Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Choosing homeschooling curriculum and WJ-III grade

Lorel, you have a great point about the parrot stage. They definitely make generalities that don't apply to HG students. I also think they take a looonnnggg time with LA, and we tossed FLL after a week.

I love the idea of the classical education model, which is what I take from it. It gives me lots of great ideas, like studying science instead of "social studies," using the immersion approach, studying latin and language roots, etc etc. When I first started homeschooling, I took 20 books from the library. I tossed 19 away as too light and fluffy for our needs, and this was the only one that seemed to have information we could use. I really use it more as a general outline. It gave me my first light, though, when I was floundering through the darkness!

We have wayyy too many choices as homeschoolers! Blessing and curse, I sometimes think! I just spent Sunday afternoon mesmerized, reading the reviews in the Rainbow Resources catalog. It's a type A mom's paradise!! LOL!

TOTALLY agree on WTM! My kids went through the parrot stage much, much earlier than 5. The memorization angle would not fly here at all.

I started FLL with my kindergartner last year and I found myself skipping around quite a bit. It is painful!

The curriculum we've had the most luck using here is Singapore PM (now figuring out what to do next for my 9 yo) and Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts. We do use SOTW very loosely and have Usborne's Encyclopedia of World History as reference. We pull many more resources from the library and are crawling through it.

For science, we've had the best luck just reading and researching on our own. I'm not ready to do high school level science with my 3rd grader, but nothing below that level is enough for him. He still enjoys hands on activities. Science has been a problem for us. This year we are going to try Joy Hakim's story of Science, while continuing to do extra reading. Joy Hakim ties history and science together and I think it might kill some time while I work up the courage to do something more concrete. And give him some time to be able to work on skills that will be useful for higher level science, like writing, organization, and work ethic!

Other than that we do field trips, homeschool classes, music lessons, lots of reading and some free writing. I too wish there were better boxed options, but 2 years into it I feel like I'm better at pulling from many sources and I have a better sense for what is worth spending money on!

Kimck- Our homeschool styles are very similar. We have enjoyed Singapore math as well, though right now my younger kids are using EPGY. We didn't have much luck using MCT on our own, but I have high hopes that it will be more fun with Online G3.

Let me know what you think of Hakim's science books. We love her US History.

That's great to hear Lorel. I have been eying up Hakim's US history for a while and hearing that from you is great reassurance that they're good books! They're on my Amazon wish list. Maybe they'll find their way to our house at Christmas time!

I'll let you know what we think on the Science! There was an excellent sale on the materials recently, so I just ordered the whole set. I figured we'll use them in some form or another regardless!

I had to go out of town twice in the past five days, my mother came to visit, and if that's not enough, I also fell down a flight of stairs. What a week!

Anyway, I am slowly catching up on my life again.These suggestions are excellent! I went back to the WTM forums and spent hours just browsing through the curriculum. Ah, curriculum!

I also think I am recovering from my burnout of last year.

Thank you so much for your suggestions.