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I'm afraid I don't have answers for most of your questions -- your post sounds uncomfortably like a replay of what we went through at the beginning of ds's 2 years in public school. Our only recourse in the end was to move him to a private school that specializes in gifted ed. I hope you have better luck than we did!

But I do have something to suggest about spelling: when dd started getting several years ahead of her classmates, her L.A. teacher suggested that rather than continuing to even higher levels of it, she should study vocabulary via the 'Wordly Wise' workbook series. Dd was happy because it made her feel like a big kid, and I felt it was more interesting and useful than just memorizing how to spell words.

Granted, it's still something your son would be doing alone, which is not ideal. But at least it'd be IMO more engaging.

Iucounu -
Remember that fine line between clever and stupid? I'm guessing that you keep that line around to remind yourself not to go nuts over thinking things.

You have come a long long way already!
In this game, one can't know how a child will react to a given situation until they get there. So give the cluster group and the full acceleration a chance to do what they were intended to do, and then see how your child is reacting and expect this to be a 'work in progress.'

You want your child to enjoy school, to enjoy his classmates, and to learn good work ethic. There are 100 reasonable 'least-worst' paths to that goal. Once the school recognizes that your child is different, getting more needed accomidation does get easier.

So, I wouldn't suggest EPGY for math until it's clear that your son needs more.
You may need to re-evaluate in the Fall after the new MAP, but you don't win anything by bringing that up now.
As for your wife's idea - I think it's better to hire a tutor for homeuse, or volunteer to go into the school and work with the Math Cluster as a group, or hire a tutor to go into the school and work with the Math Cluster group. If your wife is so set on asking, then try and steer her to ask the Principle to work with the math cluster, that way the decision maker gets a chance to see first hand about how issues of pace and depth are going.
Similarly - Spelling can be left as is, or used for handwriting practice, or he can create his own wordlist from his reading, or you can privately work it out with the teacher that after he's spend 5 minutes then a parent markes how far he got and signs it and sends it back in.
No, I wouldn't teach him wrong math, but I might transcribe a book where he 'makes up' his own version of wrong math. Can you hold back on the math over the summer without causing great stress? If you can find something else to work on - such as 'nature' or a second language that doesn't further seperate him from his classmates, that seems like a wise choice - just don't be too suprised when he leaps ahead anyway.

Anyway - it takes time, flexibility, waiting and -yuck- growing inside.

Srry
Grinity

I certainly wouldn't teach him wrong math, but if he is dying for math, rather than zooming ahead in the curriculum, he might enjoy some of the Alcumus problem soling material in number theory (it might be too advanced, but maybe not) or other topics typically given short shrift in school math classes. Math actually has a lot of room to "go wide" if you don't limit yourself to arithmetic and algebra.

I hope so too. I also wish there were a local school specializing in gifted ed.


This is wonderful, thank you! I'll suggest this as an example of a good substitution, offer to pay for it if necessary, and see if they go for it.

It's actually so that I exercise the proper amount of tact in designing album covers.


It's clear that he does, at least to the extent that his time in school shouldn't be wasted, and that's the problem. He won't learn any new concepts in the second-grade math curriculum. Enrichment is fine, but it's not the whole picture; he deserves to learn some new concepts, just as he deserves to practice problem-solving.

I'll hold back a bit and let the acceleration "take", I guess, although I'm not happy that the math problem is not going to be resolved. I don't think the principal has time to sit with a class every day, we don't have money for a tutor, and I would feel like suggesting I pay for a tutor to sit with their group of students would be a little too forward anyway. Thanks for the advice on the specialist.


To me, that's uncomfortably like binding his feet so we don't have to buy bigger shoes. He's started learning Spanish using Berlitz and a computer program, since I figure that's a useful language to know. He already picks up science, and I can increase that along with everything else, but it shouldn't come at the expense of math learning if he's interested. These are my own opinions, but I am very glad to have your advice and will think about it over the coming weeks. Thank you!

Thanks for the suggestions. I recently started hunting up materials in discrete math, and have taken a look at Alcumus too. Maybe that's the best option for now.

That sounds like fun!

Sadly, that are very few concepts in Math in elementary school - you could sit down and teach him the whole curriculum of concepts in a couple of afternoons, because there just isn't much there.
To me, Math before prealgebra is about memorizing math facts with a few definitions and procedure thrown in.

