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Hey Ya'll!!

I'm missing you!!
How about some end of the school year updates? What are the summer plans? How do you feel about what you accomplished in the 2007-2007 school year?

End of level testing here, which has my kids very excited about...the lack of homework!

I don't know about acomplishments, but I do stress a bit about next year. My son will be in 7th grade, immersed totally in a middle school environment. I don't know how challenging accademicaly it is going to be for him. He will be in Algebra II
for math, but the rest I have really no idea about. Will keep you posted.
Am excited for my daughter though, an incoming 5th grader. The school has added "International studies with geography" to her next year curriculum. I hear from the teacher, that the focus will be on Asia. I think it is great!

Summer plans: intensive one week long viloin institute, scout camps, astro camp, two cousins coming from Europe for the entire summer. My daughter wants to organize summer reading club - a great idea that has come strictly from her.
Will continue to do Aleks online, plus some EPGY and Art of Problem Solving courses. Lots of camping trips. Maybe U of U summer course.
No strictly gifted camps this summer. Am planning to do THINK next year. Has anyone here done that?
Ania

Hi everyone!

Summer plans include Camp Invention for my son, which reminds me I have to look around for a broken appliance around the house because they're gonna use it to invent something. I'm also going to use a bit of my refund from Uncle Sam as well to invest in a piano and piano lessons for him since he expressed an interest in learning. For his birthday this July, we'll most likely go out on an out-of-town excursion as a treat, so I'm looking around on the Net for good deals to educational but fun summer trips (recommendations welcome).

The 06-07 school year has had it's ups and downs. Overall, I think that DS is not getting the challenge he needs, but at the same time he is not cooperating with his teachers to "earn" the differentiated curriculum. For the summer, He goes to a full time day camp that is all outdoors with your traditional camp activities. They have swimming for 2 hours everyday that the weather cooperates as well as horseback riding and canoeing. At home we will continue some of the enrichment activities and take day or long weekend trips. We are also trying to locate a qualified individual to do a full evaluation of DS. Unfortunately, I am not having any success finding a tester that is both experienced in testing gifted children and that is willing to work with DS to get him to test to his ability instead of hiding. I can't afford to go outside the Mid Atlantic region. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

It is good to see the updates.

For summer, Mite plans on travelling with his choir for 3 weeks. Momma is a bit nervous about it, but it is supposed to be a fantastic experience.

We just today finished the school year with huge gains added to the IEP. Mite will now have a 1:1 para 3 hours a day. He will have some occupational therapy services. He is to be evaluated for physical therapy and that is looking hopeful. They are giong to start keyboarding more rigorously and will provide 15 minutes per day for practice in addition to daily usage of the keyboard. They didn't provide the laptop we requested, but they have upgraded from a Alphasmart to a NEO, which I think might suffice for now.

Overall, it was a lot of gains we didn't expect (expecially the OT, PT and 1:1 para). They actually said they agreed that he needed the para for deskwork and while we all regreted having to do that, because we want to see him independent, it really seems the only route to help him with his severe attention issues that do not respond to medication.

I am feeling so incredibly relieved and successful and I feel, with the grade acceleration that we are considering, Mite has a fighting chance now.

Summer is going to be spent, after his return from touring, filling in the "gaps" he'll miss with a skip over 4th grade.

Thanks all of you for your support and advice this year. YOU have made an incredible difference in Mite's life.

I've got tears in my eyes.

Hi Willa!
We've had a pretty good year, too. So glad that we advocated for first grade. The homeschooling in math is going well. We are really kind of "unschooling" math - our son just keeps on soaking it up!

This summer we are skipping the CTD course, due to cost and transportation/distance to the class. We are having him go to Cub Scout day camp and then the local YMCA day camp. He'll get to meet a lot of new friends and do some not so brainiac stuff that I'm sure he'll enjoy. He really needs to be outside and move - I'm hoping to meet that need this summer!

We don't have any big vacations planned, but I'm wanting to get to a few museums and a zoo. Maybe a long weekend trip to somewhere historic or otherwise interesting. No Disneyworld until these last two of ours are a little older!

Willa: I got your email and didn't have time to reply - I'll send you a note later tonight! I'm so glad to hear all the great stuff for Mite. I've been thinking about him and you a lot lately!
Take care!

Unschooling was the way to go for Rite when he was that age. I wish I would have done it for Mite.

Rite developed a very personally driven motivation to learn because of unschooling.

