Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Suggestions for Accommodations with no GT program

On a more helpful note - we did get the K teacher to agree to DS6 doing more complicated homework - so he didn't have to do her worksheets - but could do ours. We just bought him the next grade level "what your kid needs to know" type book with work sheets in it. We also started in on some of the home school curriculum - just doing our own reading, trying to write a few lines about a story, trying to spell a few words, or encourage him to compose his own things about Star Wars or whatever. He seemed really happy that he didn't have to do her "baby" homework anymore, and sometimes he did it anyway - but got extra credit for the extra work he did. The downside though - is that they are often tired when they get home and he wasn't responding to doing the extra work as well as when we did it over Christmas vacation during the day. So I think it's that fine line that people on this site often mention: don't punish your kid with more work. But extra curricula items on computers or that tey enjoy is probably a good thing. We took examples of his work into school during our post Christmas meeting - and that helped to convince the teacher/s that we weren't crazy in advocating for his advanced level. The fact that we were willing to work with getting behavior intervention study/plan done also helped - but it ultimately didn't really change very much. It was more a tool to help the school deal with their "behavior" and didn't really change DS6's way of behaving. Singapore Math seems to be great too - DS6 is loving it - and if I'd had a copy to look at last year - I probably wouldn't have botehred with the "what your kid nees to know type" grade book - I probably would have just got him started on their curriculum or Saxons.

I went to the Saxon Math publisher's site, and then selected Technology and then K-3. It lists Extend and Challenge Activities as one of their technology products. Here's a link http://saxonpublishers.hmhco.com/en/primary_technology.htm

I have a call in to Saxon's "resident expert" on this as there isn't an online demo to which anyone could point me. Her voicemail said she's in the midst of a big project and has limited time to reply to messages. When I hear back from her, I'll let you know what she said. I also have a note into the resource teacher at school to find out if the school uses this already and I just don't know about it, or if they're open to using it, or....

If you end up getting any info from your school on it, please let me know.

Re: the Saxon Extend and Challenge Activities

I just got a call back from the rep at Saxon. If you go to http://saxonpublishers.hmhco.com/en/sxnm_primary.htm and click on the link at the lower right for the K-5 Technology Demo, it is supposed to include a demo of the Extend and Challenge stuff. (I probably won't have time to look at it tonight.)

In addition, she said that if your school is using the 3rd (most recent) Edition of Saxon Math, there is also a Guide to Differentiated Instruction that could be made available to the teachers. She said it is probably priced separately as are the Extend and Challenge Activities. The guide mentioned is supposed to provide ideas for each day's lessons to meet the needs of kids at every level -- those who need more assistance as well as those who need more challenge.