Summer Enrichment?

[Shelly in VA]

Does anyone create their own at home "summer enrichment" program for gifted kids? We can't afford the price tag that comes with the various gifted-talented-youth programs, and I'm feeling incredibly guilty about not being able to send our older kids to any of them. Hoping to create some academically enriching experiences for my younger two. I probably shouldn't worry about it, and I should just keep doing what we're doing, but every summer I go through this phase of really, really wishing that I could send my kids because I think they'd love it! 

 

We do lots of art over the summer, and reading, and various sports that we don't participate in during the school year, so it isn't as if the kids aren't occupied. I just wonder if I should be doing more! Looking at having them do some coding, maybe, or some "assigned" reading in a genre they haven't explored much.

 

Also, the child I'm looking at in particular this summer is a rising 8th grade dd.

 

Thanks! Now out the door to ferry kids to activities. :)

 

 

[lewelma]

You certainly do not *have* to do more. So don't feel guilty. Basically, in the summer we do a lot more hands on stuff -- all those fun things that never seem to get done in the school year. More museums, more science kits (like the Make Electronics Kit), more hiking, and more site seeing, etc.

In addition, this summer my younger and I will do the data collection for his science fair project. He has decided to study the effect of trail making on the diversity of plants in the alpine zone. So we will be hiking 5 hours up to a hut (about a 1.5 hour drive away) and staying there for 2 weeks while we make transects and identify plants. Should be awesome fun. I think this is the type of 'summer enrichment' that you are talking about.  But this will be the first year we have done it.

Ruth in NZ

[ThoughtfulMama]

Well, mine is still little and entering K next year, but we do have a summer enrichment list in place. Especially since DH is a teacher and also home.

We have a bunch of TOPS Science kits/books that we are working through. We have a stack of books from my reading list that he is devouring. We have a drawing/writing journal so that his hands keep in practice. I remember always getting hand cramps when I went back to school in the fall and hadn't written anything all summer. We have LOF for some fun math. I guess nothing all that special, but just stuff that is interesting and fun. We usually plan for one academic thing a day, but sometimes more and sometimes we just run through the sprinklers all afternoon instead.

[SKL]

My kids are in camps and we are doing some traveling.  Some of it is "enriching," some is just fun or social or physical.  The "enriching" camps include math, art, dance, music, theater, geography, foreign language, and science.  They also continue to learn piano.

 

Miss E (age 7) doesn't like to be told what to do, so I have provided a bunch of higher-level books / workbooks and she is pretty much free to do them or not.  She has read piles of biographies, toyed with Beast Academy, and is working on and off with a reading workbook built around upper-elementary level selections on myths/legends.  I've also bought some books teaching latin and greek roots, but she hasn't played with those yet.  She did find my MCT stash and wanted to know more about that.  Right now we are on a 2+week international tour, so I did not plan to do anything systematic until after we get home.  I will probably try MCT with my other kid and if Miss E wants to listen in, fine.

[raptor_dad]

Does anyone create their own at home "summer enrichment" program for gifted kids? We can't afford the price tag that comes with the various gifted-talented-youth programs, and I'm feeling incredibly guilty about not being able to send our older kids to any of them. Hoping to create some academically enriching experiences for my younger two. I probably shouldn't worry about it, and I should just keep doing what we're doing, but every summer I go through this phase of really, really wishing that I could send my kids because I think they'd love it! 

 

 

When I was in highschool in the '80s in NC,  the state funded free programs comparable to TIP and CTY. There were a dozen or so college sites offering a 4wk residential "Summer Ventures in Science and Math", which I attended. There was also 2 sites offering the more prestigious Governor's School in both science and the humanities. I did Summer Ventures after my sophomore year and had offers in both History and Math for Governor's School after my junior year,which I turned down in favor of a free all expense paid 2wk corporate trip to Japan. 

 

It looks like Virginia has a similar program. http://www.doe.virginia.gov/instruction/governors_school_programs/ I have no idea if these programs are friendly to homeschoolers (I would think talent search testing would be a minimum criteria for HS) but it couldn't help to check... and if they aren't a call to your state rep or HSLDA might clear that up.

 

ETA: http://heav.org/blog/2013/03/20/governors-schools/  has some info on homeschool policies and it looks like the expenses may not be fully covered for HS kids :(... still might be worth looking into.

[Shelly in VA]

Thanks for the replies! I'm feeling, if not better, at least more accepting of where we are.  ;) My older kids (one going into her sophomore year at a 4-year university in the fall, and the other a rising senior in the middle of his college search) maybe just have me stuck in the academic-academic-academic mindset where I've been ever since we started the college search process a few years ago with my oldest! Haha. I need to breathe and remember that they all doing fine and that it's all good. Maybe I just wish that *I* had a TIP/CTY program to attend, because they sound like fun to me!

 

Thank you all.

[merylvdm]

How about a free online course from Udacity or Coursera? My 8th grader has enjoyed the History of Science one from Udacity even though some of the math was beyond her. She isn't done yet, but she has been through quite a bit. Both have coding ones too ... I tried one through Coursera that I didn't think was great (a Univ of Toronto one) but one of my co op students did the Intro to Programming through Udacity and liked it.

 

You don't get personal help with these - the lessons are there and you do them and turn them in for automatic grading so that can be a problem if one gets stuck. There are forums so you can try to get help there but I think this is the biggest problem with MOOCs. 

[SarahW]

For some reason when I was up last night with the baby I started brainstorming about this thread.

 

I, also, feel uneasy about not being able to sign my kids up for all the really cool summer programs I see advertised. In reality, I know most of these are just glorified babysitting for kids whose parents both work, and there's no way my kid would want to be gone from 8 - 5 every day, anyways. But still, the Nature Center class, the math/robots class, lego class, etc., they all look so neat!

 

So, last night, I was thinking, these things are pretty much just week-long activities on a theme. Given the plethora of stuff available on the internet, it shouldn't be that hard to package together some learning, activities, and projects based on a particular theme. And since it's your choice of theme, you can choose activities in whatever area appeals to your kid, but doesn't really fit in the school year or "regular" subjects.

 

Week-long (or longer) projects I thought of:

- Learning chess strategies. Finish with a family tournament.

- Making papyrus scroll or "vellum" codex (copying ancient text of your choice using "authentic" tools and ink)

- Learn some code and make a game with it.

- Learning about constellations.

- Science of cooking.

- Sew something from a pattern.

- Learn about "fibers" (start with spinning, or even shearing, end with knitting project).

- Weather prediction.

- Film editing.

- Read a play aloud together, acting out scenes or making props as desired.

- Geocoaching.

- Check some "how-to" or "skills" books for a sport out of the library and go to the park and learn the rules and techniques for a new sport. Like cricket!

 

Of course, some of these older kids could do on their own. But I've found with my own kid that it helps if I do the initial planning and leg-work, and then "show" him that it can be fun (funner than computer games, even!).