So hear hear to letting him "soak it up".

Hope all is going well with "those last two"!!!

Willa Gayle -
I'm so excited about Mite's trip, and the accomidations, when do they start!
((confetti and daisies flying))

I hope you see lots of healing. This is wonderful news.
Trinity

BWT - i am trying to muster the courage to write about our year, but until I see the grades for June, it's so hard to know what to think.....still trying.....

Trinity

that's the hard part, knowing when to write that letter and just hard firm and legal to be when writing.

the para starts day one of 07-08 school year, because s/he has to be trained specifically for Mite's needs and they begin training the first week of August. I felt that was reasonable. i don't want them just plunking some part-time mom who wants to work at the school so she can see her kids throughout the day. Mite's needs are very intense and subtle at the same time. Scribing is very difficult and needs special training, too. So, I'm willing to allow them the time for that.

the OT/PT will also begin with the school year. I would have liked to see that now, but am willing to give a bit.

The Neo will start as soon as they get it. it has been ordered apparently. It will also be sent home this summer for us to continue his practice.

The keyboarding opportunities start now, but the 15 minutes a day start with the next school year. We are fine with that, too. He's not going to learn much in 25 days of school plus with the traveling in June, he'll regress. The choir is taking a keyboard with him on the bus for him to practice!!!! That's amazing.

So, we compromised on timing, but the gains -- esp. the 1:1 aide, were just far too tremendous to feel like we lost anything.

Will the keyboard on the bus have a typing program on it? All of it sounds wonderful!

Trinity

it will have the typing program on it. funny thing is when I was showing it to the prefect (choir manager) I was telling him how sturdy it was and all. He then bent over, brushed his arm against the thing and it plummeted to the floor!!! not a scratch. so he was convinced. the choir does tutor the kids if there is a need. so, their offer wasn't a surprise.

it does sound wonderful. i just hope it all turns into reality as planned. experience has told me that things can seem marvo in the planning but can fall apart in the act. one key is getting a high quality teacher and para.

my prayers are going up fast and strong.

Back to the original how's it going question...

For us, deciding that it was just fine for DD5 to become a preschool drop out was a terrific decision. (I�m apprehensive about this fall, when she is eligible to start K, but I�ll worry about that later. We have a meeting at the school in about 2 weeks.) We�ve had a lot of fun pursuing her interests. We took Spanish together a couple days a week, went to craft classes at a local store, and read, read, read, read, read. We�ve done more science experiments than I can count, and she completely surprised me with her love of math. Her big brother played many more number games as a toddler, so I didn�t realize that she is just as obsessed with patterns and numbers as he is. Right now, she�s almost finished with a 1st grade math program that I�ve adapted to reduce repetition and increase speed.

I�m more and more drawn to home schooling because this year was such a success. The only problem is my husband�s attitude. The home schooling that he was aware of where he grew up was not done for very sane reasons, so he thinks home schooling is for crazy people. (In his defense, he grew up in an area where home schooling was a way to keep the kids in line so that you could marry the 15 year girls off to 40 year old men as 3rd and 4th wives.)

I have to go get DS7 soon, so I�ll mention his year some other time. It was not such a success, which is part of why the home schooling is sounding more appealing.

Jill

Ok,
This was a very big year at our house. To recap: After hitting bottom in 2nd grade, having a wonderful year in 3rd grade and a so-so year, with lots of "in class enrichment" in 4th grade, our District had a meeting to tell us that there wasn't going to be any further accomidation, basically becasue our child wasn't really the kind of kid who was so smart that he needed subject or grade acceleration, even thought the Iowa Scale put him just under the Excellent Candidate for Acceleration catagory.

This September he started a local prep school, as a 5th grader, and was instantly worried that he was falling behind his public school friends. :-0 ! At first they said it was because the follow the "Responsive Classroom Model" - but within a month it became apparent that DS10 was happy socially but unhappy academically. At my cue, they looked him over for Middle School, and he mostly advocated for himself, and blew away their Algebra Readiness test, and he joined the 6th grade after Columbus Day weekend.

They even offered him Radical Acceleration in Math, although he isn't one of these kids who breaths Math, into their 7th grade "enriched" program. Unfortunatly this meant missing 50% of class time of the History/Language Arts. It was too big a step, and the six-day rotation schedual without any pattern kept him hoping until just recently. We had heard that 6 weeks was a normal transition time for a grade skip, but at 12 weeks things were only just starting to settle, and it was clearly time to go back to 6th grade Math. From then things have started to click, although I still get angry notes about him not bringing his pencil to class from time to time. Although he misses the intellectual stimulation from the 7E math, the homework is much for doable. It was exciting to see him approaching his Math school work with the same Zeal usually reserved for videogames.

