I'd love from homeschoolers who are raising at least one gifted child. I'm curious about how you manage to challenge at each level
I homeschool my DS8 whom I consider to be PG based on his academic comfort level...2011 is going to be our fifth year doing so. The first two years were the hardest as I wasn't prepared for him to be so advanced and kept trying to make him do grade level work. From our third year onwards (around Grade 2), I began to relax. I decided that since we're homeschooling, doing the whole non traditional thing anyway, we don't have to follow a sequential path at all. If he wants to do high school math so be it. We can always go back to review grade level concepts when he needs it. This realization that I don't have to follow what schools are doing has been the best thing to happen in our homeschool.
He's my only child so I'm afraid I can't help with sibling issues. But I do know that there's no way public or private school would have worked out as well as homeschooling has. It isn't easy on the parent taking the primary facilitator role but it's the most fulfilling and productive "job" I've ever held.
Please ask some more if you have any specific questions on challenging the child. I don't think you can avoid the trial and error discovery phase of what will work and what won't but you may be able to reduce some of the worry and anxiety by discussing with them what they would really like to learn and then planning for complexity of materials/ books etc to range from about one grade level below to 5 or so grade/ age levels ahead of their comfort zone. Why? Because these kids learn so quickly, you'll find yourself running out of materials if you bought the ones that were just one or two grade levels ahead. I use this yardstick to zoom ahead or scale back accordingly.
Good luck Suzanne!
