Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy summer homeschool???

I am thinking of investing in a program for the mornings to keep DS in the groove... What do you all recommend? A homeschool program? A CTY course? I am clueless, I have never done this before but he will be entering 3rd next year and from what I hear it gets VERY challenging and I need him focused. All input appreciated. I may even call his DYS advocate.....

Have you had a chance to look into any of the e-gifted courses? That seems like it might be a good thing given his age.



Also-- you definitely know your child, but one thing that we have found helpful as DD has aged into middle school and beyond is to give her summers as a "breather" from the academic workload. It's not that it's "hard" so much as that the VOLUME increases stepwise at 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th grades.

So we don't really do the 'academic' thing during her summers. We used to homeschool year-round, and just kind of take those mental health vacations as needed, but following a school calendar doesn't allow for that. This makes it all the more important for a kid who needs a break to recharge to REALLY get a break from that environment during the summer.

She does plenty of OTHER stuff during the summer, but conventional workbooks, report-writing, and assignments-- no.

We're also fans of the 4 consecutive half-day camp on a particular topic. Intense, but over with in a hurry. KWIM?

Summer breaks are a requirement for our DD8. When her peers start talking about summer camps and new scheduled activities, we ask her what she wants to do for the summer, and she emphatically says, "NOTHING!" Not only does she want no additional activities, she also chooses to exit the activities she's already in (though this year she has decided to remain in her gymnastics class for the summer, which is something of a breakthrough for her). She would rather spend the days in the pool, and/or playing with her friends, with the occasional travel opportunity mixed in.

Since she's already working so far ahead, and because she couldn't stop learning if she tried, we're happy to oblige. I'm also confident that if we insisted on her doing some sort of learning activity through the summer, she'd resent it, and her attitude towards learning would take a sharp nosedive.

Your results may vary.

That's the same problem our DD8 had in public school, and that's how summer became such an important detox program for her. It's probably a sign of how well homeschooling has worked out this year that she's actually interested in maintaining one summer activity.

Ultimately it's up to the parent to figure out whether the needed summer solution is "feed the beast" or "back off." The kids are pretty good at communicating the needed approach, if someone is listening.

Don't forget khan academy or sumdog are free. We're slowly working through the Usborne Interner linked Encyclopedia of World History with a pencil, paper, and 3-ring binder. You read a two page spread, write a summary, and draw a picture about it. It goes in a 3ring binder full of page protector pockets. I don't know how long it will take us to get through the book (at least a year, maybe a few years). We're not hurrying. It's outlining, note-taking, summarizing, and an intriduction to World History. When it's over my kid will have made a keepsake, his own book of world history. He'll be ready to study them more in depth after this, his first exposure to world history. (idea from the well trained mind).
We're not going to do it this year, but summer before last we signed up for SuperCharged Science with Aurora Lippor. We did the "robotics" which was more like circuits, but did make moving projects. We're not doing it this summer, but my son is looking forward to taking her chemistry section soon. I recomend Supercharged science. I bought everything on the robotics list from radio shack and the grocery store and put it in a bucket. I had my son watch the video and pull out the right parts and then I helped him do the projects.