I don't understand why the teacher could not give your DD a 5 minute heads up to transition. I also don't understand why this was only brought up after you asked for more challenging work. I don't mean to dismiss the teachers concerns out of hand, but I have dealt with many teachers in my DS's short school career who did not want to do anything differently than what they had been doing for many, many years and did not seem to understand that kids are different and therefore have different needs - whether that be harder math or a 5 minute reminder to get ready to transition. Your DD seems to have a system down outside of the classroom - can she employ her system to the transitions of the day - can she give herself a 5 minute heads up if the teacher will not? And regardless of her transition issues, if she needs it, she should get more challenging math.
We encourage our DS8 (who is also slow) to bring everything home - that gives him time to sort it at home and figure out what needs to be done with it (instead of everything piling in his desk)He has an accordion file that has a tab for each of his classes, but it also has a tab called DUMP which is where he can put stuff quickly and then sort it out at home.
