In answer to the questions:
Is he happy with school in general? I'd have to say no to this. He still tells us that he doesn't like going. He goes without much fuss now (as opposed to the huge meltdowns of last year) but only likes recess. Teachers are saying his behavior problems are related to: just returned from Christmas break, anxious to go on spring break, just returned from spring break, having a hard time this week, spring fever, in a silly mood this week, schedule was all different due to testing, etc. etc. You get the idea. His behaviors have been: too much talking, disruptive with others, not paying attention, not controlling his physical behavior. Last night I looked again at Dr. Ruf's book and she lists these things as all typical for bored gifted kids!
About ALEKS: we tried this awhile ago. MrWiggly really like it for the first week or so, then it became a drudge. He was at first all excited about the pie chart and earning new pieces but tired of it quickly. Perhaps he'd be more interested now. I hadn't thought about doing a trial again. He tends to prefer game based activities though, like the Zoombinis game, Math Blaster and such. He really just hates anything that is rote, worksheet, repetitive type stuff.
About observing receiving classrooms: There's only one. No choice there. And I think the teacher will be the same as this year for 3rd grade. But he'll go to a new teacher for math in 4th grade - still only one class. It's a very small rural school. Only about 230 kids total K to 8th.
I'm really hoping to get more compacted curriculum, not grade skipping. Funny thing was though that after taking the 4th grade test MrWiggly asked "Am I going to have to skip 3rd grade now?" I asked if he wanted to and he said, "not really." I don't think he wants to be with kids that are that much older.
I'm hoping that the school will consider pretesting and opting out of so much repetition and let him move at a faster pace. I don't want to push him but I know he's inattentive to homework and test items because he feels like he's BTDT on so many occasions. I guess I was thinking that the testing would help show what he could handle. And I was thinking that same thing, that testing now between 7 and 8 years would be more reliable. I go between thinking "you're not *that* smart" and "*how* smart are you, really?!" with him! YKWIM???? So I suppose I have a desire to test to "really know" where he is.
I suppose I could ask the school to do a WISC, but then they own the test scores. I'd really rather just pay for the private testing. Plus, the test center does learning styles assessments (the kids version of Myers-Briggs and such) which I think would be helpful.
My DH and I talked it over last night and kind of settled with waiting for the 4th grade test to come back and see just how well he did and what the school offers for programming next year. But maybe I'll start them thinking and ask the principal what he's considering for next year.
