My DD is in two OnlineG3 classes right now and I can't say enough positive things about them. This is exactly what I was looking for in terms of above-level, compacted, language arts for my gifted, young 5th grader. I agree completely with what Valerie says below -- if you look on OnlineG3.com, you'll see right on the home page that it's geared to offering above-level (middle, beginning high school) content to young, gifted learners. I too was struck by how young some of the participants are. But they can definitely handle it! I would recommend contact OnlineG3 directly to learn more -- they're very responsive and have extensive experience teaching English at a variety of levels. Best, Susannah in NM

Not just for boys! My dd10 loves Redwall too, although currently is reading through the Wizard of Oz series. -- Susannah

Hello all, I haven't posted for a while but we start tomorrow (eek!) and I wish to construct a timeline (I'm thinking either computer paper or taped-together posterboards) that we'll fill in as the year progresses. In social studies, we'll be studying prehistory and then SOW volume 1, and then I figure we could add in stuff from other subject areas just for the fun of it. So -- can anyone recommend what increments to use, especially for prehistory? Thanks, Susannah

Thanks, Nissi! The comparison of math for SAT v ACT was especially helpful. My ds is in the same place as yours math-wise, so perhaps the SAT would be a better choice. I was thinking ACT because it's a shorter test. Had your son previously taken the NWEA MAP, and if so, how predictive were those results of SAT and ACT scores? Thanks!

You've gotten some great replies so far, but I wanted to add -- a great resource for highly gifted (they would say "profoundly gifted") kiddos is the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. If your daughter's scores qualify her for the Young Scholar program, that provides your family with personal educational counseling as well as access to a variety of online resources. Have a look at http://www.davidsongifted.org/youngscholars/ . There's also a "2e" (twice exceptional, gifted with another learning exceptionality) list that's part of the excellent TAGFAM set of lists -- I think it's called TAGPDQ. See http://www.tagfam.org/ for more info. Good luck -- I agree with the other posters -- you're in the process of being proactivie on this: good for you!

Me too (using LL7 with a young 5th grader, was going to write "9 y. o., but she'll be 10 before we start school :o "). If you go to the main onlineg3 page and scroll right down to the bottom, you'll see "Course Categories" and the first of these is "Sample Units." Click here and you can view a sample LL7 unit. She's changed the sample since I looked, but what I found compelling was the student activities seem interesting and make good use of web technology, and the discussion starters seem compelling. There are also video and presentation links to enhance your student's understanding of the material; I presume these aren't in the LL teaching guide, although I haven't ordered mine yet so I'm not sure. There's also a BrainPop subscription included in the price, plus access to discussion forums (my daughter has already posted a blog entry on what she's currently reading) and some sort of tech training. To me, the biggest sell is that here's a moderated forum run by a well qualified teacher to discuss this excellent literature, so it provides a social outlet as well as learning. Beyond that, I do think the learning will be enhanced, and it seems like you could just buy the LL7 student guide and acquire the books (as in, not buy the teacher guide) and let the onlineg3 gals do the teaching for you. So, more fun, less work, same great reading list. That's my hope anyway :) . Hope this helps! PS The onlineg3 gals are also based in California -- PM me where you're located and I'll let you know whether you might run into them in a homeschool co-op near you ;o)

I wanted to share a new online class provider that I'm excited about: http://www.onlineg3.com/ This site, developed by two SF Bay area teachers/moms of gifted kiddos offers, among other courses, online classes based on Lightning Literature 7 and 8. These classes are geared especially for students younger than the typical 7th or 8th grade age range, but with advanced reading ability that allows them to enjoy the wonderful reading lists from these curricula. I had the opportunity to meet both the instructors in person a couple weeks ago, and both are smart ladies with lots of teaching experience. The lead site developer ("Guinevere") has a degree in online education as well as a degree in teaching English and experience teaching young students through adults. I just signed my dd up to take Lightning Lit 7 and I'm excited for other folks to join these classes as well so we can get a great discussion going! If you're looking for online discussion (and lots of activities/videos/supplementary material) to accompany this curriculum (I was), have a look. -- Susannah (and really, I'm not affiliated with onlineg3, just very excited to see it succeed -- I suspect I'm not the only one out here who was hoping her homeschooler could talk about these books with others)

That rocks! Congratulations to your ds, wonderful scores. Was this his first time taking the test? What did he think of it? Has he taken the SAT, and, if so, how would he compare the experiences? Did he take the test to give you guys better info as to where he's at academically, does he need it to enter a particular program ...? (My ds, almost-13, will probably be taking a college entrance exam in the fall, so I'm full of questions :) )

