Curriculum suggestion for a little boy who likes to blow things up and knock things down? :-)

[~Shanna~]

If you remember me from other threads, you know that my family is discerning whether homeschooling is going to be a good fit for our family. I'm trying to find a curriculum suggestion for a little boy who is really active. REALLY active :-)

I've requested from the library some books on helping me to understand how he learns. We tend toward unschooling philosophically, but I think I'm going to need some guidance in the first years for HSing if we do this. Are there curricula that you've found that are especially good for active boys?  I've fallen in love with the Oak Meadow curriculum and I'll probably borrow it from a friend for some ideas, but the idea of building activities around Waldorf philosophy for my oldest is funny when I'm honest with myself ;-)

Thanks for your help. I've requested from the library the "100 Top Picks" to help discern, but it sounds like that book  might be of limited usefullness for my family because it focuses on conservative Christian philosophies. 

[SweetSilver]

Oh, I have no advice, I just wanted to post to tell you how I laughed when I saw the title of the thread.  Thanks for lightening up my day.... Good luck! 

[Tjej]

Timberdoodle.com might be fun for you to look through.  I find a lot of their stuff seems fun and interesting, and they are understanding of active needs.  I remember the science and geography stuff they have standing out to me as seeming quite active, fun, and interesting.  The people who run the store/site are Christian, but they have a number of secular cirricula as well. 

Tjej

[~Shanna~]

I wanted to report back:

The book "100 Top picks for homeschool curriculum" gets a bad rap on Amazon.com for secular (or even just non-fundamentalist) homeschoolers. I requested it from my library, and it is so helpful already. She rates curricula based on how well it does for 5 different types of kids, one of which is dubbed "Wiggly Willy" - It has been so helpful to even just narrow down the field for me. 

[Tjej]

Yeah, Cathy Duffy's book is really good.  I guess that is how I feel about Timberdoodle too.  Just because there is a Christian doing it and they talk about Christian stuff does not make it all Christian material for those who chose to avoid that.

Tjej

[Fillyjonk]

How old is he? Especially if he is under 7, I'd really consider letting him spend a few years blowing things up before getting started on stuff. We did this with my son-he was enrolled part time in the local Steiner kindergarten, and aside from that just played really. He was then and is now still outside a lot. The only thing we did much of was reading-me to him, audio books, etc.

Honestly, once he was 7 and we moved to doing a few structured bits and pieces, he picked up stuff so fast. For math he occasionally uses a computer program which, as a side thing, tracks their math age, so I know he's quite ahead in math (this is after exactly 1 year of homeschooling). Reading was a BIG issue (he has obvious dyslexia red flags) and had to be taught pretty systematically in the end, but again, given how hard he found it, he did pick it up in a very short space of time once it was presented in a very logical and exhaustive fashion. He was eight last month and is right now reading through the chronicles of narnia, harry potter, and lots of other things at this level, and, most importantly for me, enjoying it.

It really worked for us to wait. For him, with maturity, came concentration and motivation and an amazing focus. Its not just my child, although the difference was quite marked with him (he was a VERY energetic and boistrous 6 year old). As I said above, he has more than caught up, and with relatively little work, on what he "missed" in those earlier years. I say "missed", but actually, I think he was learning so much, just on his own terms.  

[greenacresmama]

Oh WOW! I wish we could have a playdate!!!! HAHA!!! THis is my son!!! 

I am picking through lots of activities, ya know most of them are not for him! If it is not his mood or style I pick and do it because I want any calm influence and I do it for Athena, and I do it because it is in *my* heart and he says he wants to marry me like everyday and I know this is because I am *not* him... he loves people BTW, and they can be all kinds. 

We could totally start emailing each other things we loved to do and they loved them too! Like my son and I made concrete in the gravel driveway and pretended, we went for a hike and then stopped in the woods/I let him get bored and then he made up some fantastic pretend play with me!!! We collected acorns and drew a graph and counted in tens till we got to 60...then he threw them all off the deck. He loves to cook and race. I will tell you more if I can think of. 

[2mama]

We bought a microscope, some magnifying glasses, good rain gear, and took the kid to the library to find science experiment books that he enjoyed looking through.  We spent countless hours doing kitchen science experiments, reading about volcanic bombs, astroids, and attempting to reconstruct the destruction in order to measure and examine our findings.  Though DS is only 6.5 he has slowly but surely found new things that he is interested in and can spend hours figuring out.  It gets easier with time.  Good luck and happy learning!

[Imakcerka]

Last year we found some books on physics experiments.  Holy fun.  DH is one of those types that understands the need to see explosions.  So he and the girls did some of the stuff together.  DD1 is my blow it up kid.  She's got to be watched since she blew up our TV onces.  Broke a window with a barbie... you know I just won't get into all that today.