Hi Steph,
My DS7 had a mid-year skip from 2nd to 3rd this year, so we didn't have much of a chance to prepare him (or us!). Maybe that is for the better! I can tell you some of the things they did in second grade... if my sleepy brain can think for a moment. Timed math tests were big in his school. (his school does Everyday Math) He had to be able to do 100 addition in under 7 minutes (single digit numbers), and likewise 100 subtraction in 7 minutes. You would be amazed after practicing that all year how fast they can do those drills. They worked on the beginning steps of fractions... cutting pies and pizzas into wedges. They also began to introduce multiplication... 2 sets of 3 equals six. (very basic) I can remember the math facts better since my son loves math. In science, they talked about habitats for animals and food cycles. And I can't think much about reading and writing at the moment... I'm drawing a complete blank... Oh well. Just the basic sentence structure and punctuation for writing. Oh, and they introduced cursive writing towards the end of second grade. (my son missed that completely). Those are just some of the things that might come your son's way this next year.
And as far as preparing him emotionally, we really just pretended that this was the most normal thing in the world. One day he was in second grade and the next day he was in third. Since we didn't make a big deal over it, he just seemed to go with the flow. We told him to say, if he was asked why he was in third grade, that this was what the school had decided was best for him. That way he didn't seem like he was bragging about being smarter than anyone else. And as for the other parents... We live in a pretty competitive school district where everyone thinks their kid is gifted. So we learned not to mention it unless someone asked us a direct question. I have to say that most people thought we were making a horrible decision in accelerating our son up a grade. (family and friends-we got all kinds of lectures!) They put much more emphasis on kids social maturity than on intelligence. I must say that a one year acceleration was the best thing that we could have done, especially socially! Our son had nothing in common with his second grade classmates at all. He now has a good group of boys that have a lot of common interests.
The only downside to skipping up to 3rd was that the bigger boys (9 or 10) were into a lot more things that I would consider inappropriate for a seven year old. He learned many things from them that I could have used another year before facing. And they are allowed to watch some movies that I won't let my DS7 watch. Oh well. It was still the best decision.
I am very new to all of this too, Steph. I just started posting here this week. So I would love to chat with you some more about this tomorrow.
ebeth
