Top Four Advantages to Homeschooling. . .

I was recently helping a friend of mine select her homeschooling curriculum for the upcoming school year. It motivated me to post what I think are the top four benefits to homeschooling.

1. Freedom to choose your own curriculum.
2. Ability to accelerate.
3. Time to simmer. . .
   
4. Togetherness with your child.
   

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1. Freedom to choose your own curriculum.

I have so much fun helping my friends choose curriculum for their children! They are so many options, and there usually seems to be one tailor-made to each family. There are hands-on math for those kinesthetic boys, musically-inclined reading programs for those spatial kiddoes and so much more! One of the greatest advantages to homeschooling is you get to choose your own curriculum. You are not bound to a curriculum that your neighborhood school has chosen for their own reasons (budget, standardization, etc.).

2. Ability to accelerate.

For those gifted children, this is so important! You can move ahead when your child understsands a concept. You can move at the rate your child needs, not at the rate of the group or according to your district or school blue prints. What a treasure!

3. Time to simmer.

The best spicy food is the kind that simmers on the stove. Sometimes I think good learning is like that, too. When you take the time to really simmer, the flavor is enhanced. Homeschooling allows you to spend more time on topics you like, again because you are not bound by a prescribed time table.

4. Togetherness with your child.

Did you know I spend more waking hours with many people's children than they do? I get to see their tiny triumphs, learning leaps, and developing personalities. One of the benefits of homeschooling is that you don't miss out on that. You are fortunate to watch your child grow, change and become right before your eyes!


Those are just a few of the benefits that I see to homeschooling. How about those of you out there that homeschool? What other benefits do you see?

In Answer: Acceleration

I thought I would take some time today to respond to a comment made a few weeks ago:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "In Answer: Comments on Gifted Kids in the Regular ...":

I have "extension" activities. Students have a series of different choices when they are done with their work that are more fun and enriching (making a PowerPoint of one of the topics, building a diorama, making watercolor portraits of characters, etc.). I have these prepared ahead of time for each literature unit that my flexible groups do. I do the same thing with math- they have a variety of different activities to choose from when they are finished.

As a parent of a gifted kid, it appears to me that you simply waste their time until the other kids catch up.

My kids favorite teacher would spend about 5 minutes quickly showing my son what was being taught next, then let him go on ahead.

I don't know when acceleration became a dirty word, but enrichment is synonymous with time wasting.

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My response is that I am not opposed in the slightest to acceleration. I have posted several times on issues related to acceleration, and I am considered by many to be an advocate and resource on acceleration practices.

I do know, though, that not all school districts nor gifted programs endorse acceleration as highly as I do, for a variety of reasons. Sadly, teachers who are under that regime have their hands bound by policy. That is something for you to address with your individual teachers and school officials.

As far as enrichment being time-wasting, that is your opinion to which you are welcome. Many of my enrichment activities, though, are tied to state and nationally mandated standards for which students must demonstrate mastery. Building a diorama demonstrates an understanding a setting, creating a PowerPoint is a technology standard, water color portraits reveal both reading comprehension and character discernment. Just because it is a fun and exciting way to show mastery does not necessarily make it wrong. Enrichment is not a bad word when it is tied to actual learning.

However, I do view acceleration and enrichment as a pendulum that needs to be carefully balanced with regards to gifted students. It often only swings between extremes. . . The major complaint of gifted students is that school is boring. Partly because it moves too slowly and partly because of the formulaic method of delivery. Acceleration solves part of this problem while enrichment addresses the other.

Acceleration allows students to move ahead from a further starting point or at a greater speed. Enrichment makes it interesting. No gifted student wants to do one worksheet after another, no matter the rate at which they are given.

I hope this has addressed some of your concerns. Please feel free to comment or email me if you have more thoughts.

AR, a plaque and a race to the finish!

In no particular order. . .

Yesterday, I ran into one of my gifted first graders for the next school year.  We were catching up on what she had done the first few weeks of break.  She told me she had "raced to the finish" with the summer library program.  It had a car theme, and she had already completed the whole course. The first week of break. 

It reminded me of a program that my school had when I was growing up.  If you read a hundred books, you received a plaque at the end of the school year.  As a kid, I read about that many books a month!  I was excited to receive my plaque at the end of the year assembly with all the other kids, however it was kind of anticlimatic. 

Which brings me to my third point.  AR.  Many of you may be familiar with the Accelerated Reader program, however if you are not you can check it out here.  Accelerated Reader was designed to motivate kids to read.  They receive a series of prizes and incentives for earning points.  The points are received for answering questions about books. 

What these programs all have in common is that they were created by well-intentioned adults trying to motivate kids to read more.  Which all sounds great, doesn't it?! 

But not really when you look closer, and especially not when we are talking about gifted kiddoes. 

My primary concern- we want kids to be intrinsically motivated to learn.  We want them to learn for the love of learning, which gifted children do by nature.  They only become extrinsically motivated when we get in the way and start trying to bribe them to do what comes naturally!

Second off, gifted kiddoes work the system.  I know I did, and my students do!  Take AR.  You can read a Harry Potter novel or five Dr. Seuss books for approximately the same amount of points.  Which one are you going to do?   The questions are also part of a multiple-choice, computer-based system.  That causes them to be surface and lower-level thinking.

Same thing goes for summer reading programs. . .  Your child read five Dr. Seuss books and is five steps closer to the finish line in the summer reading game.  But have they really learned?  Have they truly grown in their love of reading?

Why bring it up?  To keep things in perspective.  Summer reading programs and AR are a great distraction.  If you want to play along, feel free.  But recognize that they are not an indictator of your child's reading abilities nor a measure of their success.

Summer Posting Schedule

Happy Summer to my faithful readers.  I just wanted to post to let you know my summer plans.  It always seems to me that people are on the go and away over summer- I know we will be out and about traveling and such off and on until school resumes.

I plan to post once a week until school resumes (which is mid-July for folks on the year round calendar here).  Try to check back periodically, or add me to your reader so you don't miss out.  I will be addressing your questions first, and then I'll cover some current events in gifted education.  Feel free to continue to post questions you would like answered. 

While I'm posting less over the next two months, I will also be working on upcoming series as well as some product and program reviews for the fall!

Many thanks to those who read regularly, and happy summer travels!

Class Projects

Here is a little look at what we have been working on over the last week. . . What a great way to end the school year!


We had an engineer come in and teach a lesson on physics, as well as demonstrating mousetrap cars to teach about those principals. . .

I had a student do an independent research project on butterflies and insects. We ordered butterflies to see the lifecycle, and he presented his research to the class before our release. . .


We finished up a unit on biomes of the world with research projects and dioramas. I didn't have any of the finished without kids in them, but here is an "in-process" shot.

We did a study on abstract art- here are the kids' examples!

And we experimented with dominoes to learn about structure and stability. . .


What a fun last semester! I am all packed up and back down to the little girls in first and/or second grade for next year!