Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Love, Love, Love Michael Clay Thompson's LA

Portia-- Thanks so much for this recommendation! I am just in love with this curriculum. We got it yesterday and my son and I are eating it up!

I love words and how they sound and feel... This curriculum is how I wish I could explain the beauty and intricacies of language to my child but much more artfully developed than I could ever have done on my own.

I read the pieces of this set and see a way to inspire my child to truly enjoy and learn to create language on the level which his gifts make him capable. I wonder why our schools are stuck on inventive spelling and forced formulaic writing for children who have never been taught language... It seems such a waste and I am thrilled to have this option to give my child the tools to create instead of forcing a skill for which he is not prepared.

We also bought the Mud Trilogy with the full set. I am looking forward to going through every bit of it with him.

Yes foreign language would be great working from a "sound" foundation! If I ever see something like that I will post in a heartbeat!

I told my son the little fish he keeps noticing on the pages is named "Mud" and that we get to read about his adventures when we finish the Grammar book. It's all just so delightful!

What I wish I had is a Math curriculum that hits the same sweet spot MCT LA curriculum does. What we are doing now is BORING but he has a few gaps I am finding and filling. He needs to fill the 3rd/4th gaps before we can get into something like AOPS. He whizzed through both Dragon Box Apps (5+ and 12+) and loves balancing equations. It's hard to find that sweet spot and he nearly flips out and shuts down when he comes across something he doesn't know. I told him my one goal this year is for him to learn to find solutions rather than shut down when he doesn't know something.

I haven't found any conventions until Spring (Mar-Apr-May). I think we jumped in during the lag between the Fall and Spring ones. I do look forward to having the opportunity to browse curricula in person like that. Until then I'm skimming and learning from others.

Portia -- thanks for the write-up! Planning to order!

Happily -- have you looked at beast academy? (From AOPS) They have the 3rd grade books out and some 4th grade. DS loves the text! Not sure if it's what you'd need for homeschooling, but wanted to mention it.

I second, third, ...whatever the recommendation. We recently got MCT Island and have only been through a little bit of Grammar Island, but even at the little bit we have done, we both find it wonderful. As for Beast Academy, we just started 4A this week and DS loves it. I wish the rest of the books would come out faster. I don't know that it is quite the same flavor as MCT, but it is the closest we have ever been to finding the perfect homeschool fit with the two programs.

What has held me back from Beast Academy so far is how my son is shutting down yelling, "I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it!" every time he is faced with something new. I have quite a bit of negative school experiences to "untrain".

I'm walking a tight line between an occasional challenge to work through and work that is mind numbingly too easy. I looked at the pretests for level 3 and can't see him getting through it in his current mental state. We are making progress and I keep reinforcing that the one thing I want him to learn this year is how to find solutions rather than shutting down.

On the other hand, with MCT it's so seamless he doesn't feel like he's being "challenged". Tonight, he looked at me and said, "Mom, can we please do tomorrow's Grammar Island tonight? I just love it so much!".... He says math is his favorite subject and WJ puts him as >99.9 for math. I think I just feel sad that I haven't found a way to light him up about math with his innate talent just yet when I see how well MCT is doing that for LA.

Sorry I think I've ended up thread-jacking here. The MCT stuff has just set a totally new level of quality for us... and I greedily want more.

HappilyMom have you tried any of the Life of Fred books? Or Murderous Math? Read as entertainment they may be very non threatening but still feed that love of math. My DD finds Fred hilarious.

I definitely second the Murderous Maths part of this (haven't seen the Fred books, despite hearing a lot about them). They have a website - maybe you might show him and see if he likes the flavour of it? Try the Mystery Tour...

We started the Life of Fred apples when he was 4 right about the time it first came out. It doesn't really work for him. I have several of the Murderous Math books and tried introducing them over the summer. He liked the approach but did not want to read them.

I think the real problem with both of those is that his vision problems make reading arduous. Way too much text on a page.

We also tried Dream Box and too many vision problems in how they structured the questions.

This is how we ended up on IXL... only one problem per page, no distracting visuals, answers are all typed, clear connection with math standards and measurable progress and reports. But it is also perfectionism promoting, no teaching, infuriating (sometimes), and not stimulating any original thought. He gets annoyed at their slogan "practice that feels like play" because he says it is a lie.

MCT materials have nice simple pages without too many words to process at a time and the use of color to separate ideas makes it so much easier for him to follow. One reason I mentioned my math curriculum need here is because Portia's son has similar challenges to mine. I was hoping she had uncovered something good that would work for us.

From what I know right now (still hoping something better is out there)I think I need to keep taming the shut down beast working together through IXL and when he has improved there, hop over to Beast Academy...

Well. I underestimated my son...certainly not the first time. I showed him the Beast Pre-test one question at a time and he did very well and thought it was fun! So we are ordering Beast and shelving IXL. We'll see how it goes. Thanks so much for the recommendations! I always learn so much here.