My Little Poppies

Suddenly, unexpectedly, homeschooling... and enjoying the ride!

Suddenly, Unexpectedly Homeschooling (“You’re gonna WHAT?!”)

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“You’re gonna WHAT?!?”

I am going to homeschool next year. I am suddenly, unexpectedly homeschooling.

you're gonna what suddenly, unexpectedly, homeschooling

If you had told me this two years ago, I would have burst out laughing. I am an educator, a former public school employee, and a public school advocate.  I believe in public schools.So… what happened? The short answer is that we were given an outlier.

The shirt is kinda perfect.
Meet Leo…  Six years young with huge brown eyes and to-die-for lashes.  He’s funny.  He’s energetic.  He’s spirited. He’s insanely creative.  He can drive you crazy with questions.  He never, ever stops moving until sleep somehow sneaks up on him and grabs hold of his insatiable little mind.  But, be forewarned…he’ll wake up talking about something interesting and he’ll have big plans for the day, so you’d better get a good night’s sleep yourself.  He’s absolutely brilliant. Although we have long suspected his intelligence, we recently decided to have him evaluated. It’s a rather long story involving some behaviors. To prepare, I did what I always do: I read a big, fat pile of books. Granted, as a school psychologist I knew a little about gifted learners but like most educators, I did not know enough.  Over the course of Leo’s Kindergarten year, I read everything I could get my hands on that had to do with gifted students and gifted education in preparation for his testing. What I read was not promising, but I read on nonetheless, determined to be an advocate for Leo.  As I read, whenever I came to a section on levels of giftedness and associated educational challenges I would think to myself, “Thank goodness he’s not that gifted” because those kids had a challenging educational road.

This is a fantastic book on outliers.

Cut to the day of testing…  I sat in my car, outside the psychologist’s home, deep in a book.  Suddenly, Leo came bouncing out of her house with a smile from ear-to-ear shouting, “THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST DAY OF MY LIIIIIIFE!!” He was soon followed by the psychologist, also smiling.  When I inquired as to how things were going, she replied that I should apply to Davidson Young Scholars.  Without even scoring the protocol she knew that Leo would meet the criteria… Leo was that gifted.Later we would learn that Leo tested on an almost 6th grade level for both reading and reading comprehension. Did I mention he taught himself how to read, seemingly overnight, and had rapid fire development after that point? And, while his reading scores were high, the psychologist referred to him as a “math kid” because he did not meet discontinue criteria on any of the performance subtests of the WISC-IV, and he managed to score at a mid-third grade level for math … um, what?? The only math we did prior to testing was Bedtime Math and we only started it a few weeks before testing at his request.  We did not hothouse. This kid is a sponge, absorbing knowledge wherever he goes. To this point, Leo attended Kindergarten at a top-rated public K-3 school. How can you meet the needs of an asynchronous gifted Kindergartener in a K-3 building?  All of the reading I had done, in addition to my experience as a school psychologist and awareness of the repetitive, spiraling nature of elementary education, told me that you cannot do it well.  From my reading and online research, I knew that many students at this end of the gifted spectrum end up partially or fully homeschooled for part of their education. As a mom, I had witnessed Leo’s love of learning dulled by sitting in the Kindergarten classroom.  There was a huge disconnect between the passionate knowledge-seeker I observed at home and the boy who climbed in my car at 11:15, exhausted, grimly asking if he had to go to school the following day. My gut was telling me he was a square peg and I was not about to squeeze him where he was not destined to be.  I knew I would homeschool… at least for the moment.

This book helped me change my education mindset.

So, the above explains how I arrived here, blogging about homeschooling (and, comically, I am not the first blogger in our home– Leo’s blog predates mine by months), but this is only a snap-shot of my recent life. Leo was the catalyst for homeschooling and this blog but there are several other, equally important, characters in this tale: Schizz, T, and Seuss.
photo-2B37

My four faves.

Schizz is, quite simply, my favorite.  He makes me laugh and he’s smart as hell.  We met eleven years ago at a wedding, where I noticed his super shiny shoes, danced with him, and gave him my number.  All this despite hearing a rather incriminating story about a vile little burrito.  The rest, my friends, is history.

