I have a 5 year old DS who's in kindergarten in catholic school. He's been reading since he was 2, can add, subtract and multiply in his head, can add and subtract fractions, loves geography, is obsessed with buses and subways (we're in NYC) and knows all the lines and can tell you how to get anywhere, and just has alot of interests.
I enrolled him last year in pre-K in the catholic school because it was a full day and it's a fairly good school. The public school pre-K was only 2.5 hours a day. When it was time for K, I had him tested and he made it into one of the citywide gifted schools, but it's so far from us that it would have involved a 1.5-2 hour commute by bus and subway each day that was unacceptable and our local public school doesn't really have a gifted program. They just take the children who score highest on the grade and group them all in one class and then call it a gifted class regardless of the level the children are actually at.
His kindergarten class is actually pretty rigorous if you go by what they're learning in the public schools, but they're still working on reading and math skills that he's mastered 2 or 3 years ago. They do have other subjects he enjoys like social studies and science, art and music classes, computer and science lab, etc. But a good part of each day is spent working on skills he doesn't need to learn. But he loves school and doesn't seem to be bored at all. I was in a similar situation when I was in 1st grade and was bored to tears and acted out horribly until I was moved to a gifted program. But he's fine.
When I first registered him at the school, the principal assured me that they could give him differentiated work. I haven't seen this really except in a few rare instances. Should I be pushing to have him be challenged if he seems content? I have parent teacher conferences coming up in December and had figured I'd wait to talk to his teacher then, but I'm not sure if I should be pushing this sooner. I think alot of it is that my DS thrives on routine and the social aspects of school. He's also essentially lazy and I think for him school is this wonderful place where he doesn't have to work hard and where he gets to socialize all day. Almost of the real exploration and learning are things I work with him on at home, or my mom who used to be a teacher works with him.
Any advice? TIA.
Laura
