Accelerated learner edition of “If money were no object.”

[drjuliadc]

Is the answer to this question any different than on the General Education board?

So, what would you do for your accelerated learner/s’ education if money were no object?

I will hire Lewelma to tutor my kids in math.  I don’t know how I will make the spacetime continuum problem go away (Virginia/New Zealand), but I’m sure it is a problem money could solve.

BTW I am not profoundly gifted so the many people here who are, will know that the spacetime continuum has nothing to do with my problem, but it sounded fun in the sentence.

Also my kids range from 4-8 so it will be a while before they could use her and I have time to save up.

Edited December 6, 2019 by drjuliadc

[Noreen Claire]

Materials and tutors for DS7's engineering whims, and music lessons for DS10. And, of course, the obligatory house keeper for me!

[Xahm]

We'd move into the expensive, largely walkable, section of town with a great University, museums, interesting enrichment activities, sports with kids whose parents put academics before sport, etc. We'd have a French tutor come in three or four times a week. Someone would clean and cook for us. We'd have a giant yard and an area to host a good group of kids, so we'd have people over to play on a regular basis and be able to recruit "classmates" for foreign language and other things where it helps to have a small group. I'd have time, thanks to the maids, to self study math and other things, but we'd also get tutors whenever it seemed beneficial. We'd travel a lot and host exchange students to help broaden my kids' understanding of culture s around the world.

[lewelma]

3 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

I will hire Lewelma to tutor my kids in math.  I don’t know how I will make the spacetime continuum problem go away (Virginia/New Zealand), but I’m sure it is a problem money could solve.

Haha. If it makes you feel better, I would have hired a math tutor for my older boy too!

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

If money were no object, DS would be in ALL the extracurricular activities: soccer, Scouts, cooking classes, tennis, music lessons, coding, ice skating, art classes, OM / DI, foreign language, various clubs - he’d do it all. He is incredibly social & would absolutely eat it up.

Between seasons we would travel so that most of our learning about history / geography / world cultures could be done on-location. 

I’d purchase all of the lovely resources I come across right away, so that I’d have ample opportunity to peruse them & weave them into our lives at the points I thought they’d be most helpful, or as he got older I could offer them up to him like a delicious buffet. 

Our book / game libraries would expand significantly, & since money was no object I wouldn’t worry at all about items getting torn up, so we would host regular game days with other homeschoolers & friends. 

Edited December 6, 2019 by Expat_Mama_Shelli

[8filltheheart]

Main thing I would take advantage of would be summer camps. A family immersion camp at Concordia for everyone, too, followed by travel.

[daijobu]

Edvotek!  Someone just reminded of the amazing, but expensive, kits they sell.  You can run DNA gels and transform bacteria, and I see now they have some sort of CRISPR simulation.  

I was especially impressed by the stuff they include for free, like full color PDFs of worksheets and instructions and youtube videos so you can see exactly how to do everything.  I was just super impressed with how thoughtful they were.  I suppose if you are paying Cadillac prices, you should expect Cadillac quality.  

[Jackie]

If money were really and truly no object, I would start a teensy microschool aimed at kids working far out of level, with placement done entirely by ability and interest, hiring in specialists with a passion for each subject. DD is an extrovert and I think she would love school socially if I could find/make one that fit her academically. 

I’d also love to send her to all those highly specialized, several-thousand-dollar summer camps. She did one last summer, and it’s been a highlight of her life thus far. But even one is a big financial stretch for us.

[Guest]

The big thing I would change is to move somewhere with a bigger community for PG kids. Maybe not NYC or San Francisco, but possibly Minnesota or Houston. I think we’ve done a decent job meeting DD’s academic needs, but socially and emotionally, she’s been alone a lot. 

[lewelma]

4 hours ago, dmmetler said:

The big thing I would change is to move somewhere with a bigger community for PG kids. Maybe not NYC or San Francisco, but possibly Minnesota or Houston. I think we’ve done a decent job meeting DD’s academic needs, but socially and emotionally, she’s been alone a lot. 

My ds wrote about this issue for his college applications, specifically regarding mathematics.  It is tough.  

[beaners]

I would be in heaven if I could immediately buy any book off Amazon that came up in our learning. My 7th grader is a voracious reader, and we are at a point where most of the things she is interested in have a wide range of books geared for the "knowledgeable adult but not expert" category. She has devoured every linguistics book our library has from the great courses plus syllabus, along with a dozen others. But they only have so many, and then we are still fussing with holds and pick ups. Even used, I can't justify buying every book on a topic when she will read it in a couple days and then only reread a fraction of them again. Then we have art, biology, science fiction, DnD, and everything else she is obsessed with. Even better if she had a personal librarian who was an expert in every field who could create recommended lists related to her interests. Not too much ask for, right?

[ElizabethB]

1 hour ago, beaners said:

I would be in heaven if I could immediately buy any book off Amazon that came up in our learning. My 7th grader is a voracious reader, and we are at a point where most of the things she is interested in have a wide range of books geared for the "knowledgeable adult but not expert" category. She has devoured every linguistics book our library has from the great courses plus syllabus, along with a dozen others. But they only have so many, and then we are still fussing with holds and pick ups. Even used, I can't justify buying every book on a topic when she will read it in a couple days and then only reread a fraction of them again. Then we have art, biology, science fiction, DnD, and everything else she is obsessed with. Even better if she had a personal librarian who was an expert in every field who could create recommended lists related to her interests. Not too much ask for, right?

