We have requested a major meeting with the school (DD unchallenged and struggling with ADHD inattentive), but if things don't go well, we are pulling DD9 out of school. We haven't found anything else that is the right "fit" so until next year, homeschooling might be the way to go. Even typing this makes me hyperventilate!!!! Ok, for you who have gone this route, can you let me know the first few steps to take? I did check out our state's requirements. That was easy. I also joined a gifted homeschool group which unfortunately isn't very active, but there is another group, not gifted, that has a lot going on - just emailed them. Other positive points - DD already is enrolled in a gifted after school math class, and they have language arts classes as well so she could jump into that.
I might not need any of this information, but I want to be prepared.

Our state requires a portfolio or standardized testing. If yours does too...I would get a box (we used a box that had held copy paper reams in it), a three inch binder, and a teachers planner book.

At the end of each day jot notes under each subject about what she read or worked on keeping a list of titles of books. The box is a place to store samples of work (date them before you toss them in).

At the end of the year you have samples to work pull out and include in the notebook, you have your planner to remind you of books, topics, field trips, projects. Take pictures on your cell phone of art or activities and have a section of photographs.

I think next year I will be homeschooling if I can't find just the right program for my son.

You've received great ideas and advice above. Be sure to check your State laws. I'll just add a few more possible resources to explore:
- Gifted Homeschooler's Forum ( GHF )
- Royal Fireworks Press ( RFP ), especially known for Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts curriculum
- Homeschool Legal Defense Association ( HSLDA ), homeschooling advocates since 1983
- Well Trained Mind ( WTM ), book and online forum

Some popular books for contemplating the homeschool decision:
- Rivero
- GHF
- Wessling

I hope that something in this brief roundup of homeschooling links may prove useful.

We didn't end up homeschooling and things have gone well with our local school. But, nothing did more for our peace of mind then having a homeschool plan in place and knowing we could fall back on that.

#1 was knowing everything we needed for the state requirement, if things had gone south (or do in the future) we'll get all the right forms and answers in place.

#2 would be knowing who can cover times you aren't available.

#3 is knowing costs for special programming. Or determining if you can insist on receiving those services from the local school.

#4 Read a book about unschooling. It at least presents a frame of mind to understand you aren't necessarily taking on an 8 hour a day hands on job.

We've done this twice, with an eye to returning our DD to school the following year, when a different situation would be presented to her (full G/T services first time, G/T with grade skip the second).

Once you decide to pull the trigger, step one is to follow your local requirements for deregistering your child from public school and registering as a homeschooler.

And then step two would be to relax, and give your child a bit of space to detox from school. You're talking about a child who is already well ahead, so giving her a couple weeks' break while you get organized is a luxury you can both easily afford.

Step three would be to define your goals for the remainder of the year, because that will drive your curriculum choices. For example, I note that you said, "until next year," which would seem to me that you expect her school to have something more suitable on offer next year. It would make sense, then, to have preparing her for that situation as an educational goal.

And then, once you know where you want her to be, step four would be to assess her yourself, to see where she's at. School administrators like to kvetch about gaps, so if you plan to return her to school next year, you can start identifying any and dealing with them up front.

Perhaps you could elaborate on this...

I've read fairly broadly and I've never found a modern unschooling book that I like or identify with. Ds has been unschooled at home for the last 3 years. The "unschooling" books I identify with would be John Holt's "How Children Learn" and "How Children Fail", Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society", and maybe some of Gatto's stuff. More broadly, Neil Postman's stuff is good... his "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" could be seen as pro-unschooling.

All of these books come out a 60s-70s alternative education strand. I find them inspiring for gifted kids. Despite being tapped into the urban, somewhat anarchist, local attachment parenting scene, I've never found the same connection with the radical unschooling literature for gifted kids. There are plenty of folks doing cool stuff but the books just don't speak to me... they have a greater anti-intellectual bias.

Could you suggest some good modern unschooling books for folks with gifted kids?

I'm not widely read on the topic. I enjoyed The Unschooling Handbook not so much as a guide or how to, but it gave us a frame of reference of just what a kid could do on their own and talked about their own drive to learn.

Contemplating homeschooling without realizing that kids are generally born with a drive to learn is intimidating. Seeing that guide and co-learner are likely better roles for you with your gifted kid than omniscient autocrat is liberating.

