After leaving a (too!) lengthy comment on the blog of a friend, I decided I’d better continue my one-sided musings on my own blog.

Basically, she was worrying—and her readers, like me, were commiserating—about the challenges of homeschooling a highly gifted kid. For example, this year we’ll probably go through 3 grades of math in about 9 months. After seeing the Physics Circus she told me she might like to be a physics professor someday (presumably after being an actress and artist for a while.) How long until this child eclipses my ability to teach? I didn’t even take physics in high school!

First off, I am the Queen of Outsourcing. For my freelance work, I hire subcontractors, and I have no problem doing the same in the rest of my life. If I can trade time for money by letting someone clean or organize my house, do some coaching in Chinese or ice skating, deliver my groceries, or shovel my snow, I’ll do it. (For that last one, we bartered some old drums to another neighborhood homeschooling kid—was lovely to see the shoveled walks after last night’s snow storm!) I do keep tabs on how much of my life I give away, especially when it comes to my kids, but otherwise I put the emphasis on the Manager part of Household Management. If I’m the conductor, I don’t have to play oboe, viola, and timpani drum all at once to make beautiful music.

More important, I think, is trusting that my ability to teach is extremely unimportant compared to my child’s ability to learn. Thus far, Violet seems highly able to learn, quickly and with surprising retention, despite my frequent missteps, bad moods, and benign neglect while attending to the Internet. My job, as I see it, is primarily to put interesting things, books, people, and places in her path, and let her go with them.

Timing is crucial, it’s true. I keep books away from her that I’d like her to be just a bit older to read. She has the reading ability of a high school senior, but I still keep A Wrinkle in Time back, just because I think she’ll love it that much more in another year or two.

But sadly, I can’t know the right time. I guess, I estimate, then I close my eyes and hope for the best. My consoling analogy is that of feeding a toddler. Picky toddlers: one day they love the carrots, the next they toss them on the floor in disgust. One week they eat with gusto, so that you can never quite get them full, then for three straight days they don’t touch a morsel of dinner. Then there’s that stretch of eating only yellow food.

My limited experience of the world has taught me that most parenting advice is pretty sound for dealing with people ages 2-102. When you feed a toddler, you put an array of healthy choices in front of her and trust that she will take what she needs when she needs it. She may need to get hungry sometimes to figure out what she needs, but that’s part of learning to feed herself.

True, everyone feels more relaxed on those happy occasions when mom thinks it might be a broccoli day, and three trees would be just right, and sure enough Miss Toddler gobbles it up and smiles. Days when the milk gets poured over the mashed potatoes before the whole mess gets flung onto the china cabinet, on the other hand, can make you feel that you are doing everything wrong.

But no. You are both—mom and child—doing it right. And I really think it works the same with education. You provide the quality control for the content, and trust the student to take it in and digest it on her own schedule. Even if she sometimes flings the fabulous biography across the room and seems to subsist on a diet of SpongeBob and Fairy Realm books. (In that case, try adapting Dr. Sears’ advice on carefully observing your kid’s educational diet—you’ll likely be surprised at how much substance is actually getting in there.)

Aha, you say! But what happens when the child has an incredible hankering for blueberries, and you can’t possibly provide enough unless you started a blueberry farm? Can’t it happen that you just won’t have enough of something that your child really needs, so that it won’t make its way onto her buffet?

Yes, yes it can. And by that time, hopefully you’ve taught your child to go pick blueberries. Granted, from my perspective, it is a challenge to teach a very young, profoundly gifted child to be educationally self-sufficient at the age when they’d still be learning addition and phonics in school. Just because a seven-year-old can do basic geometry or algebra doesn’t mean she has the skills or discipline be totally self-directed in her education.

We’ve tried to accept the reality that the ages 5-9 would be the toughest time, when our daughter’s mental skills and her chronological age would be at their most out of whack. (Sorry, I can’t find the link for the articles; if I do I’ll add them later.) Which means it’s going to get easier. The fussy toddler won’t starve to death, and the demanding learner won’t atrophy, as long as someone is consistently providing nourishment of some kind, all the while pushing self-care skills and increasing independence. The avid nurser eventually weans, the potty-resistant kid doesn’t go to college in diapers, and the gifted-but-dependent student starts to learn online with the computer she built over the weekend. (Have I mentioned that Violet is a proud and avowed “Linux Nerd”? How many 7yos have a favorite operating system?) The day-to-day reactions of the child are not the best indicator of whether this is happening, nor is hitting a temporary plateau in development.

