What to do with Gifted Kindergartener?

[gomomgo]

My daughter is about to enter kindergarten and I am planning on homeschooling her. She is gifted, I believe, in the areas of language/logic/reasoning (spoke early, read at age 3, has a photographic memory, etc.). I think she is probably average in the areas of math and science.

 

What can I do for her to encourage a love of learning in her? She has not attended any pre-k prior to this; we have been doing "work" at home.

 

Can anyone suggest some challenging but enjoyable curric. for this age? My homeschooling mentor, and a mother to two gifted children herself, has strongly encouraged the K12 curriculum, but the costs can be high. I have two children (soon to be 3) and at some point, I will be buying curriculum for all three at the same time. I'm so new to this that I don't know if many curric. can be reused for consecutive children. K12, for example, does not appear to be that way (but I could be wrong). After doing my own research (and reading A Well Trained Mind), I am more inclined to take this approach anyway (rather than K12). I like the idea of picking/choosing the-best-of in a variety of areas.

 

Any insight you have to any of these issues I'm thinking about as I approach homeschooling would be very much appreciated.

Edited March 25, 2012 by gomomgo

[JenneinCA]

I wouldn't suggest any curriculum for a kindergartener, especially a gifted one.

 

Instead I would:

 

Go to the library and get books. All kinds of books, books about numbers and animals and volcanoes, books about famous people and places, fairy tales and poetry, books about building things, any book that strikes your (or your child's) fancy.

Read as many (or few) as the child wants to.

 

Play outside. Build sand castles or snowballs. Go down slides and do monkey bars. Check out the ladybugs and crickets and birds. Look at flowers and trees and grass. Explore your world.

Until you and the child are done.

 

Play inside. Build with blocks or legos. Play with a dollhouse. Bake brownies or cookies or dinner. Use crayons or paints or markers. Make a mess. And then clean it up. Make music on the pots or with an instrument if the child is interested.

 

Enjoy living. Unless the child is asking for workbooks I wouldn't worry about them. There is plenty of time for that later.

 

(If the child wants workbooks, then by all means buy them. Ask for specific advice on math workbooks or learn to read programs if those are what you are looking for.)

 

But mostly just enjoy the time. They are only kindergartners for a short time.

[boscopup]

Start simple - 3R's, and gradually add more and more as she's ready. Being gifted doesn't necessarily mean ready for formal seat work, so I'd judge what you do by what she's ready for. I don't think 5 year olds need to be particularly challenged, and many of them don't like a challenge, due to maturity.

 

So your job is easy since she's already reading. One of the 3R's is good to go. Just keep reading there. ;) How is her writing? Was she born with a pencil in hand, or is she pencil phobic? And for math, is she needing K math or 1st grade math?

 

Science and history (or "social studies") can easily be done with library books for now. Keep it simple if you have a newborn on the way. :)

 

I basically follow the WTM expectations for various grade levels (based on age), but I use appropriately challenging levels. So in 2nd grade, my son is working for about 2-2.5 hours with 2nd grade level output expectations, but he's doing 4th grade math, reading 5th-7th grade level books, etc.

 

You can definitely do K on the cheap. Utilize that library!!!

[SuperDad]

I wouldn't suggest any curriculum for a kindergartener, especially a gifted one.

 

Instead I would:

 

Go to the library and get books. All kinds of books, books about numbers and animals and volcanoes, books about famous people and places, fairy tales and poetry, books about building things, any book that strikes your (or your child's) fancy.

Read as many (or few) as the child wants to.

 

Play outside. Build sand castles or snowballs. Go down slides and do monkey bars. Check out the ladybugs and crickets and birds. Look at flowers and trees and grass. Explore your world.

Until you and the child are done.

 

Play inside. Build with blocks or legos. Play with a dollhouse. Bake brownies or cookies or dinner. Use crayons or paints or markers. Make a mess. And then clean it up. Make music on the pots or with an instrument if the child is interested.

 

Enjoy living. Unless the child is asking for workbooks I wouldn't worry about them. There is plenty of time for that later.

 

(If the child wants workbooks, then by all means buy them. Ask for specific advice on math workbooks or learn to read programs if those are what you are looking for.)

