Thank you for your suggestions. I met with the teacher yesterday and she was very nice and agreeable to most anything.
He's not too advanced right now - I purposely didn't really accelerate too much at home for fear what this year would look like, but I think he will move quickly through once we start. He picks it up quickly. The dreaded "spiral" approach in third grade has really resulted in knowing a lot of what they cover in fourth in fifth grade. If you know how to multiply two digits - three and four aren't much different:)
I am torn between really drilling the basics - making him work forward and master multiplication, division and fractions, or letting him do problem solving and address those topics as they come up?
Last night I tried to review his Math mammoth book to see where he should start today in class, but he was not interested:) I'm just not sure how to make it work - teach at home and let him do practice at school is what I'd like to do, I think. I'm sure some experimentation will help.
I'm afraid that he will lose focus in school listening to the class and not get anything done at all. That's why I think maybe challenging word problems might be a better fit, over more boring drills? I tried to get him on board with some interesting computer programs, but he is resisting that as well.
I'm sure we will work something out. It's over 5 hours of math a week - anything has to better than doing work you already know. I am grateful we have the opportunity to figure it out!