The acceleration scale manual notes that some years are worse to skip than others - the "bridge" years, and if I had known what I know now, I would have tried to arrange the skip over 4th. This is part of the reason I am such a fan of keyboarding skills - many a night DS was worn out from spending an hour on his Math, and then we was able to whip off 6 short paragraphs to respond to the questions at the end of his history text. He even used full sentences that echoed the question! I can't tell you the scene we would have faced if he had had to handwrite them!

The school has been wonderful, and it seems like the amount of extra attention he has required has been considerable, but the school is a true partner in his education and I love having that support. I'm a different person...a happier person, a calmer person.

Did I mention that DS is happier than he has ever been at school? Much - Much happier. On paper I have reason to suspect that a single grade skip won't be enough, but in real life, there are one or two kids who are "as smart" as he feels himself to be, and the organizational struggles are enough to keep him working hard. He is so proud of himself now. He says: "Look,Mom, I'm learning how to learn!" Socially he is fitting in fairly well, but he is sure looking forward to next year when the current 5th graders move up to the Middle School, and he'll have twice as many friends.

He is a fairly odd kid, and it ends up looking like immaturity in someways. It may actually be immaturity, but whatever it is, he sure seems able to handle it better as he gets older.

His grades were mostly Bs with a few even lower! But I think that now he finally knows what end is up, and accepts my "help" with checking and planning his homework, so I'm really hoping that this last trimester has nothing lower than a B, with a A-/B+ average. It sure has been strange to be helping him be sure he has done his homework. I was kind of spoiled by the old days of 90 seconds of homework/night. Less than a month to go, and it suddenly seems so easy! I am so glad we took this chance.

Love and More Love,
Trinity

these are cool updates. Jill it sounds like you two have a good personality match, too. You must have similar learning styles.

Trin it is amazing how far DS has leapt this year. I don't imagine the transitions to be easy, but with his abilities, it will come together for him and be so worth the efforts. It looks like you are beginning to see that now.

Whatcha mean "odd"? Please expound on that. I've got that with both my guys. I wonder if our "odds" are the same:^)?

Jill -
Wow, your daughter's year sounds wonderful. Perhaps an early enterance to first grade would work best for your family? With subject acceleration in Math?

I can understand that your DH has some reservations about homeschooling with a backround like that! Are there any more attractive local folks who are homeschooling that your family could potentially socialize with, just to gently give him another view?

Whatever path you take, best wishes!
Trinity

Talk about timing! I got home yesterday to find that my son's "mid-trimester" update was home and all the teachers noted how far he has come, and how proud they are of him. He still "forgot" to hand in a science assignment, which will affect his grade - Zeros really mess up one's average!
For me the most exciting things are -
a) he's happier than he's ever been
and
b) he's starting to get the picture that he has to do the work and hand it in.

As for odd - well he sure has unusual humor, unusual insights, unusual concerns and unusual interests. In responce to the stem "My mind..." he said "...has a mind of it's own."

I think that says it all.

Trinity

Trinity,

I�m working on the subtle home schoolers are not all crazy message. I know some �normal� <grin> women who home school, but they tend to be in my social circle, not my husband's. That is, they are moms I know or ladies I see at the gym, but not family friends. I mention them regularly in conversation.

I have to say that working with DD5 has given me new respect for the challenge teachers face when they are asked to provide accelerated or differentiated instruction. Instructional materials are designed with a pace that meets the needs of most children. Changing the pace is hard because you have to redesign much of the material. We started the first grade math material in January, and for a couple months, DD5 was delighted to do a page of �big girl� first grade math as part of her homework while her brother worked on his. She was being a �big girl� because she had homework too, and because it was first grade material there were many terms and concepts that she hadn�t been exposed too. Also, the first grade material assumed an ability to write like a first grader and typical first grade motor skills, so she worked pretty hard to complete the sheet. Sometime in late March she stopped having fun, but it took me a week or two to figure out the problem. One day she finally said, �I am tired of doing little girl math. I want to go bombing on through the book so I can do real big girl math.� I thought I was paying attention and knew what she was capable of doing, but the next afternoon she completed the assessments for the next 25 lessons perfectly.

