Need help selecting an appropriate home school curriculum for my son. My son is very advanced and makes?

Question

straight As in every subject; he is in first grade and has 160+ AR points (Accelerated reader), etc... He is very advanced in math.
I am going to homeschool because his teacher sits him in front of the television for about 45 minutes a day as he has completed his work early.--This has been a source of contention between the public school and myself for awhile. They only teach 3 core subjects that are covered on the state exams--math, reading, and spelling. English is placed on a rotating schedule with gym and is taught every other day. Art, music, history, and science are not taught at all!
Placing him in a private school is not really an option. I live in a rural area, and I would spend at least 2 hours a day with him in commute time.
Also, socialization is not really a problem, as he is involved in the martial arts, belongs to a community based basketball league, and participates in a myriad of other activities.
Curriculum with advanced math????

Answer 1

First of all, you need to make sure you know and follow the laws in your state regarding homeschooling. HSLDA has a great, concise overview for each state, so check their website first.

Two of the best homeschool math programs are Saxon and Singapore. Most people recommend Singapore over Saxon for the lower grades, but then switch to Saxon for high school level (Alg. and beyond). Both programs have placement tests (see links below) so you'll know which book to start in.

I'd also highly recommend you find out if there is a homeschool convention/curriculum fair in your area (this is the time of year for them). You can look at materials up close and decide what looks best for you and your son and buy without paying shipping.

As for other areas, there are so many great resources in each that it would be impossible to try to determine one that would work with your family without knowing you. Check out Rainbow Resource. They have just about everything homeschooling and their prices are generally the best.

Best wishes!

Answer 2

You can use any curriculum and just let him work ahead of his grade level (so perhaps use 2nd grade English but 3rd grade math, or w/e is suitable). Also, if he's real quick to "get" stuff don't make him do all the exercises, just enough to make sure he understands. That's how I was taught in the last few years of primary school (public school).

Alternatively, you could just allow him to spend less time per day on the subjects he's good at... why study 6-7 hours a day if you can learn all you need to know in 3? Take him to the library a lot and he'll likely want to borrow books on all kinds of science and history stuff he finds interesting and learn about it that way.

And last but not least... read up on unschooling (use google for example)... it's a really interesting concept that might work really well for you and your son.

Answer 3

My wife and I homeschool our 11 and 9 year old daughters. She does a great job keeping it interesting by spending time each day looking for new things to teach them. We don't use any one curriculum as we have found that our kids stay more interested in their schooling if we mix it up. For example, when "Eight Below" (a movie about snow dogs in Anarctica) came out, the kids wanted to see it. We did a unit study on Anarctica first, before seeing the movie. This made the information stick better.

I think the most important thing is to find curriculum (or use teaching methods) that matches your child's learning style. This is probably the single most important thing. Since children all learn different, you can maximize your time and effort if you teach them according to their style. For example, you might use hands on projects and crafts when their younger to assist in the teaching process (we mummified a chicken when we were studying ancient Egypt). Be creative. Another example - while Abeka and other all-in-one curriculum are good for a lot of students, be very careful that it will bring out the best in your student and not bore or frustrate them.

Another thing we use is competition or rewards to get them excited. This works with any curriculum. I am a software engineer and my wife had me write a Jeopardy-like quiz game to use with my kids for quizzing them on their material. This has since turned into a complete commercial product called "Quiz Extreme" that is on the market for generating quizzes, tests, and study guides. You can check it out at http://www.quizextreme.com .

Homeschooling is wonderful. It gives you the time and freedom to teach your child in the most well rounded way possible. It gives you control over the worldview your child is presented with and once you get going, you will find that it is much much easier than having them in public school. They have more time for being a kid, you don't have to spend 3 hours every evening helping them do homework that they should have done at school (but the teacher could never get the class under control), etc.

Have a great time!

Jeff

Answer 4

Abeka grammar is good at that age, esp if he hasn't had a whole lot of English yet. When he is a little older I would suggest Bob Jones Univ Press [BJUP] grammar because the writing is SO much better [in my opinion...].

The science programs that get the best marks tend to be Apologia and BJUP. I was not aware of the Apologia when my kids were the age of your son, but if I had been I'd have probably used it.

For math I really like MathUSee. Here's one reason why it is good for advances students: they have one lesson then about 6 days of work on it; each lesson covers what other math programs would spend 5 or 6 days covering, so it is less incremental. SO, if your son is quick at math, you teach the lesson and he does, say,two of the worksheets, then takes the test,then moves on. With other programs you'd have to go through every single lesson to make sure he didn't miss any of these incremental little steps.

Abeka is also advanced on spelling, esp in the younger grades.