 

But mostly just enjoy the time. They are only kindergartners for a short time.

:iagree:

 

I've never met a gifted kid who didn't naturally love to learn (and I've met a LOT of gifted kids). Nurture her abilities, encourage her passions, throw all other conventional parenting advice out the window, and prepare to be amazed, challenged, and blessed.

[Ritsumei]

We're following TWTM method, though I've substituted other curriculum in several places rather than using the ones recommended in the book.

 

We use a combination of Miquan and Math Expressions for math. Miquan is especially nice, I think, because of the way it encourages numbers play, concrete understanding, and allows following interests. My 5yo thinks that negative numbers are cool, and is learning fractions, alongside his basic addition and subtraction facts.

 

We use OPGTR, but not as written, because it's dry dry dry. So we do all our drill in game format, often using Happy Phonics.

 

We *love* Story of the World 1 and it's Activity Guide. And I love narrations, though my boy does not. Narration lets us work at his level of comprehension, without worrying so much about if we're accelerating or not. Actually, we're going pretty slow - there's so much that's interesting! He particularly has liked Assyria/Gilgamesh and Egypt.

 

We're using All About Spelling, and I love that too. I love the multi-sensory approach they use. Plus, we sat and laughed over making phonograms yesterday. What's not to love about laughing over spelling??

[momma2three]

That sounds rather like my kindergartener, and maybe I'm off base but I'm not sure we do all that much different from if she weren't. She's very verbal and precocious (tonight at dinner she complained about her brother: "he is aggravating me, and I do not like to be aggravated!" DH and I are used to her being verbal, but we were both "WTF? Where did she learn that?")

 

You can see in my signature the major curricula we're using. I think we're going to add in Ray's Arithmetic so there is more drill, and I bought a spelling workbook from Zaner-Bloser ages ago that we're going to start using. We've been doing child-led themes pretty much all year (we've done volcanoes and earthquakes, dinosaurs, sea exploration, apples... she's quite the science fanatic, it seems!). Right now she's really into the Titanic, but I think she's too young for us to really get into that, so I think we're going to follow the Wee Folk Art preschool/kindergarten curriculum for Spring. It covers birds and bugs and gardening.

 

My personal opinion is that kindergarten is best when it's just a meandering dip into learning. First of all, even a student who is quite bright probably needs to developmentally even out a little. But I also just want to keep it light and fun.

 

She is still young for her age (we started kindergarten a year early, as we were planning on moving to a country where they do that and we didn't want her to have to adjust to a new culture AND be a year behind in school... that has fallen through, but she still has a young birthday for her grade: literally all of my friends with a birthday in the month that her birthday is are red-shirting!), so I think we're going to do a second year of kindergarten before we start the WTM system in earnest. Next year I plan on keeping up what I'm doing, but adding in Building The Foundations of Scientific Understanding, and Adventure's In America. I think I'm also going to subscribe to the Weekly Reader, and try to do themes based on that: they seem to have a really nice website with lots of ideas for themed enrichment. We already subscribe to Click, which is a great springboard for studying various things.

 

Sorry if this answer isn't very helpful! We definitely don't use a single box curriculum: I find it cheaper and easier to just do a hodge podge of things that interest her, while plugging away at the skills I think she needs. I like MEP because it moves so quickly we can breeze through the concepts she understands, and then spend as much time as necessary on the concepts she doesn't.

 

Have you checked out the Scholastic dollar sale? There are a bunch of links about it on the New Posts board tonight. You can get a lot of great curricular guides from there, and at 70 cents a pop (there's a code that people have been posting to the threads, too) you really can't go wrong.

[Crimson Wife]

CBD sells the K12 literature anthology set, and the books in it are excellent.

 

My oldest DD did a condensed version of First Language Lessons 1/2 in K but while that was a good "fit" for her, it wasn't for her younger brother. He just started Michael Clay Thompson's (MCT) "island" level and loves it. However, because he is starting MCT early, he won't be able to move right on to the "town" level after he finishes "island". That's fine by me because there are a bunch of other things I can do with him in the interim.

