Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Nothing is happening

Are you in CO? If so I can pass on the info of an inexpensive achievement tester.

Messaging you!

hi, saw this post and interested in it b/c having this same problem in current ds*turning6thiswk* kinder class. no differentiation. was told would be and NONE.

i can't afford testing and schl district won't do much more than look at it, they will do own testing. in 2nd grade, i will request it early, in approx 10mos.

everyone here suggests supplementing afterschool...
but when does my son get to just play and be a little boy? it irks me beyond belief that he sits at school 6.5hrs each day, and learns relatively very little, if any. such a waste of time! i think what i could do with that time, if i was teaching him-- but i want him to have the social incl routines of school. that is huge part of kindy.

what are you going to do?
do you have any options/choices?

*also re teacher say dd can't do a subject etc, have u met with her about this to explain she is doing it at home, and maybe dd try to fit in with rest of class? i'm surprised teacher doesn't know about this?
finally--- going underground can happen with boys also, it is slowly but surely-before my eyes- happening with mine.

good luck and plz share how it goes and what solutions you all come up with

Cc6-
I do understand what you are saying about not really wanting to do afterschool "school", as I don't either. Yet, I am doing it. My ds is in kindergarten, so the homework is not very time intensive. Ds has has been doing the week of homework for school on Monday. Then, he works more at his level the rest of the week. 1 funny thing is he finds way to make the schoolwork more challenging and I send that all in (the required work and how he expands on it.) also, he does get computer time (which he loves) afterschool. I make that time for educational games. Not sure if this helps, but it's what I'm doing inconjunction with fighting for differential at school. I can say we did have our first victory. Ds took star test and AR level, so that he can finally at week 10 read at his level! Now, I am going to work on language arts. I am hoping that with the AR level, this will be easier.

Yeah. sigh. At school, I guess... although there's a difference between structured social time and plain old down time, where he can do as he pleases.

The trick for me is to keep the after school stuff short, like 30-45 minutes, tops. I find it's an "ok" balance.

Would they be further ahead if I got them for the entire 6 hours? Probably, but that's the nature of one-on-one and a child tailored curriculum. Plus they'd be missing out on the social stuff... forming a sense of community with the kids in their neighborhood.

Anyway, I have stuff ready for DS8 when he gets home. We start at 4:00 or 4:30 and go until 5ish. He has from 3:00-4:00 and then from 5/5:30 - bedtime to just hang out and be a kid. I should add that I've stopped scheduling activities after school - we do all our sports on the weekends only, and we're taking a break from piano (our teacher is studying abroad for a year). Plus I limit play dates to two days per week, otherwise I'm overrun with kids, lol.

Anyway, cc6 I know it's frustrating... but maybe make your after school enrichment sessions short. At least it's better than nothing, better than letting your DS's cognition stagnate.

We have done "after-schooling" for 3-4 years now. One page of math workbook, one page of phonics or vocab, flip through some spelling and vocab words. Probably 20 minutes of homework a day. Both of my kids, at least through third grade, have had like zero to 5 minutes of daily "real" school homework, so that was never a problem.
Both my kids are 2 grade levels ahead in math and reading, due to this. My fourth grade is in our full-time gifted program, which works a grade level above. He finally occasionally has homework. What we are seeing is that it's no problem for him, since he has always had mommy homework, but many of the other kids have problems doing it.
So you can do just a little bit of daily after-schooling and see huge pay-offs. And your child still will have alot of play time leftover.

DS, soon to be 5, is in Kindergarten. I have yet to talk to the school about him but is gearing up to do so within the month. So far I have DS do 30 minutes of KUMON math at night. That is it. He loves it so it has been fine for him. As of now he is also doing vision therapy so I don't want to put too much on him. I have always let DS lead himself, mainly because he will CHOSE to sit and write stories during his off time or do other educational things. Just what he loves to do. No need to push there.

Kumon has been so awesome for him though. It is structured and more than just "mommy" telling me to do these worksheets. He takes it seriously.

Man, sign me up for this school. *sigh*

*Sigh* that is what I think we will end up doing. The sad thing is we really shouldn't have to do 'afterschooling'. At this point school just feels like a waste of time for anything learning related. Her class isn't even doing spelling yet and I think they are quite capable. Heck, my 3rd grader hasn't even had spelling yet this year and we're going into the third month of school. I'm really starting to lose my faith with this magnet school but unfortunately they are the only school with the G&T program in our city. Otherwise we would have to drive 20 miles away to go to a different one and dh really doesn't want to do that. Other option (if the G&T class next year doesn't make a difference) is to go to our neighborhood school and hope that they will allow dd to go to the next grade up for reading and math.

Any recommendations for math books/programs for dd? I'm currently using Saxon for my older dd who is struggling with math as a remedial program in addition to the Everyday Math they use in school. Saxon works really well for older dd b/c it is very repetitive and slow moving while spiraling but not as much as EM. Dd#2 who is 6 probably needs something quicker.

Our public school district has a very strict policy of limiting nightly homework. It's actually really dumb, IMHO. We are in a very high-powered school district, and I think most of us just after-school as needed.
For up until 3rd grade, they are limited to like 10 minutes of homework a night, which includes reading! (I have my kids read at least 30 minutes or more a night).
And there is no wiggle room either! My 4th grader is hearing impaired and it takes him a little longer than the other kids to learn spelling and vocab words, due to that disability. We get like 30-40 spelling words (and they are finally sort of difficult) Monday or Tuesday night for Friday, which for him, is alot.
So I asked the teacher- could we get the words on Friday to work on them at home over the weekend? he's hearing impaired and it's a more difficult task for him.
She said, No! That violates the district policy!
I thought- gee, I'm asking if we can do extra homework to help him, not do less homework. I'm trying to see if we can amend his IEP for this. The homework they have had from school, up until this Gifted program in 4th grade, has been dumb and easy.