DD5�s only real problem with the first grade math material is that she is almost done with it, but reading more like a beginning first grader. The math material is starting to assume late first grade reading skills. I am hoping for a skip to first grade because of the math and the fact that she reads like an early-in-the year first grader right now. My guess is she will be reading better by fall, but starting in first would provide plenty of challenges. I�m not sure how well a 2nd grade math would go at this point, unless her reading really accelerates this summer.

Jill

And then there was DS7�s year�

This past year started well. He was more positive about school and his teacher (who is a good teacher) provided well-differentiated reading assignments and lots of open-ended work. He has been more positive about the reading material this year. He�s been given approximately 4th and 5th grade level material most of the time and then asked to analyze it at a level that is more typical of a 2nd grader. This has worked really well, because, although his reading skills and comprehension are easily middle-school level, his handwriting is awful, and expecting him to write the kind of paper you would expect from 4th grader would just make him so frustrated that I don�t think he would learn anything.

The math has been a real sore point with DS7. The differentiated math program doesn�t start until 3rd grade at this school, so although the teacher allowed him to demonstrate his multiplication and division skills (instead of the requested +-) on the daily math sheet, he still had to do all of the regular math lessons with the rest of the class. He complains about it regularly, and has gotten to the point where he isn�t really willing to do anything he doesn�t have to anymore. We are now entering the �bare minimum to get by� phase of his education.

We had DS7 tested by the school this year for the gifted program (They don�t accept any outside assessments, so we have to use their process). Unfortunately, as DS7 told me after they started testing, �I don�t like it when they try test me. Sometimes I just decide not to do it.� This was apparent because he managed to answer all of the questions on one of the screening exams wrong. He later admitted that he did it on purpose. DS7 did cooperate on later exams, and they�ve placed him in an enrichment program based on the results, but he's also been in trouble for not staying on task, even in enrichment. The gifted program seems to expect that all gifted children are well behaved and extremely self-motivated, so DS7�s lack of cooperation is probably going to get him kicked out of the program for next year. We�re still not sure what the school will be willing to do next year.

Jill

My kids are well past that age , but I remember well that the first few years of math are extremely easy, something a gifted child can acomplish in a week or two. So work on reading and it should be a breeze.
Ania

Hi Jill,
That is a wonderful point about the challenges of keeping up with these kids. I think thats why we really need multiage classrooms and individual learning plans for each child. I well remember when DS10 reading seemed to be taking forevvvvver to come it! I'm not sure when it really happened, but by his 6th birthday, when he had just finished kindergarden, he must have been reading "enough" that we were comfortable to get him a Gameboy Advance. We didn't want him hooked on video games before he could read, but I'm sure the reading he was doing wasn't "much." Ironically, the first game we bought him was Monster Ranchers, where one trains monsters and then battles them. 75% of the game was all about reading the results of the training. I had to sit with him in the begining - both to figure it out and to help with all those tiny words! I think his reading ease really got locked in from playing that game.


Bottom line - some HG/PG kids teach themselves to read at age 3, and some learn on the regular timeline. I will say that he sprinted way ahead at the end of first grade. Also I have heard that if a kid is HG/PG and not advanced with reading, that a trip to the Developmental Optomitrist is in order. My son does, in fact, have some tracking/accomidating problems, which have never been treated. This could explain the delay between knowing which letter was which at age 2 (he'd hand them to the daycare lady) and finally reading around the age of 6. At the time if figured that the fluffy cartoon animals where beneath his dignity, which is certianly how he acted.

I'd try her on some 2nd grade math now, before the meeting, and see how she does. It maybe that her reading isn't below 2nd grade range. I think the teachers do a lot of "let's do one together before you do your sheet" at that age. You can always negotiate for the subject acceleration and hop back if she isn't ready after trying it for a few weeks. I've gone that route, and believe it send a positive message to the child, "I see you." even if it doesn't work out. You've seen how quickly they leap when they are ready, yes?

Best Wishes,
Trinity

I found the phonics game to be a big help to both boys in reading. It can be had for cheap on ebay.com, too. Once they figured out the special rules, they just surged ahead. we only played one or two levels a handful of times each before they took off. They understood basic phonics prior to our beginning the game, though.

I also found that writing stories that they dictated helped them take huge leaps in reading and knowledge. Watching me write what they said gave them a sense of how written words and spoken thoughts have a relationship.