 

For spelling, I didn't do anything with my oldest until she was in 3rd grade, and then she placed into level G of Spelling Power. I backed her up and had her do selected lists from E & F. She finished through Level K in less than a year and moved on to Hexco Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement.

 

DS isn't as much of a "natural" speller, so he is doing All About Spelling. AAS would've been a very expensive program to use with DD (if it were even available back then) because she would've gone through the early levels super-quickly.

 

For math, I like Right Start B then Singapore. If you're on a budget, MEP is available FREE to download.

 

For science, we are really enjoying Mr. Q Life Science. It is available FREE as an e-book. We like it so much that I have gone ahead and purchased Earth & Space Science for next year.

 

For history, I would go ahead and start SOTW or whatever spine you choose (DD preferred the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia to SOTW, go figure!) DS started with 2 years of U.S. history rather than early modern & modern world history because I felt that part of the cycle was too dark. He has been doing unit studies with library resources following the S&S of his big sister's spine (From Sea to Shining Sea: The Story of America from the Catholic Schools Textbook Project).

[Tracy]

We used FIAR, which was great for my dd who is gifted in the language area. I loved that it exposed her to such a variety of topics, and from that I was able to discover what she loved most and tailor subsequent years based on that.

[gomomgo]

These are all incredibly helpful, thank you. My DD (very precocious, indeed!) is actually not due to enter K this year - she was born just after the cutoff but is more than ready. So I may just wait for the extra year due to circumstances (baby) and do what I can with her with the newborn (and 2 year old) at home. In the meantime, I'm going to look up ALL of your suggestions! And Jenne, I would say we are basically doing everything that you mentioned - certainly enjoying our time! Thanks again, everyone.

[Tracy]

These are all incredibly helpful, thank you. My DD (very precocious, indeed!) is actually not due to enter K this year - she was born just after the cutoff but is more than ready. So I may just wait for the extra year due to circumstances (baby) and do what I can with her with the newborn (and 2 year old) at home. In the meantime, I'm going to look up ALL of your suggestions! And Jenne, I would say we are basically doing everything that you mentioned - certainly enjoying our time! Thanks again, everyone.

 

If this is the case, I doubly recommend FIAR. We did it when dd was 4.5yo, and I had a 1yo at the time. It fit nicely into ds's naptime, and there was plenty of challenge since the age range is 4-8yo. Many people add in lots of extra activities, but I just did what was in the book, and I had very little prep time.

[Rivka]

We used FIAR, which was great for my dd who is gifted in the language area. I loved that it exposed her to such a variety of topics, and from that I was able to discover what she loved most and tailor subsequent years based on that.

 

I was just about to say the same thing. FIAR was an outstanding hit for my very bright child, for kindergarten and the first half of first grade. I love that it spreads a banquet of interesting ideas and concepts before a child, instead of embarking too early on a systematic sequence. It's very easy to adjust the depth and difficulty level. And reading the book five days in a row slows early readers down - they can easily get in the habit of gulping books down for the plot rather than noticing and savoring the finer details.

 

If you click on my blog in my signature, you can see some of our FIAR activities. The FIAR books are listed in a sidebar - click on the title to see how we used it.

[Tracy]

FIAR was an outstanding hit for my very bright child, for kindergarten and the first half of first grade. I love that it spreads a banquet of interesting ideas and concepts before a child, instead of embarking too early on a systematic sequence. It's very easy to adjust the depth and difficulty level. And reading the book five days in a row slows early readers down - they can easily get in the habit of gulping books down for the plot rather than noticing and savoring the finer details.

 

:iagree:Yes, this exactly. Rivka, this is a very good way to describe it.

[Grover]

Just as another perspective, my DS loathed FIAR. He hated being stuck on one book, and found the activities boring. We stopped before it sucked the enjoyment out of books altogether.

 

I'm glad we did stop, because more recently he's begun to suggest FIAR type activities for his own reading material on "choose your own studies Friday" so he's able to use what he learnt on his own reading material without the "reading it to death" aspects of FIAR.

 

Just my 2cw from our experience.

