My husband and I have recently decided to homeschool our children. I have a 6th grader (gifted), a 5th grader, and a 3rd grader. I am extremely scared about taking on this huge responsibility so I am doing this progressively. My younger two are going to finish out this year, but I will be pulling my 6th grader out as soon as I get curriculum and feel comfortable teaching it. My issue is that I am not sure what curriculum to use. He is gifted in math and science, but he also excels in social studies and reading. He isn't particularly fond of grammar, but it's my passion so I want him to have a solid foundation. I've searched many things, but it has overwhelmed me! Any suggestions?
See if your state has a free virtual school, and see if they'll place students in the appropriate level for each subject. (It may be hard to get enrolled though.)
I don't have much advice as I myself am still only toying with the idea of Homeschooling our DS5 and DS3.5 but I have to say I'd probably be a little scared of having 3 kids in different ages all at once. I know, I'm no help
I agree thought that at first I'd probably look for an online curriculum and maybe some extra enrichment or custom built curriculum for the gifted child.
If you are into grammar try the well trained mind forums.
Try the well trained mind forums. Sorry thought it didn't work the first time.
Agreeing with puffin. The Well Trained Mind forums are great for academic homeschoolers.
I plan to buy this, eventually, from "The Great Courses".
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/...-_-moreinfo&cm_mmca1=87012&cm_mmca2=1014This is supposed to cover everything you need before highschool math. After that the Great Courses has Algebra 1 & 2, Geometry, and more. They often go on sale for $60 bucks.
Art of Problem Solving is another company reccomended for highschool math supplement. They have a little set of books for 3rd graders also.
Third the reference for the Well Trained Mind Forums, particularly the Accelerated Learner subforum.
EPGY, Art of Problem Solving, PBS online resources are discussed often as good for gifted learners. The Michael Clay Thompson language arts series is also supposed to be good for gifted kids, but I am not sure what grade levels it covers.
Good luck!
I will chime in here, but take any of what I say with a heap of salt, as we've only been homeschooling for 3 weeks now. We are all over the map with curriculum, but I knew going in that "school in a box" would not work. We didn't join a charter school, although that is a popular option for many of the homeschoolers we know.
The best advice I've received is not to buy a lot of stuff at first. Wait and see. Borrow books from other homeschoolers, to see if you like them. See what you can find from the library.
If you have a local homeschool group, join it. Better still if it's a gifted homeschool group, although those are harder to find. They will have information about local classes, coops, and events that you otherwise might never know about.
FWIW, I haven't picked out a language arts curriculum yet, so we haven't done any. I want us to both be comfortable homeschooling, rather than stress over covering every single subject every week.
And yes, the amount of available curricula out there is totally overwhelming! I wound up making a Word doc for each subject and adding names of books and websites as I came across them.