You might enjoy reading http://learninfreedom.org/

Stay away from the 'shoulds' and keep observing your child. You'll have to keep checking his 'twinkle titer' and yes, he will learn all on his own, just by breathing. So if he 'wilts' when you two spend time together learning science at the expense of math, well then yes, it'll be Math time again - hopefully the higher level stuff that they won't get to in elementary school anyway.
This looks potentially interesting:
Online Math Logic Programs, Propositional Calculus, CS ...eIMACS specializes in educational classes for gifted and talented computer science students and children, including online mathematical logic programs, ...
www.eimacs.com/educ_lpcoverview.htm

I've seen a workbook of their about cryptography that looked very interesting.

The reason I give cautions is that you don't want to give your son the impression that your son is 'so delicate' that there is only one least-bad learning path for him.

What if the principle was willing to sit down with the Math cluster once a week? Again, more so he/she has a hands on feel for your son's mind than for anything your son might learn.

There are kids who just want to learn 'a lot' and a 'good pace' and there are other kids who need a particular subject. Go slow enough to see which your child is. There are kids who can become interested in anything, kids who can become interested in anything their beloved adults care to share, and kids who can only learn what something deep inside them tells them it's time to learn. See where on that range your son is as he grows and matures.

I hope that makes sense. In the end you and your wife are the best ones to keep observing and flexibly feeding the flame of love of learning while teaching all of the other life lessons that parents are responsible for teaching. Big job, yes? But I have faith in you.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

(From my phone) Thanks very much, CFK and Grinity. I'm going to take all of your advice.

I'll pile in too - surround everything I say with a YMMV.

BTDT, it's tricky. (You might like to have a look at the thread I started about our experience if you didn't see it at the time - DS was 6 and about to go into the equivalent of 2nd grade already knowing a lot more maths than they'd plan to teach, so it wasn't that dissimilar a situation, although we didn't have the grade skip element.)

FWIW I wish DS had more experience working with other children at maths; that's the one thing I feel we really haven't got right so far. It's tricky, though; there's really no way he could collaborate with (as opposed to attempt to teach!) his age peers, and the age gap between him and the children he might be able to work with would be large. We're hoping he'll have a chance (via school-wide team maths challenge) next year, but I'll believe it when I see it working, really. If you think there's really a chance your DS could realistically get that next year, I'd grab it - it'll get harder before it gets easier if he continues to accelerate away!

Our school was more receptive to our sending in work for DS on paper than to our suggesting computer work for him. We didn't push it so I'm not sure, but I think the issues are practical: there's only one computer in his classroom and it's not convenient to have it occupied (e.g. the teacher may need it to do things on the smartboard with the others) and even if we sent in a netbook for him or something, it might be more disruptive than paper because computer use is generally seen as a privilege and might provoke envy from the other children in a way which harder work on paper doesn't!
I think I'd try to be more general than that: I'd emphasise that the situation can change fast with him and that you'll need to review the situation frequently and not necessarily on a predictable schedule. Certainly, don't agree now on the exact material he'll be doing in the autumn unless you're sure it's currently a long way ahead of him! We had a meeting in the summer in which we discussed generalities, and agreed to have a meeting to discuss details at the beginning of the following year. That worked well. Dunno about the practicalities of arranging pullouts; that depends a lot on the school.
I certainly wouldn't put it like that - it would be work for the teacher who probably doesn't feel as though s/he has much spare time! You might be lucky in that there might happen to be someone unknown to you who has a maths background and is itching to experiment with support a really talented child.

Are you and DW happy to do the actual teaching and planning of his maths? If so, then doing teaching at home and "homework" at school may be the way to go, practically speaking. Don't overestimate the stage at which many elementary school teachers start to feel insecure with maths themselves, by the way.
Why would he be loaded down if learning spellings is quick for him? Is it that they expect spelling homework that involves writing? DS's school recommends a writing-based method, but all they insist on is that the children learn their assigned words (they all have different ones, I think, and part of it is words that were mis-spelled in their own work which by definition they don't already know well!). DS learns his on the bus, tested by reciting them spelling-bee style. Works for us, takes only a few minutes per week. I suppose I see it as memory training; I rather agree that it's not obvious that it's necessary from the POV of actually learning to spell.
You can offer to take on any part of the work involved in setting and marking special work for your DS that you feel happy to do and they feel happy to give up. (This depends on the teacher - last year we didn't do much, this year we've arranged DS's maths in toto.)
Lol, but no.

PS I love Alcumus, but I don't think doing number theory in Alcumus is going to help by leaving lots of third and fourth grade topics untouched! You do pretty much have to be able to do arithmetic to do number theory, and as Grinity (was it?) said there's not really a whole lot else in school maths at this kind of level. (There is *some*, at least in UK maths there is - but it's only going to occupy another couple of afternoons.)