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This is how I feel too! Which is why I'm still considering homeschooling. If I'm just teaching him afterschool what I feel he should learn in school, why waste those 6 hours per day?

Our problem before was a lack of knowledge on my part with what the schools required, that he was behind and I was doing remediation, and that we were planning on homeschooling a year but stopped after only a limited time. Therefore, the time I had allotted for him to get on pace with the other students was non-existent. DS also needs a lot of writing practice but I've stopped focusing on that because the teacher flat out said if he can't read at the correct level, he will fail. Writing is not as pressured.

I'm hoping our summer homeschooling is nice and progressive. It will either help solidify that homeschooling would be easier/better, or even if he's just on level/above other students for 1st grade and then doesn't need remediation anymore that would be wonderful. It's hard to guess what the schools aren't going to teach in the future. Will I find myself teaching spelling because he just comes home with spelling lists every week without guidance on how to spell? Will I teach cursive because the school won't?

I think older kids, either gifted or not, have so many more options once they're in high school. Here there's dual enrollment (I almost wrote duel!), early admissions, IB, AP, etc. Public school originally was meant to give a certain minimum of instruction to the masses. I think this philosophy has not changed well with our desire/need for individualization in schools.

I believe it's also written Dra as well. IDK how homeschooling would work partially, or if that's an option. There is virtual school here, which I considered. Some say it's too restrictive, some say they can use it similarly to homeschooling. And it would help me understand what they are requiring by the end of certain school years. I also don't know how acceleration would work with virtual school here, or if that's possible. ITA re: polarbear's thoughtful posts

I currently homeschool DS8 and afterschool DD6, although I use the term afterschool very loosely. Here is some examples of what I do:

-We listen to Story of the World (history) during car rides; DD sometimes listens to the previous volume in her room.

-DD has an IXL account for LA and a Khan Academy account for math; I don't push these, but she works on them sporadically, usually on weekends.

-Because DD is particularly interested in history and geography, I tend towards getting books on these topics from the library (either that she can read on her own, or that I read with her).

And of course there are the things we naturally do as a family that I guess some would consider enrichment. I read to both kids frequently (often during snack), we go to museums/aquariums/zoos/historical sites, we have educational iPod apps, subscribe to quality kid magazines, watch Cosmos, etc. I don't consider this afterschooling, I consider it parenting.

As far as when all this happens, it's usually not after school (except for the more passive stuff like listening to me read). DD is generally too schooled-out to do anything like school when she gets home, and would much rather draw or play or do crafts.

Is there a way you could combine remediation with enrichment? For example, you could work on writing while doing fun science experiments together.

Ditto. DD7 goes to school because she LOVES it. I'd love to homeschool because she's an amazing interesting learner but - at the moment anyway - school is hot because she has lots of friends and because she still thinks she's going to school to learn and she's very enthusiastic about learning. I can see that misconception slowly starting to wear thin however!
She does a one-day-a-week pullout gifted program which is really excellent, and the rest of her actual education is through her love of reading whatever fiction and non-fiction interests her (lots of library books, and lots of quality fiction and interesting history/science reference books at home), Ask magazine, BrainPop Jr, Monopoly, Snap Circuits, chess, Scrabble, geocaching, watching cool documentaries, YouTube (Vi Hart, space station), doing crosswords, traveling, hiking, star-gazing, visiting the planetarium and all those places Knitting Mama listed, badge-work for Brownies, long conversations with DH and I full of hard questions, sometimes I wantonly pull her out of school to join a science workshop run by the local homeschooling group … etc etc.
But I too hesitate to call it after-schooling because it's ALL DD-driven as and when she feels like it. I wouldn't set up anything formal - and admittedly she's ahead in all areas so there's no need - because her learning is part of her playing and I want to keep it that way.
There is also a lot of definitely non-educational stuff in the mix, which is just as important She doesn't distinguish between playing Polly Pockets or setting up a station to study weather patterns - it's all entertainment. Which I love (I made the decision to test one vacation when I suggested making pompoms, and she wanted to dig through DH's tool kit to find parts to build a seismograph, lol). That's much more awesome than replicating school at home.
Basically, that was all a very long-winded way of saying, if he's not really enjoying formal after-schooling, and it seems to me that you're doing quite a lot, you could try sneaking the learning into the playing, like sneaking vegetables into a smoothie

huh. I was positive that I responded to this thread already.

anyways

We afterschooled our oldest from when he started preschool aged 3. Initially it was because he was missing the stuff he and I used to do at home before he started. I had no idea that it was such groundbreakingly different stuff to the gifted school he was in - it was a bit of kid friendly science, some fun reading games when he asked for them, a bit of fun writing games when he asked for it, art, gardening, stories, map fun activities etc.

so we did that stuff as he asked for it after school and on weekends. When he started waking me at 5am on saturday's to do maths or writing I started pre-preparing stuff that he could cheerfully do on his own while we slept. haha.

By age 5 he refused to do anything outside of school aside from throwing very angry tantrums - total loss of desire to learn. Of course we ended up out of school (K at that stage), into 9 months of therapy followed by homeschooling.

When I hear how much time and effort other parents here but into homework, extension work, extra lessons - I am so so grateful for the decision to homeschool. We do less time on formal learning than they do on homework! and we get to play so much more now.

I always say to parents who ask - if you afterschool because the school is lacking in something, then you may as well homeschool - cause you are already; you're just ALSO dealing with the stress of school and its incumbent issues

My #1 had a similar experience until the school--which was a very accommodating small private school--ran out of ways to differentiate and keep #1 meaningfully in the home grade, even after one early entrance, one grade skip, and placement in a multi-age/grade classroom. At that point we could have stuck with the school and had our child in entirely individualized classes (literally, as in the only student in each class-within-a-class, working alone with periodic teacher check-in), search for another school (slim pickings in our area), or homeschool. Since, by then, the majority of real learning was occurring in afterschooling, it was definitely a relief to get rid of the time-wasting and exhausting six-hour b&m school day.

Thanks for your list of things you do. We also do quite a bit of that, though I wish we spent more time going to museums and such. Usually weekends are made up of friend/familial obligations and vacation stuff.

I hesitate to mix "work" with science pleasure. I think as he matures, doing some writing will be okay with science experiments. But then I'd have to correct his handwriting the whole time and I'm pretty sure it would spoil all the fun

Thank you for all the great educational activities and ideas in your original post.

Thank you for your experience. I also feel this way sometimes about school. I wonder what they are really teaching if I have to go back and teach things I feel they should have there? Or maybe they're teaching a lot differently (for example I'm pretty sure I'm teaching phonics to read and they're teaching reading some other magical way). It's such a hard decision for us to know what's best.