Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School 2nd/3rd Grade 2011-2012

Tonight is curriculum night for us. I'm not sure where to start... sons kinder class or daughters second grade class. Both will be quite the challenge as neither are being challenged. I regularly give ds my dd's second grade math homework and other then sometimes writing the number backwards (I swear today he wrote ALL of it that way because the work was boring).

DD's class has not been broken into reading groups from what she says. I find that interesting because they did the reading assessments before school even started.

3 weeks in and I'm already very tired and frustrated. Wish I could homeschool.

It does seem to take them a very long time to sort the reading groups, doesn't it? I guess I shouldn't give up hope. It seems to me that it would be completely bizarro not to have them at a GT school...

I just feel like my kid has so little instruction time already. (One of the shortest school days in the nation and one day a week is early release.) Get on with it, folks!

My son's third grade is still doing money for the third week now! Some of the kids thought a quarter was worth 15 cents. My son can add simple fractions, etc. I'm kind of like, can we pick the pace up a bit?

Oh good, I do feel better now. I'm going to have to track down the recommended book. I also like the idea of positive instead of negative reminders.

Thanks to all of you!

My son's math homework is still coloring even and odd numbers different colors. Oh, and their math facts are 0+x and 1+x. Big time stuff here

Has she read the non fiction companion books? My DS loved those because they were less story more fact. Maybe rading those would keep her more interested in the MTH books in class?

I tell my son- this is why the USA ranks almost dead last among most countries for math test scores!! No reading groups yet either but I did see that my son was reading Harry Potter for his free time. At least that is something.
I hope that didn't sound snotty- I don't object to review. OK, let's spend an hour reviewing odd/even numbers or what is a quarter, but 3 weeks??? Oh well...

Thank you, I really like that.

DD started 2nd grade yesterday. (trying to say 2nd grade instead of grade 2, where everyone looks confused) and the reading groups seem to be OK. She took a book from a box that is about a year ahead, in their scale, but it seems like a Magic Tree house type. Ramona the Brave. But she usually takes from non fiction. The math is better than what is posted, but we do CTY so I don't worry so much about the math. Dd usually likes the nonfiction books in the boxes. And gets her reading books when they do the weekly trip to the library.

Positive reminders are great.

Yeah, that's pretty crazy. I think there's an over-emphasis on money and telling time anyway a lot of the time in grades 2 and 3. I can see that it might work for a lot of children to develop some basic calculation skills in a minor way, but that's about it. It's really a life skill that shoehorned into math curricula IMHO. I guess it's "applied math" of a sort, but not the sort that I care about.

DS came home with the seventh Harry Potter book on Wednesday, his school's library day. Which would have been fine, except that when I picked him up from day care, he took it out of his bookbag with relish to show me, pretty obviously getting off on the chunkiness of it. I think it was a form of bragging to do it in front of the other children and the day care workers. :| In any event I'm glad they're not restricting his choices of library books the way they did last year.

Funny you should mention this--DD said she's done with the MTH book they're all reading so is reading this now. It does look like it's a bit harder.

And yes, they are doing odd and even and money too. Again, I hope it's review, but I don't know.

She does seem to be getting some great on-level writing instruction (she is an advanced writer and the teacher does seem to be meeting her where she is there) and has a research project to plan that she is excited about. But the meat and potatoes isn't impressing me so far.

In my more anxious moments I feel like we threw her 3yo brother under the bus for nothing. (DS lost his spot at DD's charter when we moved her; the magnet doesn't start till gr 2 and the zoned school is not an option, so we are going to be scrambling. DS has become quite a bit more difficult and is appearing more gifted seemingly by the day. His preschool has a different crop of younger kids this year--most of his buddies are in K now--and he is frustrated there after loving it up till this time. I thought he was my easy kid who would do fine most anywhere, and now I think I was wrong.)