Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments How are the homeschoolers doing?

I LOVE Lisa Rivero's book! It's the best thing! I even recommend it to non-homeschoolers because I think the info about learning styles--while not so much in vogue anymore--is so useful for speaking with teachers, even if you're not teaching yourself.



I've loved reading the updates. I'll finally add mine.

We've had a busy start to the school year, in part because the school-for-homeschoolers that my kids attend part-time changed buildings--after we had already registered and paid for classes 4 days a week!--due to circumstances beyond their control. It's now 35-40 minutes away instead of 20-25 minutes. We had some carpool help, but it wasn't very reliable. (Note: never set up a carpool with someone unless you're *sure* they're reliable! Lesson learned!)

That's the bad news.

The good news is that after a few really tough weeks, I decided to rearrange the schedule a bit, and now we have more time at home. I still drive both ways 3 days a week, but at least we're home more. That's been a good change and I feel more sane. It will get better still when soccer season ends in a couple of weeks.

The even better news is that both kids are as happy as can be.

We started DS6 in the school full time 4 days per week, so I was really only teaching him one day per week. But he had tested out of both Math 1 and 2, but was skittish about skipping 2 grades in math, as was the teacher. So knowing that it would probably not work, I agreed to let him take Math 2. It was way too easy and required a lot of busy work. So I used the scheduling changes as a chance to drop his math and reading/writing classes, and now I'm teaching those. I give him less time-consuming stuff that actually makes him think. He's happier and is actually learning. His reading seems to be coming along quickly all of a sudden, and his writing improved more in one lesson with me than it has in the past 18 months. I wasn't sure he'd work well with me, but he's really doing okay with it.

Socially, he's mostly hanging out with DS9 and his friends from last year (aged 10-12!), which worries me a bit for DS6. But those are the kids who play the imaginative games DS6 enjoys, so I guess that's what he's going to do. The older kids do seem to accept him--certainly DS9 welcomes his participation and defends his right to play if anyone gives him trouble (there's just one kid who's not always nice). But he has some classroom buddies and he adores school this year, both the work level and the social stuff. He likes his TaeKwonDo class at school and he raves about his hands-on science class. It seems like a pretty ideal fit.

DS9 is doing great, as usual. He started going only 2 days a week, but now he's going 2 additional afternoons a week so he gets to see his friends more regularly. He loves that. Even though he's 1-3 years younger than the kids he hangs out with, they are so excited to see him. He walks in the room and the boys yell his name, like they did with Norm on "Cheers." It's great to see.

He wouldn't trade homeschooling, particularly with the addition of the school-for-homeschoolers, if we paid him. He's as slow at getting his work done as ever. That's still maddening! But he's learning and he's happy. He loves his econ class, he's doing very well at algebra, and he seems to be progressing well in general.

So now that my mess of a schedule (and the resulting mess of a house...) are getting squared away, it's looking like a pretty good year.

I love that book too.

We are having a less than stellar stretch at the moment. We are having some rough times right now. Just lots of little things becoming a problem. ugh!

Hi everyone. We are doing well this year. My DS loves his co-op classes. He also likes to work. He is 4yo so we do a mix of unschooling and "homework" as he calls his worksheets/projects. He just finished his 1st grade spelling book and loves to read to his little sister.

The only thing is he can be a night owl at times.

I am feeling better about math. Until recently my 12 year old son was spending very little time doing math. He finished the Life of Fred Decimals and Percents and Fractions books a while back and I have only been having him do a few word problems once in a while when the purpose was really to make sure he could write out the problems and keep the columns straight, that kind of thing, because he has motor dysgraphia. I think pencil and paper math might always be slow for him because of the writing involved.

With the Life of Fred books he always picked up the concepts quickly, he loved the way the books were written, and there were not very many problems to do, so he liked that. But I wanted him to get a little more practice with middle school math before really getting involved in Algebra, which he has been doing only once in a while. This is a kid who would much rather read than do math anyway so I was looking for a fun way for him to review middle school math and build up speed. I found something called IXL math and like some of my son's video games there are achievements that he can earn and he has been doing about one hundred problems a day, sometimes on his iPad in bed at night. I never thought my son would ever do math willingly in bed. It keeps track of the time it takes him to do the problems so he answers the questions as quickly as possible and he has to be accurate even in spelling or the answer is counted as wrong. When his score is up in the 90's, any wrong answer (typos included, like spelling hundredth without the d) will knock his score down about 10 points so he is learning to work quickly and accurately. He always gets the answers faster than I can and uses a lot of mental math when he does math on the computer but I will always beat him in pencil and paper math because I do not have dysgraphia. IXL costs about $10 a month and we will find something else if he get tired of it, but for now I am happy.

