Yes!!!! Ania, you hit the nail on the head for me! This is so true for us, even at this early stage. I had been warned about the cons of acceleration with that exact caveat: the pace of the instruction will still be the same. And I guess this is what we are running in to, not only in math but in everything else. He just is not getting the DEPTH he craves - that's it!

Some examples (me thinking out loud):
last night he started a "game" of us giving each other problems like this: "If the movie starts at 6:00 and is one hour long, what time is it when the movie is half over?" He gave me that one, then asked me to give him one ("but not the same, Mom"). After a few of these I asked if this is what they were doing in school and he said no. It was from the 2nd grade level math puzzles and games book I bought last spring at the teacher store when we were homeschooling (but that he is just now doing for "fun" at home)!

When we read his 2nd grade reading text stories at home, my husband and I have him answer the "Think and Respond" questions at the end, we talk about words he didn't know (definitions), and we talk about the type of story it is, the characters, etc. He now goes right to the "Think and Respond" questions on his own. They always seem new to him, he says they don't go over them in class. They apparently just read the story. He is starting now to "dissect" other stories we read at home and want to talk about the plot, the characters and expand his understanding of the story.

There is a little social studies and science stuff going on and he was thrilled with an experiment they did to create stalagmites (or is it stalagtites?!) in a jar at school. He was so excited to tell me all the details - but this is the first such experiment he's told us about since school started.

Sooooo.....what do I do???!!! How do I ask for, and more importantly, GET more depth in instruction????? I don't just want to keep accelerating him through classes. That doesn't seem to make sense to us. Has anyone succeeded, in the public schools, to get the depth needed?


Last edited by dajohnson60; 10/23/07 09:53 AM.