Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy should we accelerate @ school or continue @ home?

^This!

Go for it. Your child might surprise you by not having any of the problems that you ar worried about. Better to take this opportunity than to worry about hypothetical problems. You know, a mind is a terrible thing to waste and all that ...
Personally, my son (6 year old) is in an educational environment with 10-12 year olds 3 times a week for enrichment and he thrives there and enjoys it. It is like taking him to Disneyland when it is time for those classes - he did fail in the beginning due of lack of comprehension because the teacher was not used to teaching a 6 year old. But after the teacher adjusted his style of teaching there has been no looking back. We do not regret it and we are happy to have given him this opportunity.

ETA: went back to read that your son will only be in math with the older kids. So, he has plenty of opportunity to spend recess, lunch, activities etc with his peers.

So there can be a lot of *emotion* that comes into the classroom.

I don't like to talk about specifics of our family here - just to keep us a bit more anonymous. But with regard to the "emotion" concern - we have a 14 year old girl who lives in our house. DS is all too familiar with wild out-of-control emotion.

They don't really get formal grades in K-4. In 5th grade they start to get real grades. I could care less about any grade really. I just want to hear that DS is: learning, not too bored, being stretched and generally happy.

I would be worried if "adolescent talk" were going on during the maths lesson but I don't think it would harm your son.

My son is accelerated three grades in math. He was homeschooled until the the beginning of last year and then went to a small private school. At the time he was 5th grade age but took all 6th/7th grade classes (it was a combined class) and Algebra I, which had kids ranging in age from 12-16 (and he was 10). He had no trouble with the material or the kids and ended up being one of the top students in the class. He has a brother who is 6 years older, so he is used to teenagers, which I am sure helped.

However, even though he is still attending the same school, we have decided to homeschool math from now on. The level that the classes are taught to (procedural understanding only--"here is an example, follow it" type of teaching) is not appropriate for a gifted student. Nor is the pace--last year they spent a whole semester on the first three chapters of an 11 chapter book (and the first two chapters were review!).

All of this is to say that if your son is that advanced in math and you're already homeschooling some subjects, I don't think that placement in a regular ed math classroom (as opposed to a gifted classroom) three grades up is the best answer. And that they're using Everyday Math makes it worse. Unless you're planning to use the classroom experience as supplemental while you do the primary teaching at home using a solid program (like Singapore math or AoPS), I would pass on this opportunity.

All of this is to say that if your son is that advanced in math and you're already homeschooling some subjects, I don't think that placement in a regular ed math classroom (as opposed to a gifted classroom) three grades up is the best answer. And that they're using Everyday Math makes it worse. Unless you're planning to use the classroom experience as supplemental while you do the primary teaching at home using a solid program (like Singapore math or AoPS), I would pass on this opportunity.

We are using this class as a supplement to what we are doing at home. Basically our situation is: DS does not want to homeschool full time. We are looking for ways to make his mornings at school a little more interesting. He has all specials and math in the mornings. The afternoons he comes home. Up until now, I was sending in math work for him to work on by himself during math time. He strongly preferred to work with other children, so we were looking for a way to do that. We are also hoping to give him a bit of a "resting" point as he tears through the curriculum at lightning speed. At his current rate, he will doing algebra probably next year, so we are looking at this 5th grade math class as a way to make sure he's really got all of his gaps filled. He will NOT continue with this group next year. And this class will stop learning topics in April as they spend a month preparing for state test review. So, we are looking at about 6 months with this class.

If you have him in school for social reasons and he's doing math with you at home then I'd keep him with the younger kids. I don't think that 5th grade Everyday Math is going to fill any holes if he's going to be ready for algebra next year--you'd need 7th grade math/prealgebra for that.

There are 3 to 4 people born every second. There are people of all ages out there in the world. Kids know that. There's no reason not to be in a room with people of different ages.

But the difference here is that the OP's son will be the only one of a different age.