Thanks!

I still don't think there is a very good unschooling book for gifted, academic families. If you want the comfort of understanding how little direct instruction is needed, I would search on the WTM Accelerated boards[1] or just post another thread asking how much time school for K-6 kids takes. If the classical folks are only spending 2-3hrs then others must be spending even less...

[1] http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/forum/7-accelerated-learner-board/

First of all, relax. Seriously, it's amazing how much stress goes away when you declare yourself 'not part of that system'. Even if you want to enter the system later, let go of it for now.

Second, work with your DD on how they like to learn best. They may not even know at this point, but you can experiment with it. Take a class? Watch a lecture? Online learning? Project based? Unschool? Try something and if it doesn't work let it go. No stress.

For example, I know that unschooling is very popular, but DD hates the idea. She loves to be taught and the process of learning/teaching. She loves the dynamic of a classroom at her level.

If your DD takes off though you need to be aware of making the integration into regular school problem worse. Two years into homeschooling, and our DD is now working 2-3 years ahead. It's like at least two years gain for every year. There's no way we can rejoin the system now.

I love prufrock press as a resource too. Especially their clearance sale.

We probably spend that on school average, but some weeks we are only working at home 3 days. Some days go longer- dd became interested in math, so it took 2 hours just for math yesterday. We do Latin and math everyday. Pretty much everything else 1-2x per week with periodic subject binges. We do limit what we call squishy brain reading and screen time to encourage a little creative boredom.

You've gotten good advice so far. We had older kids who graduated from our local schools. Homeschooling dd has been less work than advocating for them, participating in parent activities, dealing with homework after school and all of the other time drain stuff that happens with school. We went into it with a one year at a time commitment, but I really can't see enrolling her in a brick and mortar school anytime soon. She's 9.

ETA I like the WTM boards, but generally do not post my dd's age even on the Accelerated Learn Board. The way new posts show up, any user might read them. Sometimes that derails the thread when someone doesn't realize they are responded to a to an question about an accelerated student.

ETA 2- The 2-3 hours is my time working with her. By the time she practices piano, does chores around the house, and has lunch it's more like 4-5 hours, 3-4 days most weeks, with one or two days on the road for extracurricular, outside classes and things like being "grandma's helper" for a family member who had surgery or helping volunteer for a literacy program with me.

We usually save assigned reading for last part of the day so she doesn't have to switch gears. She can read as long as she wants.

Probably too much info, but sometimes "a day in the life" can help make a leap less scary.

Good Luck!

We do something similar:

~3 hours of academics per day, 3 days a week.
plus music practice, sports practices, field trips, and weekly co-op (largely fun stuff). The fifth day is for catching up (independently) on anything left incomplete from earlier in the week. Or for lazing around and reading all day.

I expect we could be doing more (you read about these hyper-organized homeschool families who do six hours a day, six days a week, plus farm chores), but I feel no need to do so!

Wow! Thanks all! I needed to read some nuts and bolts info - a "day in the life" as it were. A couple of things that will be tricky will be the fact that one child will stay in school. She loves her school, but will be jealous that younger sibling will be with mommy all day. The other issue is that I don't feel up to the task. I come from an art background and am math phobic. Like I said, I have a math class already set up, but that is just one class...I just start thinking about details, and I get overwhelmed. I think that I would like the online schools because someone else is responsible for passing along the knowledge. My mom is an AIG teacher so she would be a great resource (great way to get her to move a bit closer!!).
I will know in a couple of weeks if I need this information. Thank you so much!!

Oh, and we had one in school and one at home for a few years. We explained that they are each unique, and as parents, we try to arrange their education (and lots of other parenting decisions, as well) in a way that suits each of them. Your children don't all have to wear the same size and style of clothing to be "fair," do they?

Some may say it is more difficult to assess an online school for "fit", than a brick-and-mortar school. This is because a virtual school is difficult for parents to "tour", or for a child to "shadow" for a day. Additionally, virtual schools may typically oversee and monitor parents, requiring parents to be accountable for facilitating the school-determined educational process. For example, tasks may include scheduling, attendance, and teaching the child if the child does not understand the material in the way it is presented online. This recent thread is about debating homeschool vs virtual school.

A quick unschooling read is "unschooling rules". It's light-hearted and fun to read and explains so much in a short time.

