My outright, absolutely favorite thing to do around the holidays is to shop for an "angel tree" child. I've done it for years, ever since I've been an adult. At the church we attended in NJ, we used to "adopt" kids from a program for families dealing with AIDS. The year we moved to Florida, we left in early October. So, I wasn't there to participate. I got a note from a friend in her card that Christmas letting me know that she had taken a tag from that tree for the first time, because she remembered how much I loved it. I cried and cried. As a matter of fact, I'm tearing up now. My husband always says he might as well stop even trying to give me presents now, because he'll never be able to top that one.

I did try there a few months ago. At that point, they weren't carrying the series. Now I see they carry them, but the books we need are out of stock. Good thought, though, and I'll check back every now and then. Thanks!

Well, in general, I agree, at least for my family. However, I agree very strongly with the poster who was uncomfortable with "homeschooling is better" as a blanket statement. I, personally, know at least two families who have not found homeschooling a good fit. In one case, it was because the child was already behind in school and turned off of anything academic and the mom simply did not know how to break through that wall. In addition, they had financial and family challenges that made it very difficult for the mom to give the daughter the attention that would have been necessary to get her back on track. And, ultimately (possibly in part as a result of the stress the entire situation put on the family), the parents separated. Just not a good outcome all the way around. Obviously, since public school was where the problems began, dumping this child back there wouldn't have been a great option, either. I honestly don't know what these parents should have done, but homeschooling wasn't the right choice. In the other family, they've had a lot of upheaval, financially and in other ways. They are trying to get their lives together and prepare to move forward. However, for right now, neither parent has the energy or attention to give that child a good homeschooling experience. They did homeschool last year, but the child was unhappy being "isolated" from his age peers. (He happens to be a very outgoing and social child.) And the parents had neither the time nor the money to provide him with enough social outlets. Mom is unhappy being at home. Dad is not organized or motivated enough to be a good teacher. Again, just not a good fit. Now, it would be very easy to look at both of these situations and say that everything would have been fine if only the parents had done things differently. But I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that a person change his or her personality that way. There are, unfortunately, some parents who simply aren't equipped--educationally, emotionally, personality-wise--to be effective teachers. And to insist that homeschool is better for those people and their children, if only they'd do things our way, is just not accurate.

We did modern world history, so a lot of what he read won't apply. But here are the ones that related to American history: “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,†Washington Irving “Rip Van Winkle,†Washington Irving “Scandal in Bohemia,†Arthur Conan Doyle “Tell-Tale Heart,†Edgar Allan Poe Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain Alice Rose and Sam, Kathryn Lasky Benjamin Franklin’s Adventures With Electricity, Beverley Birch Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt, Jean Fritz Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey Dragon’s Gate, Lawrence Yep I Never Saw Another Butterfly, Hana Volovkova Keeping Room, Anna Meyers My Name is America: The Journal of Patrick Seamus Flaherty, Ellen Emerson White Red Badge of Courage, Stephan Crane Red Cap, G. Clifton Wisler Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton? Jean Fritz

We're really struggling to get anything done right now. To be fair, it's not all my son's fault: I've had to go to Virginia and back twice in the last two weeks, taking him along for the ride. And he's in the midst of Nutcracker and choir rehearsals and still hasn't made up the ground he lost during the Don Quixote ballet . . . But the upshot is that he is anywhere from one to four weeks behind in several subjects. And I'm tired and busy and just about frantic trying to prep for the holidays. And I just want to declare we're on break. But we already had a very short year planned (30 weeks of desk work) to accomodate my daughter's college schedule. And I just can't see giving up any of the precious days we have left . . . Oh, but I want to put on my Christmas socks and party, too!

Since my last post, my son has read: Charlie Bone (except for the newest, which is on hold at the bookstore) Bartimaeus (which he totally loved, by the way) Tiger's Apprentice Another Ranger's Apprentice book The Coming of the Bear (Zenta and Matsuzo series, which was just okay) He's now out of books again and has been re-reading some of his favorites: Seventh Tower (Garth Nix) and Ranger's Apprentice (in preparation for reading the new one). I know there are more, but I'm drawing a blank. Other things he's already read (and re-read) and really loved include: Peter and the Starcatchers trilogy, Narnia, Prydain, Percy Jackson (waiting desperately for the next one), Seventh Tower, Keys to the Kingdom, Half Magic, Gregor the Overlander series, Demon in the Teahouse and all the sequels. Again, I know there are many more, but those are the ones that leap to mind. As I said, he tends to like boy-centric stuff, series preferable (since he reads quickly), adventure/hero's quest kind of stories, with some fantasy/magic thrown in. Straight-up historical fiction (unless it's about samurai) is generally not of interest. He likes a certain amount of humor, but not anything overtly "cute." In other words: Bartimaeus, yes; Mysterious Benedict Society, no. Things that are often recommended that are a no-go here include: Redwall, Dark Is Rising, Eragon, Terry Pratchett, Chasing Vermeer, Spiderwick, Series of Unfortunate Events. Honestly, I think the biggest hit of the last several months has been Bartimaeus. So, if anyone can suggest anything similar, that would be great! Edit: Oh, I should add that he's getting a nice edition of the Lord of the Rings for Christmas.