Time is what will tell, which is really hard to take when it comes to supporting the happiness and well-being of your child. In the meantime, I have to trust my child. If she learns nothing else, maybe she’ll learn that her ideas and interests are worth pursuing, and that she can trust herself too.

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Here's another web resource that I have just started to explore:

Murderous Maths

I ordered a couple of books from Amazon to spice up our math studies -- an ongoing saga of matching learning style and ability to curriculum -- and I think we'll enjoy them, even if we don't have a major breakthrough:

Numbers: The Key to the Universe

Vicious Circles and Other Savage Shapes

I'm guessing kids and parents with a slightly twisted sense of humor would be digging these.

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First off, thanks to my well-wishers. It has been a long and exhausting week, but yesterday I finally started feeling like myself again. Phew!

Now, anyone have great ideas or resources on teaching binary to kids?

We are at the end of our current Singapore book, and I am still feeling a bit frustrated with math. Because Violet does not have strong "operations" skills (in relation to her other math abilities), I continue to plod through stuff that is conceptually quite easy for her, occasionally throwing her a bone like our algebra studies. I know the kid needs to improve her basic math facts facility, but who wants to plod? Isn't that why we started homeschooling, to stop plodding?

So -- today I overheard DH teaching Violet about binary. She knows a little bit -- enough to get the joke from these UberGeek t-shirts. But she seemed really jazzed, especially when I reminded her that binary is the language that computers speak. (I'm also looking for her to learn some programming, as she is very interested.) So during the weeks that she has church day camp and science day camp, we agreed that DH would teach binary numbers a few nights a week rather than start our next Singapore book.

DH is probably competent on his own -- he's a great teacher for children -- but I would really like to find some materials to use.

Here are a few things that look interesting so far:

Teaching Kids Programming

Math Manias Lesson Plans

Any and all suggestions welcomed!

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I have not mentioned that last week a rolled-up piece of parchment appeared in our backyard, apparently delivered by Owl Post. It has had some impact on our curriculum for the summer:

Dear Miss Violet,

We are pleased to inform you that we can offer you a place in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Summer Correspondence School. A message from the Sorting Hat will announce your house assignment and will arrive by Owl Post once you return the enclosed registration form.

Parents and students are reminded that Summer Correspondence Students are not permitted to have their own broomsticks or to conduct real magic. Failure to comply with these rules will result in immediate expulsion.

We await your owl by no later than June 6th. If you do not have your own owl, please indicate on your registration form where a Hogwarts school owl can obtain your letters.

We very much look forward to receiving you as part of a new generation of Hogwarts’ Heritage.

I look forward to following your progress.

Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress and Professor of Transfiguration

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I've decided that we'll do a bit of algebra at least once or twice a week for the next few weeks. I think it might be a more interesting way to review basic math facts. I think I will still end up having to write "story problems" for practice translating into "the language of algebra," but I found a nice worksheet generator for simple solving practice.

What I like about this site:

Worksheets have no ads and are very plain and clean looking.

You can make the problems as simple or complicated as you like. I checked "no negatives" and only asked for simple one-term and two-term problems. But you can do systems problems (x and y) and quadratic equations too.

Just say how many of each kind of problem you want and it will immediately give you a worksheet. And if you ask again with the identical parameters, you'll get a whole new set of problems.

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Another request for help: anyone out there used Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth, either at school or for homeschool?

I am using Singapore for math, but I am wondering whether and when to plug into EPGY or a similar program (like Johns Hopkins) for the inevitable time when my kids surpass me in my knowledge (dare I say interest?) in math. Violet keeps looking at the algebra section of our Primary Grade Math Challenge book; she has the reasoning ability, or close, but not the computational skills -- yet.

I know my husband would love to talk algebra and beyond with the girls, but he could still do that -- online distance learning doesn't take the place of the parent. It just lets us step back a bit and support more than direct.

I think learning on the computer would be effective, but I do wonder whether these programs would allow us to engage her at her high level of math reasoning (e.g., interest in algebraic language) and relativelty lower level of operations skills (e.g., spacing out on 4 x 7).

Would love to hear from those who know.

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Ugh , I am sick and I've broken my big toe.

My accomplishment for today is keeping the kids away from the TV til 5 pm. I've found an urgent care that makes appointments (!) so I'll be showing them the ugly bruised lump that is my toe and trying to convince them to listen to my chest on the side.

So I just remind myself, we're on break, we're on break, we're on break . . .