Schizz sporting some shiny shoes, playing a pink guitar.

T is four and a half.  She is, without a doubt, the kindest little soul that I’ve ever met– and she lives in my house! How lucky are we?  The amazing thing about T is… she was born that way.  She has, from the beginning, put others before herself.  Even at two!  Who willingly shares at two??  When I brought Seuss home from the hospital, T adopted him as her own.  He would cry out and she’d beat me to his side, often presenting something she just somehow knew that he needed (like his monkey lovey).  She cares deeply for others.  She is an amazing little human and I’m proud to know her.  Schizz and I often find ourselves wishing we could be as kind as T, as sensitive, and as generous as T.  She can be so quiet but she uses those big blue eyes to absorb it all.  I often tell friends that she may not say much but, once we are alone together, she will explode with information: what people were wearing, how people were feeling, subtle social interactions, etc.  She could be an FBI witness or a psychic… nothing escapes her.  She’s also funny and smart and beautiful.

My sweet, sweet T: lover of animals and babies.

And then there is Seuss.  What can I say about this guy?  He arrived on the scene and our family was instantly complete.  Schizz and I frequently refer to him as the “Ambassador of Joy” and it’s really true.  The kid spreads happiness.  People LOVE him.  He exudes joy, he is funny, he is charismatic.  Everywhere I go, strangers ask, “Can I keep him?”  No, no you cannot…he is ours.  He is by nature laid-back and flexible- he doesn’t care where he is, he’s just happy to be along for the ride.  He has the same big brown eyes with to-die-for lashes as his older brother.  And he’s smart.  You can usually find him grinning, with deeply dimpled cheeks, engaged in some complicated imaginative play…totally immersed in his own little world.  I often wish I could sneak inside his mind for a minute or two because I’m certain it would be an absolute blast.  He’s the only one of our three who has consistently had an imaginary friend (his “daughtette” = his daughter). Daughtette is always doing something interesting!  And so is Seuss!  At any given moment, our little Seuss can morph into a bear, battle a dragon, dance like a princess, ride a ‘tumble slide’ of his own invention, or change into Batman.  No wonder people want to keep him!

Mooning the dog. He’s hysterical.

Once we discovered that Leo was gifted, we naturally wondered about T and Seuss.  They are all so different from one another, but studies show that it’s quite likely that they fall within a certain range of each other. So we are assuming that T and Seuss are somewhere on the spectrum. They both present as intelligent and, in addition, T certainly has the emotional OE and Seuss the imaginational OE.

This summer I’m going to start dabbling in homeschooling for Leo, T, and Seuss, but T & Seuss will go to the play-based preschool that we adore in September.  Everyone has been asking if I plan to homeschool T and Seuss after preschool. Folks, I just can’t go there yet.  One step at a time!

We’re all in this together, one step at a time.

In case you are wondering about the blog title, learn more about poppies here.

Wondering if your child is gifted/2e?

homeschool-blog-and-tell

WhyWeChose

***

We who believe that children want to learn about the world, are good at it, and can be trusted to do it with very little adult coercion or interference, are probably no more than one percent of the population, if that. And we are not likely to become the majority in my lifetime. This doesn’t trouble me much anymore, as long as this minority keeps on growing. My work is to help it grow. 

~John Holt~ Teach Your Own

***

 

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Caitlin Fitzpatrick Curley

Cait is a school psychologist, mom to three amazing children, and an unexpected homeschooler. She loves nature, good books, board games, strong coffee, and dancing in her kitchen. Cait believes homeschooling *can* be almost all fun and games!

Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Raising Poppies, a community for parents of gifted and twice-exceptional children. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.

Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, Scary Mommy, GeekMom, and many others. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram
and G+.
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Comments

  1. That’s incredible! Loved reading this story of your gifted son and his caring and joyous siblings 🙂 Hope to meet you someday too, we’re in the Merrimack Valley area.

