I started my kids on singapore early bird when they were 4. I would skip early bird and go straight to 1a. It does teach some concepts like more and less. I only bought the workbooks so I missed some of the explinations from the text and I could not figure it out. I thought my $ store books and target workbooks were better then early bird. However, I really like 1a and the price is right. Now I have twins, so my dd loves work books and sat right down and started filling in the numbers. My ds not so much. What I did for him was at first I had him just tell me the answer and I wrote it down, then we moved to him doing every other page and now at 5 he is doing all the writing. He still needs help with the reading so I sit with him. My 5 year dd reads and does the problem mostly by herself. The twins are #3 and #4 children. One last thing..just because she is going in prek/k I would look at more at first grade programs then kindergarten ones. Oh and don't write off the whole gifted thing yet. My oldest just did things above the curve. Since he was my first we just thought it was all with in the normal range. He also went to a daycare where there were other kids who like him read early, did math early and thought of interesting things like him. Then in first grade we enter PS and what we thought was normal turned out not to be. He came home crying because he got in trouble for looking through the math book. Then he came home crying because the math was going so slow. We ended up enrolling him into EPGY in first grade - I recommend this program as well, but they should be able to use the computer. It is also very expensive. For math I always found my children wanted more and more and I would just give it too them. They had to go beyond their math fact skills to get to cool problems and when they learned that it took them longer to do the problems because they did not know their facts. They went back and learned them. Multiplication unplugged is my favorite music CD for this. My second dd loves music so this is how she learned her multiplication facts when she was 7. Oh and she can count by 2,3,4,5,and 6 as well. Also doing math facts in the car is helpful for those kids who hate repitition in worksheets. I would also go to Hoagies gifted website - they have some cool math games like blokus all my children started playing when they were around 4. Also you might find that your child is more gifted then you think. :)

No and Yes...We did not grade skip my older two children. One going into 5th and one going into third. They both go to PS and both are in the right grouping for their age. However, starting in 3rd grade they go to a GT center school. This class is grade skipped in math and they go faster and deeper in all other subjects, but follow the Standards of learning for that grade - minus math which is the year ahead. The spelling words are one year ahead, because most of the children are reading one to three grade a head that are in this class. However, what I did for them was afterschool them both in first and second grade and do lots of advanced things at home that they were interested in. My oldest math, and my second writing. Now the Yes part...my younger two Twins go to a private daycare that is also a school. Last year they were 4 and in a jr. kindergarten room. However this was not working for my boy twin. He had sensory issues and the kindergarten program had more teachers and more structure. We applied and they were accepted into the Kindergarten program a year earlier. It was the best decision we made for them. Ds got a handle on his sensory issues for the most part and dd loved all the reading and writing she got to do. In the fall they will be going into the 1st grade at the private school. Now the decision will be to have them repeat first grade in the ps and afterschool or keep them in the private school until they are eligible for the GT center school. We are making these decision year by year and making sure we find the best fit for the twins. The decision to grade skip had more to do with the sensory issues then the academics. For us afterschooling was filling the need for education and school was the social time. For example my three year old got in her head she wanted to read chapter books and worked on it at home every night...she now loves reading. But she is also 5 and doing all the silly things 5 year olds do with their friends. lol I will say when my oldest son entered the GT program and was finally around kids who thought like him, he was much happier and had lots more friends. I am not sure if he could have emotionally handed being with an older group of kids partly because I don't think that would have solve the academic problem he was having. His problem in school was that it went so slow he shut of his mind. In the GT class they just go faster...