Just some thoughts ... It would be neat to start with a serious, guided browse through the sections of your local (city) paper as you talk about what sections to include in your own. Then, talk about the different job functions on a paper: reporter, (assigning/managing) editor, copy editor, photographer, columnists, cartoonists, perhaps puzzle designer. You could wind this up with a field trip to the local paper where hopefully various staff would share about how they do their work. Make sure the kiddos have access to digital cameras. Depending on how you want to do production (one of the most fun parts I suspect for kids), you might want to set up a little portable "newsroom" with printer, laptops with whatever publisher software you plan to use, cables to connect the cameras, and perhaps a scanner. Sounds like a *great* co-op project (and a great way to teach clarity in writing -- have them model off the local paper if it's any good, or an online edition of a good one)-- wanna come do it here in Las Cruces, New Mexico? I'll help you run it ;).

Interesting food for thought. For gifted learners, the whys can come very early, far earlier than the ability to (for example) summarize or outline text as suggested in the WTM logic stage approach to history. I'm planning on a somewhat hybrid approach (especially since we are also new homeschoolers and I want to start at the start with ancient history) where we'll use some grammar-level resources (such as SOW 1) but with plenty of time for reflection/discussion.

:lurk5: Check it out, you guys have taught me how to use the popcorn emoticon ;). We'll be doing ancient history next year as well. Since our homechooling year is most likely just a one-year gap year and she will repeat ancients to some extent in ps the following year, that's coloring my thoughts on what to teach. But (as I'm sure so many of you concur), even when they teach a subject in ps, there's so much they don't cover. I do want to have a series of compelling, challenging "read togethers" throughout the year, the center piece of which will be Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, but which will also include Clan of the Cave Bear (part), Wanderings: A History of the Jews, and junior versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, plus perhaps Meeting G-d (about Hinudism and Hindu worship), along with Bible reading when the SOW chapter is a modified Bible story.

Um, we're planning to start August 17 :). So, soonish. I already have SOW + AG, the free, downloadable Mosaic (http://bringinguplearners.com/mosaic/), and both the Usborne and Kingfisher encyclopedias. What I'm doing now is picking and choosing my way through all this, looking for project ideas, additional books, idea sparkers :) . We'll be using the SOW AG as the main guide/spine (although we are starting with a 2-4 week prehistory unit which I'm considering combined science and social studies). For each section, I'll ask her to: - find the area under discussion on the globe, often using her finger to "fly there" from our southern New Mexico home - read the SOW chapter(s) (may combine) - read the relevant encyclopedia pages - have a look at (perhaps get sucked into ;)) the library books relevant to the time period which will be in the library basket that week - select one or more things to put on the timeline and do so - summarize interesting bits from the reading on a notebook page, illustrating as desired - orally answer the AG questions (may skip these depending on how it goes; she has very strong recall of material she's read -- it's the summarizing and outlining that will be new skills) - do the map work from the AG Depending on the unit and how quickly she actually progresses through this, we'll do some project work too. We'll have ongoing "read togethers" keyed to the time period and relevant trips/movies/web visits where possible. Each activity will have some sort of documentation or response in the notebook, unless it's so lackluster as to not merit this. I feel I have the prehistory section fairly well planned, if anyone's interested in hearing about this in detail, although I'm completely uncertain how fast she'll progress through the reading. I know I find the Usborne book, while fascinating, very graphically and informationally dense and so I feel I can only take in a few pages at a time. SOW feels lilke a much quicker read to me, and while not at the logic level, a decent read. I like her ongoing human interest snippets :). So, a very long-winded way of saying: I would *love* to see what you're working on and could offer some meaningful review after this year especially, but I'm not in the market for another for-purchase curriculum right now. (I'm the same gal whose husband suspects we're paying the equivalent of college tuition for this year of homeschooling, which is an exaggeration, but ... ;))

Also on this site, at http://www.padfield.com/downloads/otbooks.html , are links to discussion guides *with excellent-looking maps and tables* for many (all?) of the books of "Old Testament" (you may simply say Torah/Bible ;) ). There's also a timeline for the major events in Genesis, which would be interesting to sync up with the SOW timeline for those teaching with that. (We're not doing a separate Bible curriculum, but this does interleave into ancient history.)

How do you get the whole version of this, not just the sample chapter? Thanks!