    Reply

    • I bet we will cross paths 🙂 Thank you so much for reading. It has certainly been an incredible journey so far and I’m so happy to have met so many awesome homeschoolers 🙂

      Reply

  2. Wow…I just found your blog and it really mirrors our experience. In 3rd grade our son starting having tears and panic around school. We saw him completely push down his true, completely OE personality. The summer between 3rd and 4th grade we decided to homeschool. Talk about unexpected. That summer we also learned our son can read at an 11th grade level. That was quite a surprise as well!! No wonder 3rd grade was boring. He is now happy, thriving, difficult, exhausting and a joy to watch. Thank you for writing about your experiences so we don’t feel alone.

    Reply

    • Hi Wendy! I’m so glad that you found us here 🙂 Our stories do sound similar. No wonder your little guy hated school- reading on a high school level would make third grade challenging! I love how you describe how he is “happy, thriving, difficult, exhausting, and a joy to watch”- that’s exactly our experience over here. Please keep me posted on how you are all doing. I’m so glad I started this silly ol’ blog because I’ve “met” so many folks in the same situation and that is so reassuring 🙂

      Reply

  3. Yep! I can relate to all this. It is so nice to find other parents going through this. While we are in the process of getting our son tested and homeschooling part time (for now), he is so much happier going to kindergarten two days a week. When he was full time (5 days a week) he was getting miserable, his brain started shutting down, had tantrums and definitely did not apply himself. His level increases when he is at home and his penmanship is night and day. While I have spoken to his teachers about giving him more difficult math (they do sometimes, even though it is still easy for him) he still comes home with math work dealing with numbers 1-20. He was doing this at age 2. Currently, I am getting his love for learning back and the brain spark has reignited. Yay! Talking about molecules and the electromagnetic spectrum is fun for him and of course doing more difficult math. Not to mention climbing into our cardboard box rocket and taking a journey of our solar system and learning about the planets. 😉

    Thank you for writing about your journey! It most definitely helps us who are starting out and dealing with all the crazy that is associated with homeschooling and gifted students. Thank goodness I now understand my son’s sensitivities (shirt labels, foods, etc.), his lack of sleep (I became a zombie mom for a few years and am in recovery-kind of) and his sense of humor. While I understand a lot of gifted kids are introverted, mine is very extroverted. That picture of have of your son mooning the dog – well, I have one of my son mooning, too. lol

    Thanks again.

    Reply

    • Julie, that’s exactly why I started this. My son actually had a blog before I did and my friends/colleagues said I should follow his lead. I thought it was crazy. I like writing but I’m not a technological person but I so badly wished I had found someone with a similar story a year or so ago and so I decided to put it out there. I have since met so many amazing people on similar paths. You are not alone! Our son was completely different at home vs. at school. Night and day. The change in him since embarking on homeschooling has been remarkable and I wish the same for your family.

      And that littlest guy moons the dog ALL THE TIME 😉

      Reply

  5. HA! I have always planned to homeschool so I think people would have been shocked if I went the other way. Knowing what my husbands family is like, I was a little worried about how to teach a gifted child but so far my kids are smart and energetic but not on the extreme. Well maybe in the energetic department…my youngest can’t seem to think while being still!

    Reply

  6. “Twitter” recommended that I might be interested in following you.lol!
    #abetterwaytohomeschool

    You are the first one that Twitter recommended to me that when I click over I thought to myself… “I need to read this!! Thank you Twitter!”

    What a great story! Let your adventure in homeschooling begin/continue/grow/thrive!!
    Blessings!!
    #abetterwaytohomeschool

    Reply

  7. I, like many of these brave ladies commenting, am so grateful to have found you. It is my 6yo’s son first year of school, kinder, and this is the first I’ve heard of any of this. I left the public school kindergarten scene years ago. Your story is so similar to mine, except we have 2 dogs & no monkey lovey. Everything else is to the T!
    I just pray my husband gets onboard with the homeschooling soon!

