Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Joining the homeschoolers

Thank you guys, this is great!

I have encountered Michael Clay Thompson's language art series many times on my recent searches. Couple other people mentioned that they are using it. It does sound really neat. How old are your boys, Dazed? I am reading that it is aimed toward gifted 3rd graders. I think that it would be excellent match for DS, as he is very artsy but on the same side does not like unnecessary fluff. He is very matter of fact, gets to the point kind of guy. I am seriously thinking to use it, if it is not too early. That is my only concern, at this point.
Thank you Minnie for these wonderful resources, the math curriculum sounds really interesting. I looked at the hand writing program that you have recommended and see that those workbooks are on italics. Are you using that with your children to learn to write italics? Italics vs. cursive? Or are you doing both? My DS is not very keen on writing. So I will have to come up on something to spring his interest.

In fact I have to resurrect his interest for discovering and learning. He used to be this bubbly kid, interested in anything he did not know, who would fall asleep with tens of books opened surrounding him. Now, he hardly wants to read, when he comes home from school. He is not as daring as he used to be. He is extremely avoiding any situation in which he is not perfect. (I asked him about it, and he said "what would others think if I made a mistake").
I hope I can get him back to being HIM again, interested and have fun with learning, while being challenged at the same time.

Thank you all for giving me your ideas. It is a big help.

We are using MCT too and started this year with 3rd grade. It has been wonderful. It's the only curriculum that I've bought and used that I can recommend wholeheartedly for HG-PG kids. It's very fun, but with lots of content and open ended exercises. I had a former jr. high english teacher look at my island level last year and said it was presenting 7th to 8th grade level material. It's also not a big time crunch to get through it unless we want it to be.

I got the Town level of MCT in the mail last week and wow, can't wait to dig in this fall! Big leaps.

We started homeschooling last year in 2nd grade, and I bought very little too that first year. I've really had the time to pick and choose stuff I thought would be good. Singapore math has been great for us too. We're starting algebra very soon in these parts.



Welcome to homeschooling! It does feel a little crazy making this choice. But it's been wonderful for both my kids. They are doing great.

Hi, Niki,

Yes, the lads are learning "cursive italic," rather than regular old cursive. They like how it looks, and that it is relatively easier than "loopy" cursive; all of the cursive italic letters are formed in the same way as the "basic" italic (i.e. the printing), so they don't have to start all over again when they get to cursive. It's a clear and attractive hand, and one that will do us just fine, I think.

I had a couple of other math ideas for you: Don Cohen (the mathman: http://www.mathman.biz/ ) has some neat materials that my oldest has loved. They're very open-ended problems (which has been helpful in the perfectionism department), and I love that they are things that he has revisited several times, with a new take on the problems on each revisit. Highly recommended!

Edward Burger and Michael Starbird (of Teaching Company fame) have a neat book (The Heart of Mathematics: An invitation to effective thinking) that my oldest (he's just turned 9) likes a lot: it's a college textbook for non-math/non-science majors, and has a lot of the "fun stuff" (cryptology, topology, Fibonacci numbers, fractals, tesselations, etc.). It's really pretty accessible to kids, and engagingly written, lots of colour pictures, etc. It's ridiculously expensive new (at least in Canada), but I found a very gently used copy on abebooks for practically nothing.

I did do the Island level of MCT with Harpo when he was 6, and it worked really well. Just as a heads-up, though, there was a fairly significant jump in difficulty level between Island and Town (especially the vocabulary book); it was still fine, but it took us a good bit longer to do the second series.

Do let us know if you have any more questions; there are lots of homeschoolers on this board, and we'd love to help!

peace
minnie

I think there are a lot of ways to approach MCT. My 5 year old *LOVES* the Island level books, listened intently all year, and participated in our discussions. She took a good amount away from it. But she wasn't really able to do much of the actual writing exercises, so we're going to come back to it later. Both my kids physically write probably close to grade level. My 3rd grader did a lot more writing/application than the suggested exercises in the book so he took it to a deeper level (much of his longer writing he typed). I think this is very much the beauty of the curriculum is it's open-endedness. I really don't get any kick backs from MCT, but I think it is brilliantly designed.

I used MCT island level w/ my 4th grade and 1st grader. I thought my 1st grader would be just on the fringe, but he was so taken w/ MCT that he fully immersed himself in grammar. He has retained everything and loves it. He hasn't done all of the writing but I'll come back to it in the Fall with him. FOr writing, I do Writing With Ease so he does copywork followed by dictation. In the Fall, we'll move to Town level. I expect for my 1st grader, we'll be doing an MCT level every other year.

