Any suggestions on a good home school program?

Tammy - posted on 01/06/2011

I think your best bet is to get an idea of how your child likes to learn and go from there. You want to give them a well rounded education at their level of mastery. Homeschooling allows anyone to do this for any child. From experience I would suggest that while you have the time try to revamp how you think of "school" Most of us who went to public or even private schools still think along those lines and in those terms.



First: Start thinking of it as "Home Education" istead of schooling. This will help



second: Realize that you don't have to get everything from the same place or all the subjects from one line of curriculum.



Third: Don't think in terms of grade level, instead think in terms of level of mastery. Schools do grade levels and match it with age. Many "gifted" children wouldn't have been considered very gifted in the 1800's. They actually educated children back then. One math book from back then that I saw took a child from "you have one nose, two eyes," etc all the way to division in 1 school year. You move on once you've "mastered" a skill level not just because you went over the material and have an idea about it.



Make sure to teach in age appropriate ways. Young children learn through play so I wouldn't expect even a highly gifted child to sit and learn in a structured manner at 2 or even 4 and sometimes 5. Intellect and emotional maturity don't always grow at the same rate.;)



I would highly suggest you look into Spell to Write and Read for the language portion. This will take the average non reader to 12th grade reading and spelling in about 4-5 years. www.bhibooks.net it uses REAL phonics not the partial junk they teach today along with whole word instruction. SWR uses they way we USED to teach reading back when our country had a 99% literacy rate. It's how all other languages are taught.



I would also suggest Cursive First. You can find that in the same site as well. Definitely read up on the unbelievable benefits of teaching cursive first instead of print.



The really great thing is that they contain EVERYTHING you need, can be used for multiple children and then passed on when you are done! The only consumables are the $3-$5 work books (only need one a year), paper and pencils. No need to keep getting curriculum every year. If I total up everything I spent on it including laminating the cards and all the little extra's it would be about $200 for everything brand new. To do consumable curriculm the usual way for 2 kids from start to 12th grade would cost me at least $1200.

Zoe - posted on 12/25/2010

As much as I like ""The Well-Trained Mind: A Classical Guide to Education", I felt it leaned a bit too much towards history and not enough science. Weird for a recovering history major, but hear me out.

1) My daughter doesn't have my history bug (in so many ways she is my mini-me, but I can't get her to read "Little House on the Prairie".) I might have her read about all the list of historical characters they consider a MUST to know (like one book each from the library) I don't think it's a great list for memorizing. If she needs to work on the skill of memorizing things for the rote phase, it will be anatomy, like all the major bones of the human body.

2) Jobs in the future are going to be MUCH more science based (like medical, at least in the U.S.) and at the worst they train you to think in systems. I know both women have made great careers in the humanities, good for them. But statistical speaking, what kids need to be prepared for are science jobs.

3) It's more of where my daughter's interests lays.



My other foible is after doing Suzuki musical education, again, I felt their treatment was rather superficial. Like any system cherry-pick what you like and works for you.



***edited **



I just went and googled "Calvert Home Schooling" and looked at their curriculum. What jumped out at me was "What about the asynchronous learner?" In the case of my gifted kid, the reading and science for starters would be a waste of money. (I know those readers well, and my daughter's teacher set aside the 3rd grader reader and they do the lessons out of 4th now. So as a homeschooler, wouldn't you be stuck with the bundle?) I am not a huge fan of the Scott Foresman "Communities" either. I don't know how your libraries for supplementing are in Costa Rica, but I would check out some of these books

http://talentigniter.com/books/books-sch... and come up with your own program. (For example, I use EPGY for math supplementation, when not doing our own manipulatives)



One last comment on the well trained mind.... as much as I like a lot of their ideas, I got some of their curriculum books from our county library (or interlibrary loan via "worldcat.org" ) and found the books had a heavy biblical or Christian slant. (A person who wants something a bit more religiously neutral would be uncomfortable with it. )

Tan - posted on 12/23/2010

Than you I'll check it out :0)

Taj - posted on 12/22/2010

Read the book "The Well-Trained Mind: A Classical Guide to Education" by Susan Wise Bauer. It is phenomenal. I am not a home-schooler. I supplement because I like my kids to have a full education and I think the work at their school can be too easy for them even though it is a really good school. Both of my boys (ages 8 & 10) have tested gifted and are in the school's gifted program. This book lays out a full home-schooling (or supplementing) curriculum with suggested books, time schedules, etc. for kids from pre-school through high school. I can't say enough about it. Read it and see what you think.