But I do want to do some shopping (naturally) so that we're ready to go. Right now I'm leaning towards Saxon 5/4 with Singapore to supplement in math (basically I want to try them both and see over time what works), Inside Stories to go along with reading and writing (this is from Prufrock Press, which has lots of great stuff for gifted and talented learning), and Rosetta Stone Mandarin Chinese. That goes along with our Finding God curriculum from Loyola Press that we've been doing with families from church, and our Yamaha music studies.

We'll take some science museum classes this summer while I mull over what to do in the fall for science and social studies. Our science museum has homeschool science clubs!

But this is all preliminary: I'm still in the info-gathering stage. So anyone who has experience with these or other curricula, your input is welcome!

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Great day to kick off homeschool! Super-duper snow day, so power is off at DH's office, and we are all enjoying being cozy and warm inside.

Violet and DH are doing Blokus and Uno -- stealth math -- and I am getting ready to do some writing while they play and Victoria sleeps. Technically we are on a 3-week spring break.

Violet is ready to go, however. She's made me a homeschool schedule (gym every morning for a few hours!) and she's made our school flag. I need to buy some toner for the printer. If she's so excited I'll have her take some placement tests for all the various math curricula out there.

How on earth do you choose? I'm a writer who writes about literature, so I figure, books is books. But math -- you don't want that "math fear" to start, especially with girls. Her brain works in strange ways: I think she's more a global thinker than a detail person, maybe a visual-spatial learner. (On the other hand, I may be way off.) In other words, she'll be brilliant at advanced math, if we can just keep her awake while we learn the basic facts!

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I keep reading in the homeschool books that I need to develop my philosophy of education. That might be as simple as choosing a style--Classical, Charlotte Mason, Unschooling--or something a little deeper. That idea is totally overwhelming to me. Every school of thought has reams of articulate, rational explanations for why this philosophy of education is the most logical, humane, moral, ethical, Christian, etc., approach.

What I've decided is that I'll develop my philosophy as we go, or we'll never get started. In the Rivero book I've been reading I did come across an idea that might serve as a guiding principle: Education isn't about showing what you know, but learning something new. Seems obvious, but for a kid who has already mastered everything they teach in his or her class, they quickly develop the opposite philosophy: "I go to school to report what I already know."

Kids who thrive on positive strokes from their teachers might do well for a long time with this belief. Kids who don't particularly care about that will quickly start to wonder what the point of all this is. And then when other kids (or maybe a teacher!) suggest, "You don't really know that," there really is no point.

So Mission One for the Red Sea school has to be ingraining in all of us a focus on learning rather than demonstrating mastery. With all the testing and placement and concern about "working to potential" around here it may take a sustained period of focused effort to accomplish that. How is it done? Something tells me I won't find out in all my books . . .

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This is how I cope with stress: I read constantly in the hope that it will prepare me for whatever is coming up. Reading makes me feel competent -- deluded perhaps, but you gotta fake it til you make it. So for me Step One is buying books. I didn't have the patience to put in the requests at the library. Not cheap, but cheaper than therapy!

Here's what I've amassed for a homeschool library in the past 4 days:

Miser, Absolute Beginner's Guide to Homeschooling

Schaeffer Macaulay, For the Children's Sake (Charlotte Mason-style education)

Wise & Wise-Bauer, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (the 1st edition, which is supposed to have the better book lists)

Dobson (not James!), Homeschool the Right Way from Day One

Waring, Beyond Survival, A Guide to Abundant Life Homeschooling

Rivero, Creative Homeschooling: A Resource Guide for Smart Families

I'm also buried in curriculum catalogs that we had gotten last fall from the Ed.Psych.

Anyway, some of you know that this is not really step one. We've been thinking of homeschool for DD6 since before kindergarten, and I personally liked the idea ever since I was a bored kid reading about the homeschooling Colfax family in Reader's Digest during a long visit to a relative's house. (They're the ones who got famous 25 or so years ago for sending their homeschooled kids to Harvard.) I have many happy memories from most of school, so I assumed DD6, who is like me in many ways, would feel the same way.

Now I need to gird my loins and develop that backbone of steel for Step Two: Telling the School. Yikes! I'd almost like to sacrifice the piles of markers, scissors, notebooks, folders, and glue that we've got in her desk there--just to avoid face-to-face conflict . . . I mean contact --but I think we're going to need them.

After that is the happy one. Step Three: Start Extended Spring Vacation!

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