Agreed. My daughter used the National Geographic book as a spine for high school. My 10-year-old son is using the Parragon Atlas of World History as his spine for this cycle. It's working very well for him.

We have theatre tickets tonight. And my son has and organ lesson then ballet and choir rehearsals back to back for the three hours before. So, it'll be kind of eat-what-you-can-grab for everyone. My husband will probably warm up something from the freezer. My son will take a protein bar and a piece of fruit in the car, and I'll probably get talked into hitting a Wendy's drive-through for some fries.

We've done Picture People most years, too. I've been very pleased with them. They are pricier than some of the other options (Wal-Mart, Target, Sears), but I like the quality much better. It's also a big plus that you get the finished photos the same day. And the one time we were less than happy with the photos, they scheduled us for an immediate re-shoot with a photographer who was extremely careful and attentive. With all that said, I just wasn't up to doing the mall on Black Friday weekend (the only time my daughter was home and available in time for Christmas pictures). So, we got the kids dressed up and walked them down the street to the park in our neighborhood. I took about half an hour and shot about 30 photos with my digital camera. Of those, we chose four that we all agreed we loved. I'm making little strips that look like the ones you get from photo booths printed at home.

We're academic, history and theatre geeks. So, either an all-out Broadway trip--with tickets for every day--or a history-centric outing--with a side trip to the West End with theatre tickets for at least a couple of shows would probably be our dream vacation here. Edited to add: And I just checked. You can fly from Florida to London for $475 per person.

My daughter used The Annotated Mona Lisa and big book I found on a bargain table called A History of Art by Lawrence Gowring as the spine. The History of Art has a series of two-page spreads about specific periods or styles or pieces, so I went through the book and found all of those that fit into each historical period she studied. I then interwove those with the Annotated Mona Lisa reading as appropriate. She did this over three years, coordinated with her history study. The first year, I made up review sheets that asked questions about each week's reading. We watched a few videos and did a couple of museum field trips, and that was it. The second year, most of her "output" was in the form of projects inspired by her reading. She did 10 projects (making her own paints and doing cave-style paintings on rocks, various clay sculptures, Chinese calligraphy, etc.). She also attended a couple of lectures sponsored by the local archaeology club. And, again, we did some musuem field trips and watched some DVDs. The third year, she again did a few art projects inspired by her studies. And we did pretty much all the same things we'd done the previous two years (reading, videos/DVDs, museum field trips). The bulk of her grade, though, was based on a project she did comparing medieval and Renaissance art styles. She researched the topic, chose paintings that demonstrated her points, and created a visual presentation with notes and explanations. She got half a credit each year.

It occurs to me that I probably should have stayed out of this thread. You came here for support and encouragement, and I let my own feelings get in the way. I apologize. For what it's worth, I truly do believe that all kids are individuals. They develop and learn on their own scheudles and, with love and support and care, become the people they are supposed to be. Academic achievement is not the be-all and end-all of life, let alone childhood. And, most of the time, it's not something that comes about because some other parent is "better" at homeschooling; it's there because these kids are born with those abilities, the same way that yours are born with their own special traits. You know, even in my own family, I can't compare kids. My daughter is 13 (almost 14) and thriving as a sophomore in a residential college program. She was reading at a more or less adult level by age six. She started high school at age nine and finished in three years, fully under her own steam. She's incredibly self-directed and motivated and just oozes leadership ability. She also has an unusually good singing voice and various other sparkling talents. I'm so proud of here I could bust. My son is a different animal. He didn't really "get" reading until he was seven and spent much longer reading "little kid" books than did my daughter. He's now 10 and definitely ahead of the curve academically, but not years ahead across the board like she was. He has some behavioral challenges that drive me to tears some days. He sings, too, but not like her (although he's been paid for his efforts), and he dances well but not like some of the other boys we know. He's quite gentlemanly in ways I don't think I taught. And I'm so proud of him I could bust. I believe that, as parents, the best we can do is meet each child where he or she is and do our best to keep that child moving forward at the rate that is appropriate for him or her. I'm sure you're doing exactly that for your children. And they are lucky to have you.

I agree with this whole-heartedly. In fact, I always say that we consider that sort of education at least as important as the actual academic stuff. My kids have been told more times than they'd probably like to remember that I will always be more proud of the B they have to work hard to earn than the A they get by coasting on their inherent smarts.

