Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Homeschoolers roll call

Oh dear.

Yes, yes it does.

Yes you need to join a community where you can buy (used) and sell homeschool books.

And never write in a workbook (do the problems on a white board). If you want to keep something like a unit test or end of year test for a portfolio out of a consumable book photocopy that one test for use so you can keep it. Then you can sell the work book. It isn't fair that you spend much money on something that you have to force the kid not to do the whole thing in one or two sittings.

Grades K-1, full time public school
Grades 2-3 (first half of 3), part time public school
Grade 3 (second half of 3), sweet, sweet full time homeschooling

We transitioned from part time to full time homeschooling just a few months ago. It has been glorious in almost every way. DS is so darn happy, I keep asking myself, "Why didn't we do this earlier?" (But the answer is, "DS wasn't ready" - I can live with that.) He is all over the place with grade levels, like any highly asynchronous child. He works on his passions and strengths with delight (and some days I have to restrict his hours on these topics, otherwise he will work until he passes out at midnight). He works on the stuff he hates too. I get very little resistance though because it is just that much better to do those subjects at home.

Honestly, DS is like a different kid, in a lot of ways since we started the full time hsing. I'm surprised myself with the change I see in him. Was he really stifled that much in public school - even just attending part time? I think, yes. He has put those intellectual wings up high in the air and spread them waaaaayyyy out. He even gets along so much better with his siblings.

So, we are definitely sticking with this for now and will do this as long as it works for all involved. I'm beyond grateful that we can do this for him.

Another very happy homeschooler here. DD is 6, nominally in 2nd grade, and we've been homeschooling for about 4 months. She and I love the freedom to focus on whatever we want. Here's just one in-depth example:

We started on Story of the World, but I was unimpressed by the early chapters on prehistory. So I read her The Cartoon History of the World: The Stick and Stone Age, verbally supplemented by my own knowledge of human evolution. Then I started googling the neolithic revolution (agriculture, animal domestication, and, as a result, permanent cities) and created a quick powerpoint slide-show about Mehrgarh, precursor to the Indus Valley Civilization. You should have seen DD's eye's light up: "Is that for ME? You're making a lecture for ME?" I plan on doing the same for other first settlements in other parts of the world. (Note to self, what are the theories about why this started happening all over the world at around the same time? Is it an ice-age or end-of-ice-age thing? Must google . . .) Oh, and we're also reading The History of Money, the first two chapters deal with prehistory, so that ties in. Eventually we'll get back to Story of the World. Nobody's rushing us on a timeline.

And that's just history. We're also doing Science, Spanish, music, literature, and math. And amazingly, we're doing it all in just an hour or two a day. The rest of the time DD gets to run around like a crazy person. She goes to a "forest school" one day a week, and she has a ton of friends in the neighborhood (incl. one family of homeschoolers). I've noticed that the quality of her play has become deeper and richer. That could just be maturational, but it really feels like her mind has the freedom to breathe now.

This is my second year homeschooling. 3rd and 4th grade for DS9, 2nd grade for DD7 (she started this fall).

I am so glad we are homeschooling. Our local public school was a terrible fit for DS, and there are no nearby private schools that would have worked, either. I only wish we had pulled him out earlier, as he is still recovering from his bad school experiences. It was much easier to start homeschooling DD this year.

I do not love every minute of homeschooling. My kids are intense and emotional and introverted, as am I, and being around each other can sometimes drive us all nuts. Luckily, they are both excellent at finding stuff to do, so we can all go off to our own corners of the house for part of the day. I worry that I am not covering enough in our day (music? social skills? speech?). Am I doing enough to help them achieve their future goals? It was much easier to complain that their school wasn't doing enough, now it's all on me!

However, having them home all day beats getting calls from the principal and dealing with the daily afterschool meltdowns. I will never miss those!

We currently have no plans to send the kids back to school; we assess the situation year by year.

I homeschool my DS-just7 and DD-almost 5 and have since the beginning. It is a lifestyle that suits us well. I love the fact that our 4 core subjects are Piano, Math, Foreign Langauge, and Morning Pages, which I make up for the kids each day and include a smattering of everything else. They fill the rest of their days with play, art, programming, poetry, story writing, puzzles, building, biking, and so much more. It isn't without its challenges, but I suspect they pale in comparison to those we would face advocating for them in the schools. I left a tenure track academic job for this life and I have no plans to leave it

Hi Aquinas,

Count us in the homeschooling camp too. As you know, my son is almost exactly a year older than yours. However, where we live, he is legally ineligible to start kindergarten until he is almost 6 due to a late birthday (so that would be a year from September).

