Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments managing switching classrooms for math

Can I ask about this watch, what brand and where you got it? We are looking for a watch like this but it has to be waterproof (dd has a watch that she wears all the time, even in the bath/pool. If she took it off she would forget it or lose it).

To OP. DS was acclerated for math but the school had their math schedules aligned so everyone across grades did math at the same time. Really it's not rocket science, but most schools can't seem to figure this out. In your shoes I would probably tell the teachers to send home whatever he misses that is important with a note as to what he should do (get him a planner with space to write for each subject and tell your DS to have it at every class).

Even with the math schedules align, there are bound to be classes missed now and again due to field trips, assemblies, state/county testing, etc. I think it should be fine if he misses some of the math classes because the accepted practice is to only accelerate to a level that is at least still a bit low relative to ability. Math was still really easy for DS each time after his SSA so he can focus on executive functions and writing demands (Pre-Calculus in 8th this fall and missing classes has not been a problem). I would focus on him not missing any of the fun stuff with his grade mates.

Timex Expedition, bought at Target for about $40. It has 3 alarms

Thanks!

When you have small to medium size schools you can match up math period across the school but my son's elementary school had 1100 students and not everyone can eat or do specials (art music pe) classes if math is the same all across the day. So when it came to my son's need for math acceleration, they couldn't figure out how to do it. So they offered a whole grade skip instead. Turned out great.

Ours is large as well, not quite 1100 but it's a larger school. They divided it into 3 neighborhoods so it's like 3 schools within a school, each neighborhood has every grade, and each neighborhood may be aligned with math (rather than the whole entire school--not sure) so that at least 10 classes are doing math at the same time (2-3 classes from each grade) with each class being a different level. So there is differentiation within each grade level as well, with a high, medium and low group.

Thank you everyone- his school is on the smaller side with only 2-3 classes per grade. It's similar in size to the one where I taught and was on the leadership team that made the schedule over the summer. I appreciate how difficult it is and why all the classes cannot always have math at the same time. In our district smaller schools share art/music/P.E. teachers, so all the specials may have to occur Monday-Wednesday morning etc. Because of this and other part-time resource positions, scheduling is much more complicated that I realized before trying to create a school-wide schedule. Often 3rd-5th grades may have the same math block, but since he will only be in 2nd that will not necessarily help this year.

I hate to piggyback on this thread but my DS is in somewhat of a similar situation. He was SSA'd into 5th-grade math. His first day of school was last week. Looking at his schedule we realized that 4th and 5th-grade math were not at the same time. From what I can tell it looks like he will be missing his recess (which is not great as he is also ADHD and really needs that time to get out some energy plus he loves playing sports) and he will be missing 15 minutes of his 5th-grade math every day because his 4th-grade lunch overlaps(He is also a Type 1 Diabetic). Any ideas how we can navigate this? Not to mention it appears he will be sitting through his 4th-grade math class as well.

Portia, great question! As usual, a wonderful contribution.

I see where you are going with this... plunking 5th grade math into a student's schedule is not the only adjustment to be made for a successful SSA. Wouldn't it be serendipitous to attend 5th grade recess during the 4th grade math period?!