BellaOnline Forums Education Gifted Education school is just around the corner-

We're still homeschooling. Now we have 2--one who's doing a combo of 4/6/7th grade (he's 9... challenge, challenge) and another who's doing preK/Kinder activities (age 3). We've been homeschooling since last December, but I still feel like we're in the retooling stage.

Becky- Sorry that yours plans went awry. Maybe next year?

Lynn, I have been homeschooling for almost eight years now, and I am constantly changing the way we do it. I think it's normal and healthy to tweak things as we go. Don't stress that you haven't gotten all the kinks worked out- I don't know if that's possible with growing and changing children!

Our school actually started back 2 weeks ago (we only get 2 months off for the summer!)

Both my oldest son (a Junior in high school) and my daughter (1st year in middle school) have gifted or accelerated classes - for right now math and SS, and looking to expand to science and language arts if they handle these classes well (the counselors didn't want to overwhelm them).

My youngest son just started Kindergarten - so no gifted classes, yet. Although I imagine he will be there soon - he is actually my most creative child (scary creatvie, he can build anything - if it means climbing to get what he wants!) But you can see the little engineering gears spinning in his head.

My older son will be taking engineering classes this year, too. I have a good feeling this is where he;s going to find his niche. He's a fantastic artist with an amazing talent for math - engineering and architecture ought to combine those two skills fantastically.

All of mine are in public school.

No public schooling for us for a while. We still have SO many issues to try to resolve that are leftover from the nightmare of public schooling. The psychologist we're working with feels he couldn't cope, given the few accommodations the public school is willing to make for him (he has a high IQ and tests well above average academically now, but can NOT cope with large groups of kids and can NOT stand to stick with a subject for more than 20 minutes at a stretch). We presented his old school with all the test results to see if they would work with us, and they said we'd have to go through the testing all over again with their psychologist. Bull cookies! We'll stick with homeschooling until when/if it gets to the point we can't keep up with him.

I did homeschool Michael for 1 yr (he's my oldest with Asperger's) but he really missed the interaction with all of his friends from school, and he's the one that wanted to go back.

I'm just very pushy when it comes to his IEP and getting things set up for him the way he needs it to be.

Admittedly, he is very high functioning, and does not need a lot of special accomodations. He uses an alphasmart for typing (no-one can read his handwriting, it is on par with a 1st grader - but he can type faster than I can), and if he is feeling overwhelmed he can pull out his MP3 player to listen to music to soothe him, or if it is really bad - let the teacher know and he can go to the special ed office and there's a room that he can work quietly by himself in order to pull himself together.

The thing that has most frustrated him in the past has been bullying from other students - people assuming and teasing him about being "slow" or "something wrong" with him. The problem is he is strong - and he has no compunctions about punching somebody out if they insult him (NOT the way I want him to handle things!) But he has been in regular classes up until now.

I think being in the gifted classes will actually help out with this, because I remember from my school days, all of us in the gifted program stuck together. Yes, we might have been called the geeks by the other kids - but we didn't insult each other, and we didn't pick on kids that were less intelligent. Gifted kids for the most part are above bullying (there are always a few exceptions). So I think he will be much better off in the gifted classes this year all the way around. Plus it will move more at his rate.

Good luck to all the students, whether in school or at home!