Best of luck for having this in place - we find that the longer we are out of school, the less chance there is of our kids fitting back in. As someone mentioned, the growth and learning keep accelerating. Even allowing for the 2 years my now 7 year old needed for healing time (school was toxic for him) he is now loosely 3 years ahead on most things (except writing) and his inner drive is only now kicking in, so we are seeing leaps and bounds mostly.

Including music practice (2 x instruments), chores and other academic work, we are currently on about 2 hours a day. He is expressing interest in increasing this slowly now so that by mid January we are at 3 hours a day. The rest of the day is spent in playing with other kids, experimenting, day dreaming, climbing trees, researching own topics and other personal persuits of happiness.

We see a similar trend in our 5 year old, although his LOG is higher and he is less social and so chooses to spend proportionately more time "working". He is on 2 - 3 hours a day. But to give you a fair idea, he was a bit ill yesterday and was moaning that he had been too ill to do any work. When asked what he did do, he said that he "only did music practice x 2, and an extra piano practice, snap circuits, made a rain stick, played chess and studied some end games, four life of fred chapters. Read two books, did some mazes in my "advanced" maze book. Folded washing and helped mom weed the strawberry patch. Oh yes I also did some writing practice for fun and planned a story I am working on" For him that was all fun and therefore since not initiated or suggested by me it was emphatically NOT work.

My point is that homeschooling can look like whatever would work best for your daughter right now. If she needs rigour, perhaps giving her the freedom to select from pre-prepared activities will work, or giving her the freedom to develop those independent learning skills could be exactly what she needs right now.

Either way, best of luck!

The other issue with some online schools is that they are often (but not always) all or nothing. So they may be great for math, but not a good fit for history (or whatever). A better option are EPGY classes and the like... they are a la carte, but can be pricey.

Since you are already enjoying after school classes, you might see what's available in terms of homeschool coops or organized "IRL" classes. And remember, as a homeschooler your schedule can be super flexible. It's possible you could have a couple of online classes, afternoon and Saturday classes that are scheduled for kids in school, and spend your days going on field trips and educational outings when things are quiet. We've had some great experiences where, for example, the keepers at the zoo let my daughter behind the scenes to help feed the penguins... just because it was a slow Thursday morning.

My 2 are homeschooled this year. Believe me, I understand your panic

Like another poster mentioned, we try to keep to a somewhat strict schedule because if we can sell our house and move to a better district, we plan to re-enroll them there. Since I don't know when the real estate gods will favor me with a sale, we have been getting them up around 8-8:30 and starting by 9 at the latest. Their core learning hours are from start time til 2 PM. Though my 8th grader often runs past that time because she takes her time with lessons.

My 4th grader buzzes right through his work by 11 at the latest most days and I encourage him to work harder earlier in the week and let him have Fridays off if all of his work is done to do what he wants. My 8th grader often doesn't get it all done and works a full school day.

If DS in 4th grade finishes early, he has to do something educational until 2 PM. He typically reads (he's mid-Harry Potter right now), watches the Science Channel, or watches and builds Lego projects off YouTube. He also watches Maths Mansion off there (British TV show). He plays older math games or empire building games on the computer too.

Today, we watched a two-hour H2 documentary on the Fall of the Roman Empire.

Since we are ahead of the pacing guide for the history taught in our state for 4th graders, he is going to be working on a diorama next week. Your school or others in your state may list their pacing guides matching state standards online. I can easily have him spend a few weeks working on that project and still be comfortably ahead.

There's lots of flexibility in what you can do. It has been so nice to not just rely on text books but to get other materials/websites to add that extra in-depth layer to the regular learning.

Our local Y has a homeschooler gym class that I'm going to check out.

Good luck! In your research, you may find great resources for the summer or just for use at home, even if you don't decide to pull your child home.

One of the first books that I read, and which remains resonant is David Albert's And the Skylark Sings with Me: Adventures in Homeschooling and Community Based-Education. It's wonderful and inspirational, and he touches on things like beauty, laughter, community, and deep passions for learning that aren't conventionally a part of the gifted education narrative/s.

He never explicitly uses the g-word or unschooling, but it's fairly evident both of his children are very gifted and the the learning described in this book is child-led with a pacific NW unschooling flavour.

HTH,
M.

M.