Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Seeking Afterschooling Advice

Well,

My DS started Kindy three weeks ago. He has made some great friends thus far, but I'm afraid any academic learning will be ag home right now. I can see that his eagerness to please means that he is happily complying st school with the grossly basic curriculum (can't understand it, we live in a highly educated community where most kids have done at least 2 years preschool). Sigh, getting the right stuff at school is another thread.

We are just letting ds get the hang of 5-days a week school right now,and I don't want to push. He is very used to instruction/enrichment at home as he loves to learn and even do workbooks. We are only reading at home right now.

When did BTDTs start to do afterschooling? Just the same as before school? Or did you attempt to be more formal or enrich their pre-existing curriculum?

I'm having a hard time (sheesh, already?) sending my ds for 6 hours of socialization and pre-pre reading skills. AND he got punched in the head on the playground yesterday. Grrrrr. No bullying - just a random Ninjago gone awry.

Ugh. Someone talk me down.

I have no advice or experience but am interested in reading any responses as we'll be in that same situation next year!

DS was very bored in kindergarten. One thing I did for him was at some point get him an ixl.com subscription. I think that a bright child who likes math can often self-teach a lot of basic arithmetic; something like this might work if your son is like that. DS liked ixl.com because it let him skip around at will, including into any grade he wished. I don't have a high opinion of another math site, xtramath.org, but you could check that one out too. (ETA: Many people also like ALEKS, and it's certainly better than a bare-bones drill site like xtramath.)

Another thing to keep him engaged might be to try khanacademy.org, watchknowlearn.org, and similar video sites.

You could also branch out a bit from math and begin getting him into things scientific, mechanical and electrical. Some ideas include science tools (microscopes, telescopes etc.), workbooks, models, kits, websites, games, etc.; engineering-specific kits and lessons; and robotics / electronics / programming toys, environments or training programs.

For reading I would just buy him plenty of interesting things to read, and spend time discussing what he reads with him. You might be able to get permission to send up-level things to school for him to read instead of being bored during reading time. And then, of course, you can always begin advocacy now for acceleration.

ETA: I guess one thing I left unsaid is that I would try to stimulate his interest, and go where it leads, more than anything at that age.

Where to start... lol So many things...

Here are some examples:

For DD9 it was a continuation of the enrichment she chased after as a toddler. Because I put both kids in language immersion (French) there was a bit of a buffer zone - they weren't as immediately bored. What ended up happening was that after school we'd work on their weaknesses and then enrich their strengths.

DD - had/has huge anxiety, stage fright and perfectionism. She read well above grade level (in both languages) but her teacher couldn't get her to read out loud to anyone. (The teacher was compassionate and willing to compromise and allowed me to secretly film DD reading at home in order to grade her). Anyway for DD we worked on reading out loud in front of people (weakness). We also did enriched math (strength), for fun

As for the perfectionism, we would do timed exercises just to shake her out of her tense rut. Word searches, or word association games, etc etc... anything that was "ready? set? GO!" and then "time's up!" ...just to shake her up a bit.

DS - Hmm. Fine motor issues combined with a short attention span: His TA would have him trace single letters of the alphabet for extra practice. This made him NUTS. To combat his boredom I'd use www.handwritingworksheets.com, choose print style, paragraph, smallest letter size, portrait layout, and I'd write paragraphs for him to trace instead of single letters. We alternated between French one day and English the next. I'd write paragraphs of things that interested him. He'd read them out loud first and then trace them. WAY better than what the TA had him do.

We did advanced math for DS as well. He had so much trouble staying focused on the math they would do in class (he also has ADHD) so to keep him interested we would do higher level (2-3 grades higher?) math at home. He would ask me for it. "Mama, math homework? Please?" Often times I'd be unprepared (lol oops ;p) and have to ask him to wait while I printed up worksheets. I like this site: http://themathworksheetsite.com/ I'd also create a lot of stuff by hand.

I bought quite a few workbooks as well. I wouldn't force the issues of completing the pages sequentially - instead I'd flip through, find a page that was relevant or interesting, and book mark it for them to do.

Bottom line, in answer to your question - we were less structured as far as objective (i.e. I wasn't following curriculum goals) but possibly more structured in methodology.

We didn't start right away, and when we did it was in response to needs and wants (ie child-led). The key is to communicate regularly with your child and with the teacher(s). Also, let go of the temptation to do everything each day. Choose a time frame (like one hour) or number of tasks. You could schedule days for certain subjects and tweak as necessary. Of course if your son wants to do more, follow his lead

We started giving DS-then-turning-5 "sum sheets" - on his request, to his specification of number and type of sums and difficulty level - on the day he came home from school complaining about maths being boring (it was counting and number recognition skills!). That was enough for a while; then we started him on ALEKS a few months later. Towards the end of the year we had a good meeting with school and got proper differentiation sorted out for him. I was posting here at the time, so the old threads are all there if you want the details!

We have a whiteboard on the bedroom wall. I put up questions. He answers them when he answers them, hours later or a few days later. Word problems & math sums. Also, if he's getting rambunctious and I want him to sit still I say, "go watch a math video and then you can watch kid videos", meaning bookmarked Singapore math lectures or khan academy lecture on YouTube (all around 12 minutes) then he can browse you tube for an hour or two looking at kid stuff. I read childrens literature loudly while they're playing on the swingset or the pool in the yard. We're on our third time going through "my fathers dragon", and making a lap book out of it as seen online; reading "a little princess", unabridged; and we're taking turns reading pages from "the boxcar children".

Thanks for the input. I will check out all those online resources. I think some of his dissappointment is having much less free time (so probably the same as every starting K -er.) But he is also really bummed at not getting challenged (or recognized) at all. I did send some advanced reading for their "quiet time", but I was trying to delay the whole "my son needs challenged" approach (at least initially) . My friend gave me a great first grade curriculum breakdown of the student's whole year (awesome resource from their teacher). My son has met most of it already, but I see a few areas of development : journal writing, handwriting, and spelling. I know they will start doing the writing thing (with creative spelling) in K. If we are considering requesting a skip, we drfinitely need to work on his handwriting.

Oy. I wish things were starting out more positive for him.

This is frustrating, isn't it? It's important though... DS(now 8) had troubles with this as well and his math answers would sometimes be illegible because of it. When I'd ask him what they were, he'd answer correctly, but what he'd written was so difficult to read that it would have been marked wrong at school. DS & I had many, many conversations about how "you have to write your numbers (and letters) the same way as everyone else or they won't know what you've written."

FYI he's 8 now and it's much better.

One thing that helped DS7 with his handwriting early on was using a small lined dry erase board for simple copywork, often just a silly sentence or two I or his mom would make up.

CCN...

I love the handwriting worksheet site!!!! My ds is so much more advanced in reading than writing....I'm going to make up all kinds of silly stories and poems for him. Soooooo much better than writing "the" twenty times. He is also fascinated with science vocabulary, so I may combine the two : learning to read advanced vocabulary, its meaning, and practising writing

It really made a difference for my DS... tailoring the content to his interests, and increasing the level to match his attention.

Have fun