Homeschooling with Gifted Children (continued)

For more information on homeschooling gifted children, take a look at:
Gifted Homeschoolers Forum -- http://giftedhomeschoolers.org
Hoagies Gifted -- http://hoagiesgifted.org/home_school.htm
A to Z Home's Cool -- http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/weblinks/gifted.htm

And be sure to take a look at Creative Home Schooling: A Resource Guide for Smart Families by Lisa Rivero.

How do I Homeschool My Gifted Child?

Living with any children presents a vast array of issues and difficulties, and choosing to educate your children at home can bring many of these issues and difficulties to the fore. Living with and homeschooling children who have an unusual degree of creativity, perception, processing skill or other talents can present unique challenges. While no two families are alike, some issues are common among families of gifted homeschoolers:

Choosing the Right Method

When it comes to homeschooling, there is everything under the sun -- from a structured school-at-home approach to a relaxed learning style known as unschooling. You have the freedom to combine multiple methods and curricula, take a child-led approach or even make your own materials. One popular concept is the “unit study”, meaning a topic is studied in depth, incorporating various subjects (math, science, history, etc.) into the exploration.

A wealth of information is available regarding educational theories and methods. One good starting point is http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/methods/Methods.htm

Of course, there is no cookie-cutter homeschooling method that works with all gifted children, because they all have their own individual needs. One of the advantages of homeschooling is flexibility, which makes accommodating those needs easier than seeking adjustments within a standard school structure.

Finding Appropriate Materials

Unearthing appropriate materials can be a challenge, because your child’s abilities, interests and maturity levels may not match. For instance, your six-year-old may be happily capable of reading chapter books, but the subject matter is usually geared for a sixth grader. How do you find an interesting book for your young child that doesn’t introduce them to romance, violence or foul language? Or perhaps your three-year-old is learning to read, but he's not interested at in the books he can actually manage on his own. Where can you go for appropriate resources?

• Maximize Your Local Library - Ask your librarian for book recommendations, and investigate book transfers from other locations for harder-to-find materials. For topics of interest, try checking out books at two or three different levels. Books geared for younger readers tend to have excellent pictures and graphics, while higher level books provide depth and statistics.

• Go Online - The internet is a fabulous homeschooling tool. Not only can you locate information and materials, there are interactive educational activities and support groups to be found. Online support groups such as TAGMAX ( at http://www.tagfam.org/) and Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CA-gt-hs/) tend to have an excellent exchange of resource information. Few other groups will take seriously a request for astronomy materials for a preschooler or a calculus text for a nine-year-old.

• Work at Different Levels - A homeschooler doesn’t have to be bound by linear academic paths or limited to school-organized pull-out or enrichment programs. Instead, he/she can read at a seventh-grade level, do math at a third-grade level and study science at a high-school level - and those grade-levels can change mid-year, even mid-month! Many gifted children are far ahead in some areas and behind their age-mates in others; this doesn’t matter in a home environment, where everything can be tailored to where they are at that moment.

Advocating for Your Gifted Child