Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Excited for new school year?

DS9 will start fifth grade in a full time gifted program. And ride the bus for almost an hour. We haven't really worked out the morning and afternoon logistics yet. It's going to be quite a challenge. He was okay socially in his catholic elementary, but I did a lot of engineering of play dates behind the scenes, with good natured moms. Now he is socially on his own, and I am hoping for this program to provide the peer group in which he can find his feet. Academically, I am not sure how much challenge to expect, it is an advanced curriculum (sort of like a honours curriculum) additionally accelerated, with enrichment. Executive function demands will probably go up appreciably. So, both excited and apprehensive.

DD5 (soon to be 6) will start first grade at the same elementary (first year of formal schooling where we live) where she will be supposed to start with the alphabet and numbers up to six. It is going to be interesting since she is so different from her older brother, much more interested in age appropriate things such as role play, physical play, crafts, clothes and princess stuff, and prefers to be read to rather than read herself, and has already a solid grasp on how not to be different. I have a hunch she is actually reading and doing maths at third grade level, but prefers not to let it show. Her older brother was so much more in your face at her age, and socially almost oblivious. There's benefits and drawbacks to both ways of being I guess, but I have given up thinking there is much I can or should change about either. She is VERY excited - can't wait really!

DS3 may have the most interesting journey this year. We have decided against mainstreaming him for the moment so he will remain at special ed preschool for the physically disabled. When we decided on leaving there in February, his speech was still very much delayed and and needed a walker. Now that he has suddenly started walking unassisted and his expressive speech has caught up within the last six months to at least age level (receptive, they tell us, he was always two years ahead), he may be very much underserved there cognitively, but over served physically. Emotionally, though, the tiny classes and teacher student ratio are still what he needs. Socially, I just can't tell just how fast he will outgrow his friends, who all of them have some cognitive and language disabilities as we'll I can't imagine he'd find a much better fit in regular preschool though, so this year, we will just see hotw it goes.