Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Noooooo! A unit of fractions in the GIFTED 5th gr!

The gifted teacher sent out her monthly newsletter saying the 5th grade gifted class would be working on a unit of FRACTIONS! It's taken from this website, www.gifted.ucon.edu. It's a program geared for gifted students. But GS10's regular 5th grade math teacher just excused him from doing all the exercises required of the rest of the kids as she taught fractions!

I'm just whining, but for pete's sake, generally, do gifted 5th graders seriously need to go over fractions? GS10 knows fractions & decimals inside out and backwards, he's going to flip if they spend more than 2 days on this!

Fractions, in different forms are on EPGY through 6th I believe. You will also see small sections in prealgebra. They are used more in statistical questions or geometry versus just adding or subtracting.

My DD is whining over the long division.

Thanks kcab, the nrich.org website looks like it would present a challenge. GS10 does not seem to be PG, but maths is one of his more advanced areas.

How about a thorough understanding why to turn the second fraction upside down when multiplying, instead of just being taught to do it ? I think many kids of this age, including gifted ones, just blindly accept what to do, without understanding the inverse of multiplication concept. I'm not suggesting your DS wouldn't get this - just that many may not.

Yes, he understands the concept. I guess I have been assuming he's not really more advanced than the other kids in this class.

I don't mean to change thread topics but I just found out that ds gifted class is learning a third way to do multiple digit multiplication. He's learned partial products, lattice and now the traditional way, all this year. This doesn't include his preferred way of doing it which is mentally. If anyone could explain this, I would love to stop scratching my head.

i like dreaming...

Learning Mom,

We went through this last year. It is designed so that all kids will find a way that works for them. When DS started school last year he could multiply fine. After Lattice and Partial products we had to go back and do a remedial so that he could get himself unconfused. After that it was written into his IEP that he only be taught methods that would serve him in upper maths.

hahaha... sometimes I catch myself thinking, "but he's only at the 98-99 percentile on grade level tests(I ignore the above level test results in this line of thinking!), so he's only a '1 in 100', not the '1 in 10,000' gifted kind of kid." Then I also remember even if he's only at a '1 in 100' level, there are only 85 kids in 5th grade at his school; so, yeah, he might be the only one with a good grasp of fractions. Oh, crud.

Awesome! I'm no longer scratching my head. Yep, Everyday Math and he liked the lattice method as well. He says the partial product is the one he uses to do it mentally though. He just hit a wall though in the traditional method. I hope that doesn't cause a problem for higher maths. We have testing coming up to see if he is going to need an IEP, good to know what can be added in if necessary.