Love catching up with everyone! smile The fitness-focused school and the self-advocacy bode well for your kids, JJsMom and Irisheyes. Yay!

DS6 was in public school K last year with no accomodations except occasional--VERY occasional! Like one question per day, tops--math differentiation. It was tolerable for him because it was only half-day. He made friends, but he needed to do a lot of "hard math," as he called it, at home in the mornings with me.

Testing this summer has shown us that he may be a DYS candidate (we applied for him July 1), and that he has some sort of 2E issue going on as well, which is probably why he is so tough to figure out and why he's not reading well yet, even though he is a verbally strong kid. Grade-skipping doesn't seem like a good thing to try with him. Our schools are not very supportive of an HG+ kid, let alone an HG+ kid with LDs.

So, we have chosen to homeschool him for 1st grade.

Well, sort of... wink He is going to be attending our school-for-homeschoolers 4 days a week, so it's really almost like he's going to a private school.

Our DS9 goes there 2 days a week and adores it. DH and I lovingly (and privately!) call it "The Island of Misfit Toys" because it is such a good place for kids who need something different than mainstream schools offer. Both gifted kids and LD kids thrive there. (And probably normally developing kids do, too!) DS9 has a friend with Tourette's, a friend who transferred over from a school specializing in LDs, and friends who are all over the gifted spectrum.

The small class sizes, the fact that classes are not one-year only but ranges (like 6-8yos all in one class), and hands-on teaching philosophy of the school are good for our "misfit toys," and everyone is kind to one another, very accepting of differences. DS9 told me that he has never seen anyone--child, teen or adult--be mean to anyone else. Never! It's a lovely atmosphere.

However, I'm a bit concerned about the math for DS6. The teacher for his class is apparently more traditional than most of them are, and I'm not sure her worksheets will work for him. frown I'm very skittish about that class. But I have Singapore Math workbooks, and I will change out any assignments that seem too easy for ones that are harder. Worst case, we'll pull him out of the class, but I'm hoping we can find a way to make it work.

Kriston