Need homeschool curriculum for gifted kinestic learners

[Ellen_TX]

Okay I am completely at a loss. I need some experienced parent advice. I have a ds who is 7 who is all energy, loves to read and loves hands on projects. We need a curriculum that gifted kinestic learners with a schedule for mom.

 

Come throw out those suggestions. :thumbup:

We did FIAR for two years with out reading it five days in a row, but he loved the concept back then.

[JennW in SoCal]

Okay I am completely at a loss. I need some experienced parent advice. I have a ds who is 7 who is all energy, loves to read and loves hands on projects. We need a curriculum that gifted kinestic learners with a schedule for mom.

 

Come throw out those suggestions. :thumbup:

We did FIAR for two years with out reading it five days in a row, but he loved the concept back then.

 

Sorry, I don't know of any such curriculum. There are oodles of kits out there, so perhaps someone will recommend some for you. You might need to come to terms with the fact that there is likely nothing prepackaged out there that will fit your needs. But it is easy to adapt material for an active learner.

 

My kinesthetic learners would listen to me read or to audio books while building legos, drawing, or doing crafts. One of my boys needed an exercise ball to sit on if he had "seat work" to do. After that ball finally popped, he had his computer on a counter top, and stood to write, then would circle the house, go back and write another sentence.

 

We did math on a white board, often with me as the scribe while the kids bounced and told me answers. That board was used all the way through high school algebra! It also was used for spelling and diagramming.

 

Don't expect much "seat work" for an active young boy. Give it 10 - 20 minutes tops and call it a day for one subject, let him move around then do another subject, but don't make everything look like traditional school. Let him move and discuss books or other material with you. All those conversations will help him learn to organize his thoughts so transitioning to writing at an older age won't be quite so daunting.

 

I described more ideas in my reply today to the "new to highly gifted/dyslexic" thread. Just think outside the box -- games, crafts, science kits, just having materials so he can explore on his own, and let him explore while listening to an audio book. And, trust that wonderful learning still happens without it looking like school.

[lisaj]

You should definitely look into the Righstart Math program! When we started HSing in January, our charter recommended it for our PG son. He absolutely loves it, can fly at his own pace, and now claims that math is his favorite subject.

 

We also love R.E.A.L. science, which was also recommended for GT learners. It's very lab-based, with easy fun projects we can do at home and that can include siblings, too. My favorite one last year was making a self-contained water cycle, changing salt water into fresh drinking water.

 

I'm still jumping around on LA. However, SOTW is an amazing program for these kids, too. My DS reads a ton of books that correspond with the history chapters, and we're always making the crafts and activities that correspond.

[michmom]

I also do not know of any particular curriculum. My two ds are now young teens and after 8 years of homeschooling and a lot of experimenting, I found that any curriculum I used needed adjustments. I use something different for every subject as I find it is impossible to find something that fits all their needs. As the previous poster mentioned, I do try to accommodate them in the way I allow them to learn. We too have allowed them to sit on exercise balls which works really well for most things. When listening to me speak they are allowed to roll balls between each other or jump on a mini-tramp. I allow them to have fiddle toys in their hands as well. I have experimented to determine if they retain more with or without these things and they definitely retain more with these accommodations. I feel this is one of the advantages of homeschooling. As they have gotten older, these things are less necessary. The biggest adjustment was for me not to be distracted by these accommodations when I was trying to teach.

 

Sorry I can not come up with a more direct answer to your question but I hope these alternatives help too.

 

Lynn

[Guest]

As Jenn said, I don't think there is any pre-packaged, tidy curriculum for a kinesthetic learner. We also put together our own, and continue to do so.

 

Peggy Kaye's Games For Learning and Games For Math have lots of suggestions for learning-based games that allow kids to move: jump, hop, throw things, write with chalk, etc. We did math from this book for years, just adapting the games to the topics that were in the range my daughter was working in. Marilyn Burns at http://www.mathsolutions.com has a series of lesson books -- not workbooks -- in which each lesson usually begins with kids making, ordering, building, or using manipulatives of some kind before going into written math.

 

Spatial games are also great because you learn by handling and manipulating game pieces: ThinkFun has a number of these games they sell in bookstores like Barnes and Noble, for a range of ages. Your child will be learning and practicing the exact same mathematical skills that come with a workbook-based program, but will be able to move around and use his hands while doing them.

 

Like Jenn's, my child loved (still loves) to build with Legos or make things with pipe cleaners or clay while I read aloud or she listens to books on tape. I've heard of some kids who liked to bounce on a mini-trampoline (or a big one) while reciting math facts, or who rode scooters in circles while being read to. Whatever works! Acting out scenes from favorite books is also great fun, mixing movement with comprehension and thinking about characters. At age seven, most of school certainly doesn't have to be done sitting down.

 

If you have a hands-on science museum in your area, that will probably be a big hit. Dig for fossils, break geodes, build things, visit whatever kinds of forest or beach or desert you live near, stomp on air rockets, make and fly paper airplanes (Klutz has a new book out with rubber-band powered planes that's really fun), experiment with mirrors, lenses, bubbles, dry ice. GEMS science guides (at http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/GEMS ) has a series of science units which are almost entirely activity-based and which are hands-down the best science I've ever encountered. I taught them to my daughter for years and to a co-op class for another couple of years, and there was not a single, solitary day on which the kids were not engaged, even thrilled, with what they were doing. I'm not exaggerating. The teachers' guides have extensive literature recommendations for each unit and detailed plans, yet the science is exploratory: the kids make things, build things, collect data, observe, mix, handle things... you name it.

 

There's also a great art book called The Big Messy Art Book, which is perfectly for summer because it has lots of outside projects involving water, paint, splashing, etc.

 

It does take a bit of searching around and experimenting with what works for your child, but you can put together an extensive curriculum that doesn't require an energetic child to sit still or fill out a series of worksheets on every subject each day. We've done this all the way up to junior high and are only now (8th grade) beginning to move away from it in favor of more formal, textbook-based school, at my daughter's request.

[beachnut]

I've done similar activities with my DS (now 10), and he is still very active. You can make many subjects hands-on or active in some way. For example, for spelling, we'd do lots of active things to practice the weekly spelling words: bouncing tennis balls,writing with chalk on the sidewalk, writing in shaving cream, cooked spaghetti to "write" words in cursive, singing the words and even Simon Says. For math, we used lots of manipulatives and played dice and card games. For history we made projects, cooked recipes, drew pictures, created trivia games, listened & danced to period music, etc. I also had to be flexible in letting him do his work laying upside down on the couch, sitting on top of a table, standing up, sitting outside on the back porch, etc. Plus, it seems to help him concentrate to chew gum or play with a small toy (like a Hot Wheels car) while he does some work. Hope these ideas help!

[HeidiD]

 

Come throw out those suggestions. :thumbup:

 

 

Here you go... :)

 

DITY Charlotte Mason curriculum?

 

That's my plan for my 5yo and 7yo - they are "highly active" :tongue_smilie:

 

My 7 yo sounds very much like yours.

 

Here's my tentative list:

 

Math - short lessons, manipulatives

Science - Magic School Bus kits and books and Nebel's http://www.amazon.com/Building-Foundations-Scientific-Understanding-Curriculum/dp/1432706101/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278432437&sr=1-1

 

nature notebooks, etc.

 

History/literature - they can pick their own books and do oral and written narrations

 

Latin - Minimus

 

Poetry For Young People, arts and crafts, and whatever else catches their interests as we go along

 

Like you, I need a schedule since I have a big family to juggle, but I've never found a complete program to purchase that met our needs. :confused: So I just collect one in bits and pieces.