Someone recommended Rainbow Resource, and I would HIGHLY recommend them, too! They have TONS of fun stuff. Make sure you check out their logic resources. Other hs stores do not tell you what grade/age the logic stuff is intended for, making it MUCH more difficult to choose.

My FAVORITE art programs are, Abeka [great stuff for elementary, and maybe you'd even want to get the first and second grade books for your son to do in one year], ArtPacs [when he gets older - they are advanced art and too difficult for MOST kids under the age of 8, but your son might really be into art...], and things by "How Great Thou Art." I like everything they have EXCEPT their preschool book.

Answer 5

Check out:

http://www.rainbowresource.com - they have a great catalog with good synopsis of every thing they sell so you can pick and choose.

http://www.timberdoodle.com has some good recommendations as well.

http://www.sonlight.com might be a good fit since he reads so well - you will just need to taylor the math to him.

http://www.tobinslab.com has great science stuff.

Christian book distributors also has a good hs catalog.

The beauty of homeschooling is that you can pick and choose the curriculum to best fit your son and his needs. Itis big business though and there are many more companies out there you can go with. I would stay away from "canned curriculum" for him though if his needs are that wide (buying everything in a package).

I personally am not a fan of the k-12/virtual academy type programs because you can't taylor them like you can picking and choosing from other companies. They also are generally just ps at home type programs and you must answer to a ps teacher for many of them. I don't care to have the ps in my business at all. Many hser's I know have started with them and been disgruntled. Just an aside.

blessings.

Answer 6

Abeka! It is a very thorough and challenging curriculum. If he is making A's then he would do well with this. We use it and it is awesome. It has all the core, Math, Science, History, Language, Spelling, Readng, Penmanship, Health. The material is advanced beyond the comparable public school grade. Good luck and congrats on stepping up and taking charge of your children's education!!

Did I mention that you get teacher's edition and lesson plans so you don't have to figure out what you need and what to say or do. It is so easy to use this curriculum! After becoming familiar with it you can add extras and modify it to your child's needs.

Answer 7

My friend decided to homeschool, because she ran into a similar problem with her daughter - much more advanced in math and science than other students her age. She has been enrolled in the WorldWide IDEA Private Academy (http://www.worldwide-idea.org), and she says their Individual Learning Plans, assistance from certified teachers and support from Family Reps helps her find the most suitable curriculum materials and help for teaching her daughter at challenging levels. Plus, her family moved around a lot in the military, and the WorldWide IDEA organizing system is based online at their website and through email, so moving around a lot (or living in rural areas) is no problem - as long as you have a computer and internet connection, of course.

Answer 8

The Robinson Curriculum is supposed to be very good. It uses Saxon Math and concentrates on reading great literature and writing essays. If your child is quick to pick up information you may fall into the trap of spending hundreds of dollars on fluffy, make work curriculum when you could be flying ahead with the important core work. The Robinson curriculum is quite cheap, considering the cost of others. I find a lot of the curriculum I have used are also repetitive and irrelevant. Basically, you need to decide what you want to teach and get into a store to look at the materials and ask, ask, ask. Remember also that not every curriculum fits every family.

Answer 9

I home-schooled both my sons and three of my grandsons (so far, two more to go). There are many commercially available programs to purchase which can help you. You can look over the search list I have linked below.

What we did with my two sons was look at the curriculum requirements from the public school, and then provide the materials needed to reach the goals set. Now, the schools have excellent outreach programs which you can enroll in and they provide all the material you need. Two of my grandsons are enrolled in the outreach program and go to school twice a week for an hour to receive their assignments and take a test on the completed assignment.

The school district will not willing tell you about this program, you must contact the district officials at the top levels and insist on the information. I found the name of the group that provides the program to our school district by diligent searching on the internet. I had to tell the authorities about it, since they told me there was no such thing.

Socialization has never been a "real" home-school problem. For students like yours (and me) exactly the opposite is true. I was teased mercilessly in school and it took a lot of psychological counseling to get over it.

Answer 10

certainly not. that thoroughly defeats the purpose of living house education. living house education isn't a cookie-cutter, one-length-suits-all device like public college. human beings living house college so they have the liberty to choose on the suitable a threat methods and curriculum and recieve the suitable, suitable preparation a threat. this does not ensue in public college. the factors do not insure a high quality preparation for each scholar. some pupils are extra more suitable than others and are not challenged sufficient. Others have problems and ought to take issues slower, otherwise, or at their own %.. some human beings study suitable by making use of doing. some by making use of analyzing. some by making use of listening to counsel given to them.some want an interest based curriculum with the intention to truly get into getting to grasp. in case you standardize homeschooling...properly then you quite could as properly circulate to public college when you consider which you wont get any further suitable at living house. a ludicrous thought, i think of. confident, there must be some homeschool regulations (and there are).. however the government can merely get so in touch earlier the purpose is defeated.