The Robinson Curriculum http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ is build entirely on that principle. Robinson, who was primary re

The Robinson Curriculum http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ is build entirely on that principle. Robinson, who was primary research associate of the 20th Century's premier chemist, Linus Pauling, was forced to come up with something when his wife suddenly died. His thesis is that we now have something better to train the mind than the old classics of Latin and Greek and what was written in them. Math and science, but real science. So the curriculum has an initial singular focus on reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic, with the reading selections bringing in the other stuff needed like history. The math focus is to get you through single variable calculus as fast as possible, and only then do you study calculus based physics and otherwise pick up additional math as you need it. If there's time before college, then chemistry. If there's even more time, statistical mechanics and/or "Call the CalTech bookstore and ask them what's the current textbook for the general biology class" (he's an alumn). If the child gets interested in a particular science topic, say ants, treat it as a subject outside of the formal learning. Get him a significant professional book on the subject, which he of course won't initially understand all that much of, but will prompt him to start filling in the gaps (that worked for me when in the '70s I rather randomly got my hands on some books like one on rocketry circa. the '50s) It's also designed to be non-labor intensive after initially teaching phonics and the math tables by rote, just grade the writing each school day, have the kids grade their own math work, and generally watch over them and e.g. make sure they're doing the reading (again, something forced on his family by the death of his wife, he could do most of this while doing his own science research). It's very interesting, and I would have loved to have been taught this way as opposed to struggling in a school system which had a college track but which had abolished its "honors" classes because they were "racist" (this, despite in my year the school systems' best chess player being black), and that including no AP courses and a lot that granted automatic As, like Latin and physics (which was just as well for the latter, since algebra based physics is cargo cult science). It's not a small miracle I learned just enough math to get accepted by MIT (which is not as intense as CalTech), and most of the other factors in the acceptance had nothing to do with my public schooling, such as geographic balance and demonstrating I could do serious science and (software) engineering projects.