Ok, great. I think that MCT it is. I am so excited to learn as well with this wonderful material. LOL

I was reading an article from MCT about reading classics. I do too think this is very important, now that I have read the article. (I may have missed this information otherwise).

Do you guys have any resources, book lists of classical literature that is recommended for certain age? Or anywhere where I can find this book lists.
My son loves vocabulary, and usually when we read we pull vocab out of text that he did not know. He thinks that is a great fun. But I want the text be something that is not totally over his head.

Do any of you use anything else for vocabulary, or is MCT pretty sufficient in this matter?

Minnie, I like your writing program. Do your kids generally like it? I would think that writing is least popular thing for my kid to do. I thought, that I would just try to encourage his creativity with no worries about the way it looks. But maybe if there is nice program, that is very fun and beautifies the writing just a little bit it may be worth it.

DS also wants to learn typing. Is there anything that you would recommend?

Also, I was looking for some resources for logic, possibly some work books. My son is very very visual. I tried with him some logistical puzzles in form of stories, and forget it. If he just hears it, it takes him forever. But if he sees it, it is a whole new ball game.

Any other resources for highly visual kid, would be helpful as well.
I love this opportunity to be able to ask questions, this is great. Thanks.

I use Amberside Online to find lists of grade level classical literature and borrow them from the library.

I also use MCT as my language arts but I don't do the writing because ds joins a writing class from school.

For typing, we used Typing Instructor for kids. There is also a free program by BBC named Dance Mat Typing.

Critical Thinking company has some good books for logic. Mind Benders is one of them. But I think you will get a better deal with Mindware. They have Perplexors, Math Perplexors, Grid Perplexors, Venn Perplexors, Logic Links etc.

HTH!

Hi, Niki,

I think you'll love MCT--it's really a terrific programme. I wouldn't think you'd need anything else for vocabulary--there's a lot of challenging stuff there.

The kids like the handwriting programme pretty well (handwriting in general is not too popular here, either! But the Getty-Dubay has been the best thing I've found for them, and they like it well enough, which seems like a win to me!) I know lots of people also use Handwriting without Tears with good success, too, so that might be another one to look into.

For typing, we love BBC Dancemat typing--so fun!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

There are lots of literature lists out there--you might have a peek at The Well-Trained Mind, or Ambleside Online, or Mater Amabilis, or the Sonlight catalogue, Judith Wynn Halsted's "Some of My Best Friends are Books," or lists of Newbery winners, or things like that. Our library has a couple of big shelves of titles like "100 best books for kids" or some such thing. Frenchie and I were lucky enough to have very well-stocked shelves as children, and so far, we have had pretty good luck generating reading lists from our memory banks. I like older books a lot, so I follow publishers catalogues from houses that reprint classic children's lit (like Jane Nissen Books, New York Review Children's Collection, Persephone, Fidra, Purple House Press, etc.)

We've used the Bonnie Risby workbooks from Prufrock Press for logic, which are quite good; the ones we have are not super-exciting visually, though. http://www.prufrock.com/showproducts.cfm?FullCat=97

Lots of people like the Critical Thinking workbooks, too (Mindbenders and so on). My favourite things, really, for younger kids, are Sudoku, Encyclopedia Brown (!) and various kinds of logic-y games (like Mastermind, and so on), as well as fun logic puzzles (Dover has a lot; here's an example: http://store.doverpublications.com/0486454746.html )

[We've just bought Mary Haight's "The Snake and the Fox," which looks like being lots of fun (we've only done a couple of chapters so far), but may not be what you're wanting for a six year-old.]

Hope that helps a bit--let us know what you need!

peace
minnie

We use it too. Here are a few links that will be very helpful in figuring out *how* to use MEP.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mep-homeschoolers/

http://ohpeacefulday.blogspot.com/2009/06/mep-101.html

And I'm putting these links because many of the ladies on the Yahoo group below REALLY know their math!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LivingMathForum/

http://www.livingmath.net/

Hope this helps!

I bought several curriculum books when we started homeschooling last year. Some my son liked, some I liked, and some bored both of us to tears. After a year, I finally feel like I know what we will both be happy with in terms of curriculum.

This is what we currently use:

Spelling Workout
Wordly Wise
Rod & Staff English (some religious content)
Minimus Latin
Math 4 by Greg Sabouri
Story of the World - history
Writing with Ease by Bauer
Art/Music - library books
Science - tutor

We belong to two homeschool co-ops and I can tell you I've never come across two moms who homeschool the exact same way. Curriculum choices and schedules vary widely. However, one thing is the same...all the moms I know are trying to do the very best for their children.

I wish you the best of luck! Homeschooling has been a very rewarding experience for us and I hope the same will hold true for you!