Thanks to all that have replied! We are constantly searching for ideas that might work and this forum has been a wealth of information and inspiration!
When our district went "digital" this year we were told the more advanced students would not be help back and in fact they would be able to move through the curriculum at their own pace. I had my doubts, but this seemed logical at the time, since everything was supposed to be computer based. We are through the first quarter, and so far the only thing we have found that DD might get that the other students don't is "enrichment sheets". These are the sheets that ask you to "explain" why 9X1=9 or some other form of extra writing. I finally asked about this the other day and found out that when a student shows mastery of whatever they are doing the program gives them an enrichment page to do. I think this is supposed to be the more "rigorous" in-depth learning Common Core talks about, but all I've seen is fluff. So basically, if my child already knows the material they are teaching, she gets to do more work, what, as a bonus? That isn't teaching at her level, that is just more work!
We have a meeting coming up and we plan to ask that we eliminate these extra sheets (unless she really wants to do them). Sooner or later she will figure out when she does a good job on the assessments she gets to do more work and then we will have another problem on our hands.
We also want to give some good suggestions for accommodations and differentiation to at least try. She already gets different spelling, which I personally think is working out well, since she has been actually studying her spelling list instead of just looking over it. It is good for her to have to work at it for once! She does a totally different computer-based spelling program, by herself, at spelling time and the teacher's aide gives her the test on test day. I have heard no complaints other than the program takes too long to load on the computer. She is in the top reading group and I don't know what level the other students are at, but she likes her reading group and she can read higher level books on her own for AR.
I don't want to make her an outcast. I just want her to be challenged instead of coasting. What I really want is for the digital curriculum to do what they told us it would do and let her work on her own level and at her own pace, then if it shoots out an enrichment page for her to do that would make sense.
