Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Ecclectic/unschooling HG+ kids

would love to chat to anyone doing an ecclectic mix of whatever they can find for home / unschooling along their kids' passions/interests.

Please tell me what you use for Maths, Science, Literacy and whatever other subjects you do. Also, do you track grade requirements to ensure no "gaps"?

My oldest (Perfectionist, intense) loves knowing grade levels to stuff he does, so I know that he is working at between end grade 2 - grade 4 (With a bit of high school genetics thrown in this year). Hands-on learner, not a huge fan of workbooks, likes to be shown initially.

My middle son (Introvert, PG, internal perfectionist) has completed K, 1st and is halfway through 2nd grade for maths and literacy based things. He enjoys workbooks and hands on stuff and will figure it out on his own.

My youngest is trying to figure out reading right now and still loves to do the toddler things in between basic maths and word discovery.

I like a lot of web based stuff. Check out Athena's Advanced Academy, GHF Online, and onlineg3.com for online classes for gifted kids. My 11 yo daughter LOVES her G3 lit classes! We have used EPGY and dreambox.com for math. We did Ko's Journey. You can become a member of Homeschool Buyer's Coop for free, and check out their offerings. Brain Pop is another great resource, which you usually get as part of taking a class at G3 or A3.

I'm deschooling/reschooling my kid after sending him to school last year made him not want to do any work. The teacher let him get away with not doing his work for several months without letting me know before she kicked him out of her class. She allowed him to say "I don't know how" (to write a single letter several times in a row before the timer goes off) when the teachers and the principal all said they know he CAN do it, they just don't know why he wasn't. (but don't worry, he'll be fine because he's smart). So now I need to get him back in the habit of working.
I'm using the "Transforming the Difficult Child" method of setting him up for success, where they said to set the bar so low that they automatically clear it. The book said the way they teach Shamoo to jump in the air in Sea World is by putting the rope on the ground and giving him a fish everytime he jumps over it, then raising the rope.
I have to teach five subjects by Texas homeschool law: grammer, spelling, math, reading, and citizenship. I bought "Writing With Ease" which expects the child to copy one sentence every day with a little grammer theme. One week it was pronouns, one week it was titles of respect like Mrs., Mr., Prince., Dr. The thing is it's quick & short & you just have to do it right with proper capitals, lowercase, and punctuation, and pretty handwriting. Now the lessons have grown from copywork to taking oral dictation & writing down the sentence I tell him verbally. He has to do one Writing With Ease everyday, one math everyday, and one other subject (rotated).

I don't schedule lessons ahead of time. I bought a day planner and record the daily work after it's done. I unschool every other week. On those weeks I write Unschool week in the planner and just write down anything close to work that he does (read a book, paint or draw, play games). Right now his problem isn't skills or content, but following a schedule and doing his work. I set the bar very low, three subjects a day, every other week. He's succeeding in meeting these goals with rarely any resistence. The other day he said, "I need to do four subjects everyday because I want to do History everyday." (Tracing & coloring maps & flags for American Geography). This statement only lasted one day, but I was thrilled because until then I had a kid who dreaded doing the bare minimum. The rope on the floor is working and I saw a little spark back for his love of learning.
I'm using Singapore Math textbook, Beast Academy ($100 for the whole set), Bedtime Math and SumDog.com for math. I'm about to buy Mastering the Fundamentals of Math from the Great Courses. I'm rotating between assigning reading a little chapter book (Cam Jansen, Junie B Jones), or writing a little summary of a picture book, or co-reading a streatch book (Sophie's World, Wall Street Journal Article), or reading Scholastic books plays using teddy bears and army men for reading.

For citizenship we're doing "notebooking" with the Usborne World History Encyclopedia. It's really note-taking, finding the main idea of non-fiction. I read the two-page spread, he tells me the most important part, I don't correct him. I write down what he says. He draws an illustration on the page. We put it in the history notebook. We're also adding tracings of American Geography from Imagene Forte's "One Nation 50 States" to the history notebook. I own "Stand up for Your Rights" (about human rights for kids, by kids from the UN). We're not into that book yet. It includes stuff I'm not ready to talk about yet, but it's going into the citizenship course. I have The Constitution translated for kids, which we'll dig into after he finishes tracing the maps. And I just ordered "Mr. President: a book of US Presidents."
Spelling is super easy. I have a phonetically controlled book of spelling lists from a one room schoolhouse (it was my grandmothers grandfathers). He copies one list of six words from a word family 3 times. Eventually we'll add doing definitions, writing a sentence, and memorizing spellings for tests. Right now I just want him to develop a habit of doing spelling class. It's a start. Grammer is super easy, he just reads a few pages of the "Grammer Island" book from Michael Clay Thomson. I'm not sure which one I want to buy next, "Music of the Hemishpheres" or "Sentence Island".

We are very eclectic homeschoolers, but we're pretty new to this, so I'm looking for ideas myself!

For math we were using Life of Fred and DreamBox. For LoF we actually started with Apples, even though it was all review for DS8. We recently finished Jelly Beans (the last of the elementary books), and started Beast Academy as a break from Fred.

