Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Kindergarten 2009-2010

I see I have some catching up to do! Apparently I am officially no longer gifted, not even smart... when inactivating the primary email address associated with your internet service, you should ALWAYS change the settings to reflect the new primary address - or don't inactivate the primary address, even if you don't use it for email anymore. UGH.

Anywho, maybe I can catch up soon!

DS5.5 missed "centers" today bc he was with the GT teacher "testing on 1st grade stuff". He said she said he was really smart (really??? ha). And he didn't seem upset about the testing - said it was easy. Round 1: seems to be on the pro-whole grade acceleration side.

m2gts & mom2twoboys - seems like the "luck" of the draw just might be on all our sides this year!

JJsMom - you are right, we really got lucky this year. It's like night and day from last year for us.

I am so happy to say, that three days into school, my son LOVES kindergarten! Never in a million years would I have thought I would be saying this. This morning at breakfast he told me that "Kindergarten is cool!" What a difference a teacher makes. His teacher has been wonderful, and she is doing little things to differentiate for him (for example, when the other children were coloring "kindergarten" pictures, she gave him a "math" coloring worksheet where he had to color 1/4 of the square red, 1/2 of the circle blue, figure out what fraction of the picture was left uncolored, etc.) Still extremely easy for him but at least they realize and are giving him something a bit more advanced (for kindergarten, anyway). He has been doing the 3rd grade math pretest all week, and he tells me he loves math in school! So far no behavior issues like last year - still keeping the fingers crossed on that one. :-) I am soooooo happy at this point. I went to visit him at lunch today and it is soooo nice to be able to go into school without the big knot in my stomach, wondering what he did wrong today.....

Oh! That makes me smile- nice to have some good news!
Congrats!

Yay!

DS5 is loving school, too, despite one toileting accident caused by long lines at the bathroom. (Sewer problems at the school led to closed bathrooms. Not good for a 5yo not used to the building or the people...)

But he likes it. Truth be told, I figured he would. It's 1st grade that worries me. That's when his big brother hit the wall.

JJsMom, m2gts - your children's K teachers sound awesome. Thumbs up to the great start

Kriston, that's great that DS5 loves K. How's hs going?

I am losing my patience with the kids school. DS5 and DS7 are both homeschooled but attend a private school for two afternoons each week. The director hasn't given me the afternoon schedule (theater, art, gym, dance, etc.) yet, so I don't know which days would work the best for us. The school starts a week from today, they should know all that by now.

Since I don't know which afternoons they will be at school I haven't scheduled their other lessons (piano, swimming, etc) yet. I am a planner and I am having really hard time not having any schedule at this point.

We're also having a great K year so far for DS5! He absolutely adores his teacher and is having a great time. I'm still not completely settled because it wasn't until closer to Christmas that DS7 fell apart when he was in K. But, I'm trying to remind myself that DS5 is a different kid, in a different school with an amazingly different teacher, so things will probably be ok.

The up side of having DS5 in school is that homeschooling DS7 is much, much easier- even with DD3 running around. It feels like a vacation where I get more done and feel less frazzled, lol.

Not knowing your schedule is hard. Any idea what the holdup is?

We've had some adjustment problems with homeschooling, LMom. Thanks for asking!

DS8 doesn't handle transitions terribly well, and it isn't helping that I'm working him a bit harder this year. He's used to having his mornings pretty free during the school year (and his whole days free during the summer!), but that's not going to happen this year because two days a week he'll (also!) be in a private "school for homeschoolers." As that is mostly social and "edu-tainment," rather than work on his core courses, AND as he is interested in doing lots of extracurricular stuff this year (computer programming, animation, Arabic and piano), we just need more time for work.

I think we haven't found our balance yet, so there has been more whining and foot-dragging from DS8 than I was hoping for. But I'm adjusting and so is he. I hope next week will be better. I think once the school starts up after Labor Day, that will help, too.

One foot in front of the other, right?

I'm glad Hsing is easier on you, mamaandmore. That's a good thing!

So how do I convince DS that "I'd miss my teacher" is NOT a good reason to say he doesn't want to be whole grade accelerated? I got a note today from his teacher that his testing is going really well, and while she, herself, doesn't know the results, the psychologist said that if he finishes the testing as well as he's doing now, he'll be recommended to move to 1st. His teacher stated to go ahead and begin to introduce the idea of him moving into 1st. Well I did, and he said he'd say no b/c he'd miss his teacher. He didn't care that he'd be leaving his "friends" or anything else. He thought it was cool that he'd be in a class that didn't do the same things he's known forever all the time. But he'd miss his teacher.

**bangs head on wall**