[gomomgo]

Thanks for the different perspectives. I'm going to look into FIAR - my daughter loves reading and re-reading the same books, so although I could see the tedium for some children, I think this might appeal to my own.

[MissKNG]

I also keep plenty of resources/materials available and ready to go that are at different levels. Especially in the areas of her interest, which happens to be math and science. We all sorts of books, manipulatives, workbooks, etc. at various levels for her to use during school time or on her own.

 

Enjoy the ride cause it's FAST! :auto:

[Greenmama2]

I also keep plenty of resources/materials available and ready to go that are at different levels. Especially in the areas of her interest, which happens to be math and science. We all sorts of books, manipulatives, workbooks, etc. at various levels for her to use during school time or on her own.

 

Enjoy the ride cause it's FAST! :auto:

 

Yes, this is what we do too. The different levels thing is very important for DD. She seems to thrive on working on many levels at once, especially in her main areas of interest. So I've learnt not to discount peer reviewed academic studies or board books. If she has access to both at once she will find something of use in each of them. My DD is almost six by the way and has a birthday near the cut-off where we live so could either be a few months into first grade or a few into K. Homeschooling makes it all kind of irrelevant.

[Crimson Wife]

Just as another perspective, my DS loathed FIAR. He hated being stuck on one book, and found the activities boring. We stopped before it sucked the enjoyment out of books altogether.

 

Reading the same book for 5 days straight sounds incredibly tedious to me and is the reason why I've personally never been interested in FIAR.

[blondeviolin]

My oldest is a Ker. We've dabbled in a fair amount of FIAR, read a lot of good books, and worked with some SM and MEP.

 

My son has a late October birthday and if he were doing PS K, he'd start in 2013. He's already begging for reading on a daily basis and has also started asking for math.

 

Besides reading and math, we've done some geography unit studies, science unit studies, etc. We have just been working with what interests they have.

 

BrainPop Jr has been a big hit here, as well as Evan Moor's Beginning Geography.

[Rivka]

Reading the same book for 5 days straight sounds incredibly tedious to me and is the reason why I've personally never been interested in FIAR.

 

Heh. I have a three-year-old, so reading the same book for 5 days straight is... par for the course. :D This week I've been reading I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato and Panda and Polar Bear multiple times a DAY, and believe me, they don't stand up to frequent re-reading the way the FIAR books do.

 

Re-reading the FIAR book didn't seem burdensome to me because it was always part of a larger constellation of books, and because, especially late in the week, we'd often read with a particular focus in mind. "This time let's really look closely at the illustrations." "Okay, as I read the book, let's listen for words that bring a picture to your mind." I also found that later in the week my child's comments were more thoughtful; she noticed more of the "whys" and "what ifs" of the story.

 

Tastes definitely vary on this front, however.

[gomomgo]

Heh. I have a three-year-old, so reading the same book for 5 days straight is... par for the course. :D This week I've been reading I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato and Panda and Polar Bear multiple times a DAY, and believe me, they don't stand up to frequent re-reading the way the FIAR books do.

 

 

Exactly what I was thinking - five times doesn't sound like that many, compared to the GABILLION (a real number, I swear) times that I am reading and re-reading our regulars! And those three you mentioned are on the list!

[Mommy22alyns]

CBD sells the K12 literature anthology set, and the books in it are excellent.

 

My oldest DD did a condensed version of First Language Lessons 1/2 in K but while that was a good "fit" for her, it wasn't for her younger brother. He just started Michael Clay Thompson's (MCT) "island" level and loves it. However, because he is starting MCT early, he won't be able to move right on to the "town" level after he finishes "island". That's fine by me because there are a bunch of other things I can do with him in the interim.

 

For spelling, I didn't do anything with my oldest until she was in 3rd grade, and then she placed into level G of Spelling Power. I backed her up and had her do selected lists from E & F. She finished through Level K in less than a year and moved on to Hexco Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement.

 

DS isn't as much of a "natural" speller, so he is doing All About Spelling. AAS would've been a very expensive program to use with DD (if it were even available back then) because she would've gone through the early levels super-quickly.

 

For math, I like Right Start B then Singapore. If you're on a budget, MEP is available FREE to download.