    Reply

  8. We pulled out our son after Grade 1- best thing we did. He was doing math sheets for other kids and writing long strings of numbers and adding them. He is now in 6 th grade and voluntarily listens to his college level Astronmy course. Sometimes it is difficult when you have such a gifted learners. They are so full of facts and you don’t always know if they are truly right or not as you haven’t read it heard that topic?

    Reply

  9. I’m not really sure how I stumbled across your site but I am so thankful! Suddenly, unexpectedly homeschooling seems so appropriate to my life right now. My son Boo, started kindergarten this year and while we always knew he was bright, we didn’t know just how bright. There were some issues with him in kindergarten and rather than go with the school’s suggestion to test him for ADD/ADHD, we got WISC-IV testing done. Yep, he’s a smarty-pants. The school’s solution to the problem was to skip him to first grade but in his opinion, “It’s just MORE boring work, not harder work!” Getting him to go to school is a struggle. Getting him to do homework is a battle. He’s got him own plan and his own way and that’s that. After fights with our school system and crying to our state education department we applied to the local-ish gifted private school that is geared toward kids like him. It was amazing.. Boo was accepted but we just can’t afford the $28,000 yearly tuition. We are searching for financial aid but it’s looking more and more like homeschooling is in our very near future. I’m overwhelmed, at wits end trying to help my son, and about to leap into something I never, ever thought I’d be doing. I’m so thankful to have found your blog, someone who has actually gone through what I am currently struggling with. Thank you. I can’t wait to keep reading!

    Reply

  10. Hi. I am curious. I have just found your blog and I need guidance.

    My oldest daughter was reading simple sentences before preschool and she loved learning. However, during preschool, she stopped reading entirely. It almost seemed as if she had completely forgotten everything. I didn’t force the issue because I want her to do it out of a desire to do so and not feeling pressured. She is now reading again, but she has lost some of the joy of learning she once had.

    She likes to read books to her younger sister and me, but she would never read for her teacher. This is just one example. She also would not tie her shoes, recite her address, all of those little things at which kindergarten judges a child’s development. That was OK with me. I don’t care how she “tests”, but it gave me a clue that she wasn’t connecting with her teachers for whatever reason.

    We decided to pull her from school before 1st grade for a variety of reasons, but one is that she says she hates it. She is often scolded because she does not listen to instructions. I know first hand how frustrating that can be, so I don’t blame her teacher. She is a daydreamer and very imaginative. She lives in her own world. She wants to be an artist when she grows up, so she doesn’t interact with other children much at school, preferring to draw. I have to set limits on how long she can “do art” because otherwise, she will spend the entire day painting or drawing and never even speak to another person. She is fixated on creating realistic renditions of the human eye, for Pete’s sake! She is six!

    She is so intuitive it is difficult to keep from hurting her feelings. She senses if I am angry or disappointed even if I think I am doing everything to hide it. She can explain adult conflicts in an embarrassingly accurate way. She just sees straight to the heart of people.

    I have had several people ask me if she is on the autistic spectrum because she gets so immersed in details. She is not. Yet, it forces me to acknowledge that she has a unique personality. (She also does not have ADD or ADHD.) However, I don’t think she is “gifted” per se. She and her sister are both smart, but she isn’t so advanced that I think she needs to be tested or anything. She isn’t reading or doing math problems much outside of her grade range, and she performs much below her grade for her teachers I think.

    Anyway, all of this is to say that I know the public school system is not a good fit for her due to her unique personality. I thought perhaps you had some posts, links, or educational books to recommend for how you educate your imaginative one? The link’s you provided for emotional and imaginitive OE helped. Honestly, she seems to have traits from both of those areas. I just want to teach her to the best of my ability and I am a little overwhelmed.

    I would love to read whatever you have to offer. Sorry to write so much.

    Reply

  11. Ok, sorry to post again, but I just saw your post on the resours and I think at least one or two of those books will be helpful. The only e on raising g your spirited child looks like it would be perfect for me.

    Reply

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  2. […] to end the summer of 2014. Now it’s back to reality. T and Seuss start school next week and Leo has quite the wish list for homeschoolin’ Hope you all had a great week.  Happy first day of school those hopping on the big yellow […]

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