Both of my kids have done some performing, so there are links to cast lists and so on. There is also an article about my daughter when she started college last year and one about my son when he was in the new opera. My daughter happens to share a name with a woman who was the topic of conversation in Canada for a while. So, it's often tough to sort through and find the things that are actually about my kiddo.

My son is 10, and we're doing ancient history this year. His "spine" is the Atlas of World History from Parragon. I bought it for 9.98 on a bargain table a couple of years ago. He reads a couple of pages a week from this. Alongside the atlas, he reads articles from Learning Through History magazine and a story or two per week from the Child's History of the World CD, plus chunks of whatever other history-related stuff I have on the shelf. For example, I have a bunch of National Geographic magazines, and he's read some articles from those. I have a variety of books I've picked up from bargain tables over the years about various ancient civilizations, and he's reading those. We have a timeline, but we're not using it very much. I scanned and miniaturized the covers of all the books he's reading for "literature" this year that correspond to his history studies, and he puts those on the timeline. Every couple of weeks, he gets excited about some fact from his reading and wants to put that on the timeline, too. For "output," I collected some kind of worksheet for every week of our school year. These include History Scribe pages, word searches and fill-in-the-blanks I made with free online tools, things I've copied or adapted from Learning Through History and other things I have on the shelf . . . Whatever I could find. We're not outlining. I'd like to and I see the point, but it's just too big a battle for this one. So, mostly, he reads and we discuss. Toss in the weekly worksheets and some field trips and Netflix DVDs, and that's the whole plan.

But we have a couple of Snapfish albums. One was created by the woman who directed the children's choir my son was in for a production of Turandot earlier this year. She designed the book and sent us all the link so that anyone who wanted to could order a copy. The other was designed by a mom of one of the other boys in his regular choir. She is a semi-professional photographer and did an album of photos from the boys' tour last summer. We love both books, and I'm in the process of creating one for each of our kids documenting their various performing arts experiences to give to them for Christmas. I'm almost done with my son's and have done a lot of the scanning for my daughter's. They've turned out to be much bigger projects than I anticipated, but I'm excited to see how they turn out.

. . . when my kids were younger, we certainly schooled on the cheap. In our pre-WTM days, I used the "typical course of study" from World Book [ http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum ] as our rough outline. I would then look around at the library and online to find resources to teach those subjects/concepts. Especially when kids are young, it's really not terribly difficult. Another resource we used was the discarded books department of our local school district. I don't know if this is done everywhere, but in our county they have hours a couple of times a week when anyone who is interested can come into the warehouse and take whatever they want off the shelves. Often, the books have been barely used and are only a couple of years old. Obviously, whether this is an option for your family will depend largely on how you feel about secular resources and textbooks in general. We never made it the backbone of our curriculum, but we did use portions of various books when they fit into our general plan. For high school, you might take a look at these sites: University of California College Prep Open Access [ http://www.ucopenaccess.org/ ] My son's doing the Algebra One course this year, and we're liking it very much. Annenberg Media's site [ http://www.learner.org/ ] My daughter did their introductory archaeology course a few years ago. I found a used copy of the book at www.half.com for just a few dollars. But many of the courses you could do without the text just by substituting other books. Many universities offer "open courseware," which offer lectures and sometimes reading assignments and exams online. It would be very possible to use these for high school students. I know Tufts offers some courses [ http://ocw.tufts.edu/TuftsOER ] , but the one I hear mentioned most frequently is MIT [ http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm ] Some states offer virtual schools to their residents. For example, we use Florida Virtual School for some classes each year. These are free of charge. Some of these schools allow students to take just a class or two, while others require full enrollment. Definitely worth checking out, though.

Thank you, Pam.

My daughter calls pretty much every day to chat for at least a few minutes. If there's something specific going on (good grade on a test, bad grade on a paper, nervous about an audition, happy about a performance, etc.) , she might call more than once or text or e-mail, too. I'm tempted to think that this is because she's young, but she tells me that the other girls in her early entrance program call home much less frequently. She just likes us, I guess.

Honestly, I'm not trying to hijack this thread or to upset anyone, but I guess I'm just feeling tender about this today. Well, for some kids, it's just who they are. It's not a question of "achieving" anything, just letting them be themselves. When you have one of those kids, you find out that attempting to slow them down makes them miserable. Tell me the truth: If you had a child who was just stunningly beautiful, would you make her ugly herself up so as not to stand out? Well, it's only "rushing" if it is not actually the appropriate pace for that student. My daughter was ready for high school at age 9. (And, by the way, we consulted with the teacher who had been doing her annual evaluations for several years. She agreed.) We laid out what we thought was a very rigorous, ambitious, WTM-based curriculum with the specific intention of slowing her down a bit. She finished in three years. And, for what it's worth, the research (and our personal experience) shows that kids who do go to college at unusually young ages do just fine. In fact, for the kids for whom that choice is appropriate, it's a much better option (both educationally and emotionally) than holding them back with their age peers. These are words of great wisdom. The very highest achievement I can hope for as a parent is to help my kids reach that same goal.