We have some curriculum, because he likes it, but really just read a lot, take field trips, and watch shows like Nova from PBS. I don't make him do anything academic at any time, but over a week, it evens out to a lot of coverage of material. Sometimes we "play school", but usually learning is just blended into everyday life, like fractions in cooking.

We do a great deal of outdoor play and I work hard to get him play time with other kids who are a good fit by setting up playdates at the park and driving when necessary. I had to overcome my own introvert tendencies and I now get the contact information of any family who seems a good fit when I see my son click with someone out.

Speaking of curriculum burn... On a whim, I bought the Singapore Math Primary Mathematics 1A textbook this week for fun. He was so excited. He did every problem (there are not many in the textbook) and finished it in 2 days (& actually very few hours). I bought 1B from Amazon but it hasn't arrived yet. These are pretty cheap in "Used-like new" condition. I bought 1A for under $7 including shipping. At this stage, I'm only buying the textbook because he doesn't need or like repetition. I knew from our conversational math throughout the day that he was above this when I bought it, but still thought he might like it. I think he'll blow through 1B in a similar timeframe. We are going to try Art of Problem Solving Beast Academy once we hit that level because I think it will be a good fit for him.

The other real curriculum I have is Bernard Nebel's Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. I highly recommend it. My son loves to watch Nova and my husband finds all sorts of interesting science videos on YouTube. He knows more on certain science subjects than I covered in college classes.

Like you, we spend a lot of time at the library. We go through close to 400-500 pages a day of me reading to him, when he is in the mood. Other days, it is only bedtime stories (Max Axiom, super scientist). My son loves loves the Max Axiom series at bedtime. We go through 1 book a week and he asks to be read each one multiple times a day.

His handwriting is typical of an early writer and he still insists on writing with both hands. He writes with the right until it gets tired and then switches to the left. If he doesn't feel like writing, I'll scribe or just do whatever he is interested in orally. He likes to write notes for his dad. Some days I pull out some hieroglyphic stamps and leave him secret messages to decode (practice handwriting), because he is really excited by secret agents and codes right now.

We aren't really doing a formal language arts program yet. We talk about grammar and the parts of speech. He loves Mad Libs type stories where we ask for a series of nouns, adjectives, etc and then put his words into a silly story. When he is older and his writing output is stronger, we may try the Michael Clay Thompson series.

On some days, he honestly just watches PBS Kids and we play with his toys all day. I really just let him make the call of what to do, unless we have a scheduled commitment or I need to run errands, buy groceries, etc. (I absolutely police content though. Some books and shows are off limits at this age due to behavior I don't want to see at home.)

I was talking to a mom today with a son older than mine in public preschool two days a week. She was complaining about all of the standardized test prep he is doing. Apparently, they had tests in the fall and are prepping for a second set before school ends. I had no idea there were standardized tests in preschool. She was frustrated because her son's teachers were upset that he had done poorly on the how to open a book section. A child is supposed to take an upside down book, turn it right side up, and then open it. Her son likes to take the book, open it, and then turn it right side up. He has been forced to practice this each day in school for a significant amount of time and the teachers have asked them to practice at home. When asked why it mattered, she said the teachers insisted that it was essential to passing the test for him to do it the right way and that there would be dire consequences if he didn't do well. If true, this seems really strange to me. It was also clear from the conversation that the kids in the class are not reading yet and are not doing the typical arts/crafts/play activities I had expected. With the emphasis on circle time and specific rule following (without any explanation of why said rule is necessary), it really wouldn't be a good fit for our family.

I have another friend with a 6 year-old daughter in an expensive private school here with a good reputation. She was frustrated because her daughter started the kindergarten year already knowing how to do long division. She told the teachers this at the beginning of the year (& at several points throughout the year). Even though the year is almost over, her daughter is still bringing home math worksheets and homework with simple addition problems.

I apologize for the length of this message but thought it might be helpful because our sons are close in age. We are taking it year by year.

To directly answer your question... Current level of satisfaction is high (some days are better than others). We are taking it year by year, but for right now do not see a better option at this age and stage for our family.

We've homeschooled DD9 one from the beginning, other than preschool. We had her privately tested when she was almost 7, hoping to advocate for a grade skip, along with some adjustment issues. The private tester (who specializes in gifted kiddos) told us that the two worst things we could do were 1. put her in a regular classroom, or 2. "unschool" her.

We really already knew our local schools wouldn't meet her needs because she is the youngest of four, and we spent an enormous amount of time advocating for the first three.

This is our 5th year of official homeschooling. THIS WEEK is the first week we've felt like we've hit our stride. I really wish there was a private school that would meet her needs, but there is not. Even if there were, she never would have discovered her love of languages (she does 2) or her love of recreational math.

If I had it to do over again, I would have worried much less until she was about 6 or so. At that point you can placement test into whatever curriculum you decide to use.