My son was given math independent of his classmates by going online. Everyday when the class started math, he went to the computer in the corner. His math was checked at the end of the day by the teacher. The few times he had trouble, the gifted teacher helped him during their normal meetings. It worked well for him, but he is really reliable for independent study.
Can I ask some more about what material this was, esp. what the learning objectives were? New material, or challenging problems? What I'm wondering is: in writing "the few times he had trouble" are you saying that the work he was doing was generally straightforward for him (in which case I suppose the point would have been that it was teaching him material that was new to him, but not hard for him) or are you saying that he did regularly meet problems that were challenging enough for him not to be able to see how to approach them, that he had to think hard about for a while, but that he could usually get through that process without help? It may be that in wanting the latter for DS I'm asking for the moon, but if your son has had it that would be encouraging!
