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May I ask how you decided or came upon having your dd8 in Grade 6? Is she doing a full Grade 6 curriculum? That's my current quandary. My ds is reading and comprehending on a high school level, though his math is only about one grade level above his grade (2-3), and that's on a good day. ;-) I've recently tried to look around at samples of 4-6 grade work to see where he really falls right now. When I look at it, with math being the exception, it seems that to be really challenged we should be presenting material in the junior high range.
Perhaps the question I should be asking is "What does *challenged* look like?" in a pg child? The idea of advancing my ds7 a couple of years is scary to me. What do you do about activities that demand she is placed based on her grade instead of age? I've kept mine in his age-appropriate grade, but it's really becoming ludicrous.
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We decided on gr 6 for DD after talking to a few different people and looking at some gr 4 and 5 curriculum. (If she had stayed in school she would be in gr 4 this year) For the math, grades 4 and 5 are repeated, but in a quicker fashion in grade 6, so since DD does not need the repetition given in grades 4 and 5 on the topics, we decided to jump right to gr 6, which is written as review so it has much less repetition in it. It also starts getting into more interesting math from DD's perspective. For language arts, the middle school gifted language arts teacher at my school is acting as a mentor for her by having her go through the 6th grade curriculum at home and meeting with her once a week at a local library to go over her work, give her suggestions. For science, DH and I are both science teachers, so that is not really following a curriculum, we are using the state standards for grades 4-6 to guide the activities. Social studies is also a combination of grades 4-6 standards, not really following a set curriculum. She is also continuing her Spanish, and DH is teaching her recorder, cooking and sewing. The high school art teacher at my school has also allowed her to join her high school ceramics after school club, so she goes there for art in addition to her having art time at home almost every day. (She is incredibly artistically gifted)
So, challenged for us looks like a happy, humming daughter who can excitedly answer the question "what did you learn today?" from me when I come home from school.
Since she is so much younger than a 6th grader, we are typically sticking with her age for things outside the house that require certain, for example, she is in girl scouts according to her having been in brownies last year and bridged into juniors for this year, at church she will be in gr 4 Sunday school class.
Basically, she could function at a level higher than 6th grade, her reading comprehension is adult level, but there are a lot of skills that she needs to learn before she could successfully do higher grade level work. Most of which is taught to kids in middle school. (Like critical thinking skills and organization and independent work/decision making)