 

For science, we are really enjoying Mr. Q Life Science. It is available FREE as an e-book. We like it so much that I have gone ahead and purchased Earth & Space Science for next year.

 

For history, I would go ahead and start SOTW or whatever spine you choose (DD preferred the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia to SOTW, go figure!) DS started with 2 years of U.S. history rather than early modern & modern world history because I felt that part of the cycle was too dark. He has been doing unit studies with library resources following the S&S of his big sister's spine (From Sea to Shining Sea: The Story of America from the Catholic Schools Textbook Project).

 

 

WHY did you do this to me??? :willy_nilly:

 

 

What I did with Rebecca: FLL 1/2, SOTW, life science a la WTM with plenty of fun stuff added in, math (which was a crashing failure, but I recommend Right Start), and spelling - I used Spelling Workout, but didn't like it.

 

I probably should have done less.

 

Sylvia got a lighter schedule and hasn't suffered for it.

 

:)

[boscopup]

Heh. I have a three-year-old, so reading the same book for 5 days straight is... par for the course. :D This week I've been reading I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato and Panda and Polar Bear multiple times a DAY, and believe me, they don't stand up to frequent re-reading the way the FIAR books do.

 

Yeah, at that age, I've had two kids that required I read Horns and Toes and Inbetween and The Going to Bed Book (both Sandra Boynton) before naps AND bedtime, every single day, for months on end. The nice thing is that I memorized them and could basically read them in my sleep. :D

[blondeviolin]

Yeah, at that age, I've had two kids that required I read Horns and Toes and Inbetween and The Going to Bed Book (both Sandra Boynton) before naps AND bedtime, every single day, for months on end. The nice thing is that I memorized them and could basically read them in my sleep. :D

 

We're on our third Moo, Baa, LaLaLa. I'm expecting to be going through this stage here soon. I love this stage!

 

Now it I could just get my 2yo to stop requesting Pinkalicious. :glare:

Edited March 27, 2012 by blondeviolin

[boscopup]

We're on our third Moo, Baa, LaLaLa. I'm expecting to be going through this stage here soon. I love this stage!

 

Now it I could just get my 2yo to stop requesting Pinkalicious. :glare:

 

Oh, I forgot about the Doggies phase too! I was really good at the different dog sounds. :D

[Greenmama2]

Haha. This thread has turned into a Sandra Boynton fan club. My eldest could recite Moo, Baa, La La La at 18 months. We're only on our second copy of The Going to Bed Book but then I only have two children. I think if I had four we might have needed to replace the entire Sandra Boynton library by now. It all started when a friend gave DD Doggies for her first birthday...

OP to my previous post I should add have fun :) follow her interests and see where you end up.

[Crimson Wife]

The K12 set really isn't that expensive if you consider that you get 11 books and most of them are relatively thick anthologies (starting in 3A & up). Vol. 1 & 2 are collections of folk and fairy tales that I would imagine most HSers already have in some form in their home library. So if you're really on a budget, you could just get the 3A & up books.

[Terrilth]

We used a more Waldorf style early on and then moved on to Moving Beyond The Page. We love that curriculum!

[gomomgo]

Haha. This thread has turned into a Sandra Boynton fan club. My eldest could recite Moo, Baa, La La La at 18 months. .

 

Ha, mine too! This was her first book that she memorized (of a long list - which eventually cued us in to the fact that maybe she was not like most kids!).

[gomomgo]

Now it I could just get my 2yo to stop requesting Pinkalicious. :glare:

 

Glad I'm not the only one who can't stand Pinkalicious! Ugh, those books...don't get me started.

[Tanikit]

My 4.5 year old would not cope with the repetition of FIAR now - the only book she has asked me to read repeatedly (daily for about a month) was "Mess Monsters" when she was about 2 years old and I think that was because she was processing whether monsters were scary or not.

 

We are doing the 3Rs with her, but after following a curriculum for some time we will take breaks and just play - I often find the explosion in her games based on what we have been doing in a math or reading curriculum is pretty intense. The rest is done through books and then play which often gets centered around what she is reading about. Writing is taking a while, but is a stamina issue.