Does your local university library allow check outs for non students? Our local university library allows in state residents to check out 10 books at a time.  Also, your local library may have a better library loan program than you realize, I would ask about it.  Sometimes, even if their regular ILL program isn't that great, you can get more things if it is for educational purposes.  I got sent a copy of an entire PhD thesis I was interested in under "educational purposes."  (It was a study of the correlation between reading and spelling for college students, and included oversampling of poor readers.) It was written before computers and PDFs were big.

[beaners]

32 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

Does your local university library allow check outs for non students? Our local university library allows in state residents to check out 10 books at a time.  Also, your local library may have a better library loan program than you realize, I would ask about it.  Sometimes, even if their regular ILL program isn't that great, you can get more things if it is for educational purposes.  I got sent a copy of an entire PhD thesis I was interested in under "educational purposes."  (It was a study of the correlation between reading and spelling for college students, and included oversampling of poor readers.) It was written before computers and PDFs were big.

 

Our big local university allows cards for high school students with proof of AP enrollment, but that's it. We do have a city library network so we aren't just using the library closest to our house, but it still doesn't include a lot of the books we try to find. We can have 10 ILL requests in process at a time, but ILL for more than the occasional book is too much to try to keep track of in our busy household. I could easily stack up bigger fines than if we were buying the books!

[drjuliadc]

On 12/6/2019 at 4:29 PM, Expat_Mama_Shelli said:

If money were no object, DS would be in ALL the extracurricular activities: soccer, Scouts, cooking classes, tennis, music lessons, coding, ice skating, art classes, OM / DI, foreign language, various clubs - he’d do it all. He is incredibly social & would absolutely eat it up.

Between seasons we would travel so that most of our learning about history / geography / world cultures could be done on-location. 

I’d purchase all of the lovely resources I come across right away, so that I’d have ample opportunity to peruse them & weave them into our lives at the points I thought they’d be most helpful, or as he got older I could offer them up to him like a delicious buffet. 

Our book / game libraries would expand significantly, & since money was no object I wouldn’t worry at all about items getting torn up, so we would host regular game days with other homeschoolers & friends. 

The E/Cs would also require an excess of time, not just money.

Thanks for your fun input.

[drjuliadc]

On 12/6/2019 at 9:13 PM, Jackie said:

I’d also love to send her to all those highly specialized, several-thousand-dollar summer camps. She did one last summer, and it’s been a highlight of her life thus far. But even one is a big financial stretch for us.

I want a list. I don’t ask for much.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

3 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

The E/Cs would also require an excess of time, not just money.

Thanks for your fun input.

We’re pretty flexible time-wise; give me the funds, & I can manage that aspect 😉 Once DS had the opportunity to go broad & enjoy a wide array of experiences we’d pare things back down, he’s just at a great age to dip his feet into a number of activities. Each would come to require more of a commitment over time though, of course & priorities would have to be chosen. 

[Mommyof1]

DD7 would have group art and music lessons.

I would buy the curriculum I really wanted. Start her on latin lessons.

Build my own personal/educational library and one for DD.

World/road schooling for a year or so.

Lots of science experiments and art things. Her two favorite things.

[annegables]

On 12/6/2019 at 6:13 PM, Jackie said:

If money were really and truly no object, I would start a teensy microschool aimed at kids working far out of level, with placement done entirely by ability and interest, hiring in specialists with a passion for each subject. DD is an extrovert and I think she would love school socially if I could find/make one that fit her academically. 

I’d also love to send her to all those highly specialized, several-thousand-dollar summer camps. She did one last summer, and it’s been a highlight of her life thus far. But even one is a big financial stretch for us.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/25/elon-musk-is-reportedly-running-an-exclusive-private-school-at-spacex.html

That is literally what is going on at this school, complete with hired specialists. 

[annegables]

On 12/6/2019 at 1:29 PM, Expat_Mama_Shelli said:

If money were no object, DS would be in ALL the extracurricular activities: soccer, Scouts, cooking classes, tennis, music lessons, coding, ice skating, art classes, OM / DI, foreign language, various clubs - he’d do it all. He is incredibly social & would absolutely eat it up.

Between seasons we would travel so that most of our learning about history / geography / world cultures could be done on-location. 

I’d purchase all of the lovely resources I come across right away, so that I’d have ample opportunity to peruse them & weave them into our lives at the points I thought they’d be most helpful, or as he got older I could offer them up to him like a delicious buffet. 

Our book / game libraries would expand significantly, & since money was no object I wouldn’t worry at all about items getting torn up, so we would host regular game days with other homeschoolers & friends. 

If you live in a location that has all that, then I think you should also ask for a private helicopter or hovercraft or something to avoid all the traffic🤣. If you live in a place that has all that with no traffic issues, I would like to know where ithis magical place is

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

1 hour ago, annegables said:

If you live in a location that has all that, then I think you should also ask for a private helicopter or hovercraft or something to avoid all the traffic🤣. If you live in a place that has all that with no traffic issues, I would like to know where ithis magical place is

LOL - ya know what? If I could get him to all the stuff he wanted to do then traffic would be a small price to pay. Maybe we’d live in a city with excellent public transport or I’d hire a chauffeur. I really loved the public transport during our years in Hong Kong; I’d gladly not drive. 

[Guest]

After this last three weeks, the ability to live in different countries for several months at a time-during what ever time of year is prettiest. Of course, this is probably less homeschooling and more that I am NOT looking forward to going back to winter!

[Black-eyed Suzan]

Travel, travel, travel. And tutors for foreign languages.

A few home renovations wouldn't be amiss, either. 😄