Well, what constitutes "proficient"? I would argue that if he understands the concept and can do 1.5 pages of problems (or even a lot less than that, frankly!), he IS proficient at division!
I guess I see some of this as being a problem with us moms. Obviously you want to see a child do enough problems to show that he does, actually, understand what he's doing. But with an HG+ kid, that might not require very many problems.
You know, I had a heck of a time figuring out which level to start DS7 at in Singapore Math because he was teaching himself how to do the problems just from reading them on the placement test. So I ended up starting too low in the books, I think, because I was afraid that even though he passed the test, he didn't really "know" it. Well, the fact is, if he can teach himself to do it by reading the problems, it's probably too simple for him and he can pick up whatever he needs to know as he goes along. I think a big part of the math issues we had a the start of the year were because I was demanding too much drill on problems that were not conceptually challenging enough for DS7. I'm hoping you can learn from my mistake, as I'm trying to do.
ND kids, even MG kids, need so much more practice than these kids do, especially on arithmetic, which is pretty low-concept. Especially if you're homeschooling and can review whenever review is needed, I really don't think you have to worry so much about proficiency or have to drill very much at that basic level with kids this young. Very frequently, they just get it fast!
Please note that I'm not saying no drill ever. But in this context, I think that if a kid can do a whole bunch of division problems the first time out of the gate, he gets division. And maybe rather than fretting about whether he's doing enough work, maybe we should be taking it as a sign that he understands and we can move on.
P.S. You snuck that last post in on me, but I agree. One thing about homeschooling is that it throws parenting problems into much starker relief. Happily, it also gives you more opportunities to solve those problems.