For science we are "formally" using RSO Chemistry, but we've been approaching it pretty slowly and haven't gotten far. We also go on field trips to local science/tech museums, watch videos, read books, and just talk about science.

Language Arts we only recently started, with a workbook I picked up at a local teacher supply store. I'm looking for an alternative for this. DS8 reads a lot, and I often read aloud to both kids during snack time (usually books they wouldn't otherwise pick up).

Social Studies this year has just been geography so far; we use a great geography workbook that goes from grades 3 to 6. In the past we listened to Story of the World on CD, and I'd like to start that up again soon, along with the activity book (which we didn't do earlier).

Computer Science: DS is learning Scratch, a programming language/interface from MIT. He is also learning GoogleDocs on his own by making documents and powerpoint presentations.

BrainPop is used just about every day, and covers all sorts of topics. We usually watch at least one video together during the day, for which he has to take the accompanying quiz.

I should take a look at our state's grade requirements, but I'm not worried about missing stuff.

Thanks everyone! So far we are doing as follows:

Aiden (6.5) has only one really focused day when he attends a HG+ homeschool gifted program. There they do all sorts of skills, projects, work etc.

Two days of the week we meet with an unschooling group and the kids play hard all day. Climb trees, build houses out of lego, sticks etc, play games, do crafts, mess with chess, science - whatever they each want to do. It's great for so many things!

He has chosen to work on three main "things", which he does every day - he does his spelling/writing (5 - 10 minutes) we have a lovely workbook that breaks it into 20 words per week and he does little exercises everyday with a test at the end of the week. Since we are using it primarily for handwriting improvement (he was so cross because he cannot read his own writing!) I don't stress too much about the spelling but am delighted that as side effects his reading and spelling confidence and skills are soaring! Then he does SEMAS (Japanese Abacus maths) - he does about 30 - 50 sums a day depending on his own goals. And he practices his violin for about 15 - 20 minutes. Screen time is split between learning and "fun" and the two often cross over. Dreambox.com, Timez attack, a typing program, his genetics videos (Brain Pop) are learning time.

He is asking for science now (hence my asking for suggestions) but I think we are going to go with superchargedscience.com - it's great for so many reasons, including that he can do it on his own without parental "interference". I think that will slot in once or twice a week, and we have just ordered the German Rosetta Stone program so that we can all learn German together.

The only time I know grade stuff is in Dreambox or from the SPG class Aiden attends on Tuesdays.

Nathan (5 this weekend) loves workbooks! He is still so little so I am really not stressed about much more than helping him set and fulfill goals to completion. He also does SEMAS and Dreambox for maths and he loves to read and do puzzles of all sorts. He loves to google stuff on volcanoes and dinosaurs and just chose a 2nd grade literacy workbook which seems a fun mix of language, creative writing etc. He does a lot of baking and work in the veggie garden too. He loves LEGO and he is getting the WeDo set for his birthday. He is also using the typing program (Timon and Pumba teach typing)

I need to do more brainpop for sure and I just joined the buyers co-op recently (got the Rosetta deal from there)

You could loosely follow a general curriculum series (Learn at Home). I did that last year with my 2e pg son when was 6.5 yrs old. He's not a fan of workbooks either, but the 2e expert recommended we use a general curriculum series to give ds some structure. I paid from $2-10 for each grade with the general curriculum series either through a discount store, used with ebay or Amazon. I refused to pay more and now I am very glad I didn't spend a lot because ds finished the series with the year, last June.

This year he's already finished a college pre-algebra textbook and is nearly halfway through a college algebra textbook; he's 8 in a week. I picked up one textbook for $1; the other for free - and that's why I'm using them. They just happened to be college level. I didn't intend to buy college level. I got them because they were $1 or free. But they've been working out better than anticipated so I can't complain.

We've also been reading a couple of chapters in a book or two each day. I read a page; then ds reads a page. I tend to find books at or above his level that he would like but would not necessarily choose. He's constantly reading books so it's not a question about comprehending or gaining knowledge, but more for some structure and pleasure together. We both loved reading the full, unabridged version of Alice in Wonderland.

For social studies, we've watched Michael Palin's series on Himalaya and am watching Michael Wood's series on The Story of India - both of which ds has really enjoyed and which are freely available through our public library. Ds is constantly reading history books so I'm the least bit worried there.

I second using Rebecca Rupp's book for guidance. It's useful to have as a guide or to double-check any doubts or fears, though it's a bit dated now. It can give you ideas too.

My son used Dreambox when he was in a gifted school for kindy but quickly accelerated through it. Ditto for Brain Pop and other programs.

At the moment, I'm avoiding shelling out any money and doing anything in my power to find free or open educational materials to fill the void. There's tons today. Some are more educational and rigorous than others. I'm trying to get ds to do more creative, open-ended, self-directed or project-based learning with things like blender.org and MIT's Scratch. There is a site and book - project-based homeschooling - which might be useful too.