Search Results for: blog thoughts on home schooling a gifted child

Homeschooling Our Gifted Son: The Hunt for “Gifted Curriculum”

I have to first say that it’s not necessary to find curriculum specifically for gifted kids if you have a highly gifted child. But someone recently asked me a question about whether or not you should go deeper or wider when homeschooling a gifted child and what do you do about curriculum. (In other words, do you use ‘regular’ curriculum and just keep advancing grade levels. . .or do you take your time to explore grade level curriculum in depth with lots of investigation.) I think the answer depends on the family and the child, but I’ve offered some thoughts … Continue reading →

Is My Child Ready to Read?

This has been a topic that I’ve been pondering recently for a few reasons. The first is that one of my twins is highly verbal and has a fairly impressive set of preschool skills that she’s acquired while I’m busy not doing preschool. Friends and some family are a little surprised that I still maintain that formalized preschool, even at home, is not the direction I want to go, even with a gifted child. Music, art, play, and literature abound, but preschool in my house will always be optional. The second thing that has me pondering this question is the … Continue reading →

Some More Thoughts on Homeschooling More Than One

I was asked recently on another blog about home schooling more than one child. While it has been covered in the home schooling blog before, I thought I’d share some insight on home schooling five, and some practical tips on how we manage. Although I think most who normally read this blog know this, by way of reintroduction, I have five kids. While I still maintain that preschool is optional, most of my younger children want to at least read every day. So I will say that I’m home schooling three preschoolers, one gifted first grader and one third grader. … Continue reading →

Concerns of Public Education: G = Gifted Students

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So far, I have addressed concerns of public education A through F. I have discussed various topics from various points of views. Today, I would like to address gifted students. This concern is more of a personal concern for me. I hope that this issue is not a concern to everyone or every school system. Therefore, my concern for G is gift students. Our public school systems seem to do a pretty good job at meeting the needs of struggling students. There are 504 and federal laws to protect students with special needs. There are schools, such as mine, that … Continue reading →

Homeschoolers Should Not Impose Rules on Each Other

I was recently chastised by another homeschooler for placing a label on my child. I mentioned that my child qualifies as “gifted” according to certain standards, and that the other was “talented” at computer science. I seem to have struck a nerve as she attacked my comment in a “how dare you” kind of way. She insisted that one of the reasons to homeschool was to remove labels from children, so as a homeschooler, I should know better than to apply such labels to my kids. She felt that calling my kids talented or gifted was the same as calling … Continue reading →

Homeschooling My Gifted Son. . .When the Others Are Not Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about a conversation in which my oldest asked about whether or not it was okay to not be as smart as her little brother. While the twins are too young really to know what’s going on, the older three are intuitive enough to recognize that Alex is highly intelligent in this specific academic area. Conventional wisdom says that you should talk about how each one is gifted differently. Certainly this is true. My oldest is a very talented artist and considering she’s 7, takes some amazing photographs. My 4 year old speaks Spanish really well; better than … Continue reading →

Homeschooling My Gifted Son. . .When the Others Are Not

One of the biggest challenges in homeschooling our gifted son is our other children. They are bright. . .but not gifted. Perhaps it would be a little easier if our son was the oldest, but he’s not. My twins are too little to be homeschooled in the formal sense, and so that leaves Alex smack in the middle. The other day we were working on Math. Meghan, who is almost 4 is learning to recognize different coins. Lizzy, who is in 3rd grade, is working on making change. Meanwhile, Alex is contemplating other matters. He already figured out how much … Continue reading →

10 Things You Didn’t Know About the New Food Blogger

I am not new to families.com but I now get the privilege of blogging for the food blog on a regular basis. If you’ve read my blogs, you probably know a few things about me already: I have twin girls who are almost 20 months old, along with the other three children. . .making a total of 5 kids (under the age of 7)! I live in the inner city. I know way too much about nursing babies and advocate it any chance I get. We are a homeschooling family with a particularly inquisitive son. I have even done a … Continue reading →

Homeschooling My Gifted Son: The Basics

I have to tell you that although my son can measure trajectory, play chess in his mind several moves ahead, and has a deep fascination with bioluminescent animals. . .he still has to be taught the basics. It is true that he intuits quite a bit of information. For example, when I was teaching my daughter subtraction, we had to go through each set of facts and review them over and over again. With my son, I didn’t even have to teach him all the facts. He caught onto the principle of subtraction and went on from there. Despite the … Continue reading →

Why We Are Not Testing Our Gifted Son

I have found an interesting irony as we have discovered that our son is gifted. There is now this ‘push’ to have him tested to see exactly how ‘gifted’ he is. Yet if we were to find out and quantify his giftedness, there are very few resources for home schooling gifted kids. I still need better resources because we’re still home schooling him, but we have decided not to have him tested. Reason #1: Socialization I will admit that the only reason I put this as reason #1 was because it’s the first thing people ask us when they find … Continue reading →