Hi,
I am at my crossroad. I get upset when I see school isn't a true fit to my girl who is precocious. She loses interest in school, no matter how much of cajoling I have been to her, to give her support. She is 8 this year and I am foreseeing she will be using UK curriculum in years to come, hence I need parents here who may be more resourceful than I am to give clues as to what sort of online programs I should look into and I know I will look into all programs in details myself.
Thank you.
There are a couple of people on the accelerated board of "the well trained mind" forum who might be able to help.
I don't know of any gifted online programs in the sense of complete curricula. However, there are lots of online classes for gifted kids. There are several different providers, and you can patch together learning opportunities that work for your child. The Johns Hopkins Ctr. for Talented Youth does, I believe, admit students from all over the world. They have extensive online classes. They are expensive, but many of them are excellent. Be aware that they sometimes use canned curricula that others have developed. In my opinion, it is not worth paying the CTY prices for these. However, their individually developed classes can be excellent.
Gifted homeschoolers forum offers online classes. So does onlineG3.com, and Athena's Advanced Academy. None of these provide credit, but that may not be an issue for you for a while in any case. There is a more complete list of online classes available at hoagiesgifted.com.
Given that your daughter is only eight, my last suggestion would be that you consider doing some interest let learning, at least in a subject or two. Homeschooling is such a wonderful opportunity to go at the pace and according to the interests of the learner. When my kids without age, they each got to pick a period in history or a country that they were interested in. We read the mythology from that time or place, we cooked recipes from there, we read books and watch two documentaries, and did crafts. Science can also lend itself to this kind of learning.
Good luck!
There is the Stanford Online High School which also has a middle school.
We have had a very good experience with the Laurel Springs Academy for the Gifted and Talented. It is the gifted division of Laurel Springs School, which you can find via Google easily. I have been impressed with the peer group (when they have live or online discussions) and with the school's willingness to tailor curriculum for enrichment and learning style. They have a number of full-time staff who run the gifted program. One of the great features, in addition to the customization, is that your child can take whatever he/she is ready for. I know that they have some quite young children (age 8+) who are taking advanced courses -- 8 year olds taking high school English or math classes according to their abilities and interests. They have teachers who teach only (or primarily, as far as I can tell) gifted students. So we have never heard the dreaded "sorry, we can't accelerate" or "we don't have the resources to enrich." And we also don't get the "your child can't possibly be ready for that." They test, evaluate, and tailor. (We were in public schools thru 5th grade, so the contrast was amazing.)
All that said, Laurel Springs Academy for the G&T is, like any homeschool, what it is. It isn't a full-time or even part-time child care arrangement, obviously. And the teachers are great, but they are evaluators of the work you submit more than hands-on teachers (you can certainly go to them with questions, but they do not present lectures.) Laurel Springs expects every student to have a home teacher with primary teaching responsibility (usually a parent). They have some online classes, but they are often enrichment rather than full course presentations (at least until, apparently, you get to the AP level, where there are frequent online classes). So it works best for kids who are motivated, organized, and will stay on track. It definitely works for us!