Shellymos and irisheyes - wow! Great news! Irisheyes - I especially like the part about dd feeling comfortable and accepted. Awesome!

Along those same lines, I'm thinking that our DS6's acceleration can already be counted as a success because he also feels comfortable and happier with school in general. We just had an education plan meeting today, where we found out that DS6 has no troubles sharing information in class and doesn't seem shy at all. Last year, he did not want to speak up.

In addition to DS6 seeming happier, we are happier as parents after hearing what they are planning. For reading, the classroom teacher has lots of experience working with kids at their own level, and he even said we could send in any books DS6 likes to read and he can use those for class. Also, they placed several kids in this class who are higher lever readers, so DS will not be alone (and in fact, they are pretty ahead in writing, so he'll have some catching up to do there!). For math, they plan to do end-of-unit tests before starting new units, and if DS shows mastery, then he goes to the gifted teacher for math. If there are any gaps, he will join his class when they're covering that material. DS6 has lots of catching up to do in handwriting (mechanics) and writing (conveying thoughts), but it sounds like even though he's behind, it's still within the range of 2nd graders and everyone's confident he'll catch up.

So, happy news here as well!