A little update from last week, now that all the bumps are behind us I'm running into something else. I mostly HS the youngest, she just turned 6 and is in 1st grade,(DH mostly works with DD7) we're using K12,I'm following the lesson plans, but DD6 will always change the direction the lesson is following so I just go with it, is that what most of you do?

For example the science goes into the three states of matter, but dd knows this stuff and doesn't want to hear it. She wants to know more about the atom and how the 'proton', 'neutron', and 'electron' work. And what would happpened if you added more or less of any of these things what would you end up with ect... She does something like this with every lesson

I guess my question is, do you do what the HS program requires and then add what you need to add/ or do you just not do that lesson/ or do I need to find a different HS program?

This is why I never bought/used a curriculum package for our first year and why I usually recommend to others not to. I find it hard to make them fit the kids' needs, especially the first year or so when you're still figuring out what your kids' needs are.

Yes, I would absolutely do what you're doing and just follow your DD's lead. Unless there's some reason to think that your child is falling behind, why teach lessons that your child doesn't need?

BTW, my son would have been annoyed with the notion that there are only 3 states of matter. It sounds like K12 isn't mentioning plasma, and plasma is fab!

Kriston, thank you for the advise Honestly the reason we started this way is so that we would have some direction on what needs to be taught, but I'm finding out quickly I should have gone more independent. I think once I get my HS feet wet and know what I'm doing I going to change that.

Even though we were behind about a month in starting, now we're ahead, she's goes through the material like it's nothing.(which may be the reason for all the detours in her lessons) I'll just keep following her lead

Your right about the plasma, don't see it anywhere, geez.... maybe they touch on it later?

Question for young inquiring minds.......

There are actually 5 states of matter, can you name them?

DS7 brought this up to his science teacher last week when she only presented 4, ended up getting a demerit from her. Not because of the information, but because of his indignant delivery and refusal to let it drop.

Homeschooling part time is proving more difficult in some ways than full time. By the time DS gets home has lunch and does his homework, neither one of us feels like doing more. I'm looking into audio history since we drive 40 minutes each way to school and back.

Do you have to report to K12?

If not, I can tell you that we had great luck with just checking books out of the library that interested DS back when he was 6/7. Especially in science, this worked really well for him. To make sure we weren't missing anything important, I just used guides like "What your 1st Grader needs to Know" by E.D Hirsch http://www.amazon.com/What-Your-First-Grader-Needs/dp/0385319878 and websites like this one: http://www.worldbook.com/typical_course_of_study.html. But especially in science, there's a lot of variety about what kids learn. There isn't one "right" course of study. As long as the kid is learning something every day and you move between all the sciences (earth science, biology, astronomy, etc.), you'll cover the bases.

Every kid is different, so do with all this what you will. But for us it was great to be able to study things that interested him at a pace and level of complexity that suited him, and the library books are free. FWIW, three years later, at age 9, DS is a science whiz, way ahead of his age-peers in terms of what he has been exposed to in science, so it definitely didn't hurt him to go off-road.

The first year for every homeschooler is a learning year. You're figuring out what works and what doesn't. That's normal and healthy. Really, it sounds like things are going well for you. (Even if it doesn't feel completely like it is...)

We also use k12 and while we don't stick to the curriculum exactly DS6 really enjoys it for the most part. As long as your DD can pass the assessment it doesn't matter HOW you teach the lesson - so feel free to let her go off on any tangents you desire and then take the assessment when done (there's no way she won't be able to pass the assessment if you're going more in depth!)

You can also 'rush' her through the 1st grade science (or any subject) by assessing out of things she isn't interested in doing - that way you get to harder things more quickly.

We're in the process of adding my K'er to doing k12 so our lives will become more messy (umm interesting I mean) in the next few weeks. Neither one will be at level yet but we're getting there.

I do love the fact that we were able to quickly get DS6 into 3rd grade math and he is 1 unit away from finishing the 1st semester of it already. We're almost to new stuff even - so far only a few concepts or words have been new to him but he's happy and enjoying it still so all is good I think.