours or so. DW would review a language arts topic with DD, and turn her loose on some worksheets that reinforced it. Ditto math. Science ended up becoming a mixture of research and art, because DW would help DD put together a book about whatever they were talking about. They spent a lot of time on biology, and so my DD has little books they made full of facts on amphibians, another on birds, reptiles, etc.

And Wednesday was art day, all day. DD loved Wednesdays.

DW found a store for homeschoolers that carried all the necessary materials, plus they coordinated certain group classes. DD took Spanish.

Oh, and you might want to think ahead to homeschooling your DD through K, too. I don't know what this gifted pre-K might have to offer, but since your DD sounds like she's already ready to graduate from K, it may fail to live up to your expectations. I can't speak to the privates, but the LA public school system makes entry into the gifted program extraordinarily difficult at age 5 or less to exclude hot-housed children who have been endlessly drilled since 2 but are otherwise ordinary in their ability levels. At that age, a 139 IQ result won't make the cut. At first grade, combined with the kind of achievement results it sounds like you should be able to expect, it will easily make the cut.

Thanks, Dude. She actually made the preK/kinder cut for gifted here, so maybe that wasn't her fullscale # I saw. Why it is so secretive is beyond me. I mean, she is MY kid! LOL. Anyways, Hynes has a class that is gifted kids only. Hoping for that. Only hs now because I am already home with other DD.

I just checked the state guidelines, and they stipulate a pre-K or K child would have to be 2.5 standard deviations above the mean on an IQ test, which on a test using SD = 15 translates to a 139 IQ, if I'm doing my math right. So I guess your DD hits the cutoff after all, by the skin of her teeth.

At 1st grade a 130 IQ result gets your kid straight into the door, a 123 gets them in when accompanied by certain achievement test results, and a 115 will make the cut if accompanied by sufficient achievement results and a staff recommendation. So as I said, it gets significantly easier.

Our tester did say it was hard to qualify in prek. I wasn't sure what the qualifications were. Glad she made the cutoff. She is definitely not one of these that is skilled and drilled. I even own the 9 blocks and refused to let her play with them for fear of skewing the data. I didn't get out my tons of DRA leveled books because I didn't want to pressure her into reading before she was ready. When she taught herself how, I got them out for her. Curious what prek holds at this gifted charter school. They won't even let me tour it which does make one wonder.

Consider yourself lucky that you have the charter school option, because unless my DW was willing to drive for two hours every day, we don't. STPSD is unfriendly to the idea of charters.

Hi Holly - Welcome!

Can you say more about the overwhelmed feeling? What are your goals, fears, suspicions?

Talking things out in front of a bunch of sympathetic ears really helps, even if the fingers are doing the talking and the eyes are doing the listening.

Good for you for emailing to get more Info on the scores. Ask what sort of test it was (WPPSI is a common one, but not the only one) - see if there are subscale scores too.

Smiles,
Grinity

Welcome ! So, do you think that you're going to wait to hear on admission to the gifted pre-K before you decide on homeschooling? Either way, I don't know that I'd be hugely concerned about a formal curriculum for pre-K. Once you get to K or so, depending on your homeschooling philosophy, you may wind up getting more formal about it assuming you are thinking of homeschooling longer term.

You might want to take a look at some of the lesson plans on the Mensa for Kids website: http://mensaforkids.org/school_template.cfm?showPage=educational_activity_plans.cfm

and the homeschooling tips on the Davidson site: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10453.aspx

There are a lot of resources out there for homeschooling and a lot depends on how relaxed you want to be about it and whether you want to buy curriculum or start with the free stuff online. There is a lot of free stuff!

Cricket,
Thanks for the sites. I will check those out. I don't want to buy a curriculum. I literally have thousands of dollars of materials for teaching her. I just lack a direction for what to do with all of it.

Grinity,
It was the Wisc and the Woodcock-Johnson that was administered. The only thing I recall off the top of my head was that she scored very significantly higher in several sections and much lower (all things relative) on others. Coding was the one thing she did poorly on. Tester said dd did not pay any attention to the fact that she needed to go quickly. The sections she did well on were the ones that typically boys score well on. Tester called them the engineering, architecture, pilot type sections. Scored 19 on 3 sections I think.

As for overwhelmed, for one, I am just now adjusting to having 2 kiddos and having dd4 at school is very helpful. I also worry about changing the relationship between us. Teacher is truly a different role. I am not concerned about academics. Honestly, her preschool class is just now counting aloud to 6. I can't suck any more than that! Lol.