Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Who's doing what--let us know

That is so unfortunate. They look like they would be a great tool. My dd's school is spending a lot of money in teacher training. I certainly hope they put them to good use. The teachers seem excited about them, specially since the students will be going to a one-on-one laptop by next year. But you are right, they are no replacement for good teachers but hopefully they are great tools for great teachers.

re: Gifted Seminars

Dottie, we have those in high school here, too. My son grumbles that it'll probably be extra posters and "pretty" projects, rather than good discussions and deeper study/higher thinking. We'll see next year. Basically, the district gifted teachers can get their "contact" time with gifted students if they teach a gifted seminar. It sounds good, hopefully the teachers are good, but I do have a teensy problem with the "gifted" grouping. We know at least one "gifted" kid who probably tested in 1st grade but really hasn't impressed the teachers since then (maybe underachiever?). Meanwhile there's a girl who didn't test gifted (very close, but not quite) but is valedictorian of her class, who impresses everyone, but she's not allowed to take the seminars because they're restricted to "gifted". AP classes aren't restricted.

A bit late to the discussion but we are still working outthe details

DS (9) will remain in Public school 4th grade with a subject skip in reading to 5th grade and a discussed subject skip or curriculm compacting for math as well. He will also participate in the revamped pull-out program. Our afterschooling will continue lol.

DS8 will got to public school, 4th grade, in the fall. He will continue to participate in the gifted pullout program. Accelerated education will continue in the evenings & weekends. He likes competition and challenges so I plan on him taking the Explore next January, and looking at any competitions he can enter.

We're homeschooling, although Kestrel(3) may go to nursery school part-time.

DS11 (summer birthday) will be returning to Public School this Fall after two years at our local private day prep school (K-12.) He will keep his gradeskip that was granted by the private school.

No gifted program in our District. The only class with ability grouping is Math - he'll do Algebra I.

I'm quite excited.
Grinity

Grin - sign him up for AoPS Intro to Algebra starting this June, or in the fall.
From what I remember reading abouth both of you - you will enjoy it:)

I see that the classes are 24 weeks - DS11 is going away for summer camp in July for 4 weeks - but I'm looking into what happens with that...

Here's something - a free sample I guess - from the Art of Problem solving website: (Did you do that before you singed up Ania?)

I will continue to homeschool my 10 year old son because there really isn't any other option for us until he is old enough to take community college courses. I really wish there were some kind of liberal arts program for kids, since he loves learning about everything. He would like to have the kind of knowledge that would enable him to do well on a show like Jeopardy. It isn't likely to happen where we live, so we are on our own. We will continue to read and discuss classic books and study words for now. He bought the book "Word Nerd" recently and is enjoying reading that and he is using this and an SAT word list to study spelling since we won't get a new word list to study for the next spelling bee for a while.

He is only about a 1/4 of the way through the 8th grade math book that he has been using and we probably won't do much math this summer. He will probably review what he has learned maybe once a week or so until fall.

He will probably finish level 3 in piano some time this summer and I need to find someone to teach him guitar. He is going to try voice lessons for one month to see if he likes it. He wants to quit musical theater because a lot of his friends have quit.

KG's in public school. Moving to private gifted when there's a spot.