But, see, this is exactly the kind of thing that drives parents of highly gifted kids crazy. I've lost count of the number of times I've been told (usually pretty smugly, although I'm not suggesting you're doing so) that "they all even out" by third grade/middle school/high school. Truly gifted kids don't. In fact, what we found with our daughter was that she just kept getting more different. When she was four or five, she was only a year or two ahead of her age peers, but by the time she was 10, the gap was much larger. She is now almost 14 and a sophomore in college. So, clearly, there was no evening out. However, all those people telling me that made me doubt my own observations and my parental instincts. The truth is that kids are just different. They're individuals. And parenting isn't a competitive sport.

Something else that may be happening is that parents of gifted kids post because they aren't getting support in real life. I know it's one of those things that folks may have trouble understanding, but parenting a highly gifted child can be an exhausting and lonely road. Very few other parents understand or can share your challenges and, on top of that, many other parents are resentful and/or judgemental. One of the reasons we quit even trying to participate in homeschool groups is because I got so tired of defending my parenting and educational practices against parents who were convinced (and not shy about saying) that I was "pushing" my kids. Honestly, only someone who's never raised a highly gifted kid could think that. The truth is that most of us are hanging on for dear life just trying to keep up with them! Highly gifted kids also come with challenges that others do not. They tend to be extremely intense and often have whole lists of interesting personality or emotional quirks. They can be incredibly demanding of a parent's time and attention. (And, yes, I know that's true for all kids, but you'll just have to take my word that it's even more true for the highly gifted ones.) The "joke" around here is that each of my kids is really twins in a single body. They require twice as much of everything (except, possibly, food, although maybe even that in my son's case). "Gifted" kids may be a dime a dozen, but there are very real differences between the kids who qualify for the gifted programs in public schools and those who are "highly gifted." So, for those of us who do have kids reading 6 (or more) years above grade level or whatever, life can be very lonely. We have challenges others cannot relate to and are not allowed to talk about them, because it might make other people feel bad. Can you really blame us for trying to reach out?

This was several years ago, so take that for what it's worth. It was in New Jersey, though. We had to be in family court when our son was just a couple of months old. He was breast feeding and had never had a bottle. Our experience with this court was that we were often kept waiting for hours before we were finally called in. So, leaving the baby with a sitter just long enough to go to court was not a reasonable option. I brought him along and, sure enough, we sat in the waiting room for at least three hours. He was asleep in my arms when we were called but woke up and started fussing when we moved into the court room. In an effort to keep him quiet, I (very discreetly) started nursing him. The judge hit the ceiling. Mind you, he had to ask in order to be sure I was actually feeding the baby. In other words, he couldn't even see what I was doing. But it bothered him to even know it was happening. He kicked us out of the courtroom, rescheduling us for another day and threatened me with contempt if I did the same thing next time. I filed a complaint with the judicial oversight committee and, in general, made a rather big stink, citing the federal law. No one ever responded to me in a meaningful way. Instead, I was notified that the Essex County court would make available a room for nursing mothers. And then, because that was supposed to solve my "problem," I was notified that my complaint was being closed without any investigation or action. Of course, all of you intelligent and observant people will see that having a room made available for nursing would NOT have resolved my situation, since I couldn't be in the courtroom AND in that room and I couldn't feed my infant in the courtroom. In "family court," which, I thought, was supposed to be concerned with the best interests of children. Sigh.

. . . I certainly have had my moments when I gaze longingly at the uniforms of some of the kids here in private schools. I, personally, have found being an academically-oriented, secular, homeschooling parent of highly gifted kids to be a pretty lonely path. We basically don't fit in anywhere. And, yes, much as I loved some of our homeschooling friends, there were more days than I care to admit when I was embarassed to be counted in those groups. What seems to work best for us is not to rely on homeschoolers for activities and social time. Instead, we began enrolling our kids in interest-based groups and classes that were not homeschool specific. We've found, on the whole, that these activities more reliably offer higher quality and more consistent experiences. So, my daughter joined the local anthropological society and sang with two choirs and took drama classes and did lots of community theatre. My son takes dance classes and sings with a choir and belongs to a model rocket club. It works to keep them busy and happy without relying on homeschoolers. It's the best bet for us. Obviously, it's not like I dislike homeschoolers in general. However, it does seem to be true that, espcially as kids get older and there are fewer homeschoolers their age around, the percentage of folks with whom we might be compatible drops dramatically.