I afterschool and started when my oldest went to PS and wanted more math. I love the well trained mind book for afterschooling because our PS does not do a lot of the classics. It provides great ideas. The story of the world is one of my kids favorite for night time reading. My twins are 5. The hard part for me was I thought I would be able to use the same things for both. However, for somethings they have different education needs. I started using Hooked on Phonics with them. I had used that with my older two and I love the program. However will it worked for one twin it did not work for the other. My ds memorized the books while his sister read. She is now reading and for him I am using Explode the code, because it focus on phonics and the shape of the letters. He may have dyslexia (runs in my family, I have it with sounds). They are both using signapore math 1A, however dd will sit down and do work books with me, ds we alternate between him writing and me writing. Ds needed more fine motor skills work so we did the basic Handwriting with out tears program and lots of art, markers water color and chalk board. At the young ages for afterschooling I focus on reading and math and interactive learning. Field trips and I look for educational opportunites in our dialy lives. They also go to bed with books on CD, one twin falls asleep quickly and one stays up late - this keeps them both quite. For my older ones -I do the Story of the World, math, my oldest needs work on writing. My second dd needs work on confidence. Besides reading and math - I try to afterschool things that the PS is not covering. We do Latin - with the program Langauge from the Roots Up. We are working on test taking skills - I needed skill in PS. We also lean to what the kids want to do. That means lots of science and history.

How do you stop comparing them with regard to their IQ? I have 4 children and I compare them, not just not on their IQ but everything. This one drop training wheels at 4, this one at 3. My twins age 5 have not dropped theirs yet. It is normal. Do I treat them differently - yes I do because they are unique individuals. Does it mean I love one more then the other - NO Do I think one is better because they dropped their training wheels at 3 and the ones that have not worse. NO I have had two of tested and two that I have had tested yet, but will. My children are not defined by their IQ number. The test did not define them, they are the same children before they took and the after. We tested them to get them GT services in PS. They both have unique learning styles and my children are not globally gifted. One is amazing in reading and writing and one in Math and analytical skills. Both are amazing kids. We talk to them about how they may learn faster them some of their friends, but everyone learns.

Early reading can be a sign of giftness, but it could also be that they are accelerated. A gifted child is not necessary about the output it is more about how they think about and the questions they ask. It is not that they know more it is that they think differently. My oldest did everything early - he went to a daycare with children that were very similiar to him. A lot of the children where reading in kindergarten and doing first grade math. So for us this was a normal - like his ability to read by age 4. But then I started to notice his questions - well I noticed because they drove me crazy. He wanted more and more data and he made amazing connections between the informations. I don't want my children defined by a number, we have had two of them tested and both tested PG. We did this so we could get GT services in the public school. My children are still the same children they have always been. They still drive me crazy with questions. However now they say Mom can we google it because you are not going to know the whole answer lol. I would go to hoagies gifted website - they have a great list of charateristis. Now just remember just because I child is gifted does not mean they are gifted in everything.

Yes it could be something else. Has he been around anyone who has been sick? Traveled to Mexico? ect... My kids get high fever 104 is normal for them - so not sure if that applies. However, one of the major signs of flu they are going with right now is a high fever. Also just because he has the flu does not mean it is the H1N1. All my 4 kids got the flu this year. However if you think it is the flu - call your doctor - let them know you are coming. Thus you will not wait in the waiting room. They will do a flu test. Basically it is a swab in the nose. Then they do a rapid test. It can tell you if it is Flu A or Flu B. Flu a they will send to the CDC. If it is B they will just give you tamiflu and send you on your way. If it is Flu A they will give you the tamiflu and probable a whole bunch of instruction for the H1N1 flu.

Hugs - first people are rude and say and do stupid things. I can not speak from personal experience, but I can tell you what my SIL does. She has a child with dwarfism and people stare. Depending on the time and place she looks at these as learning opportunities and has created a few educational moments to share. Basically if people stare -and she has a moment. She just says this is my dd, her name is and she has a condition called dwarfism...etc.... She has talked to her dd about being a dwarf and while her dd still hopes that someday she will grow - she knows that she probable will not. I was probable one of those people who looked twice at a child in a wheelchair or special needs child. But now that I am a more educated person thanks to learning what my SIL experiences I have changed. If I see my children staring at someone or something. I just state the facts. Like that is a wheelchair, he is in it because he may have trouble walking. My children also have friends who brother has downs - so we have explained that to them as well. When we explained to them about their cousin we just explained she has a condition called dwarfism. Just like you have green eyes or you have blue eyes - this is just how she was born. Just like you are not defined by your eye color she is not defined by her size. It is who she is. Not sure if this helps or not. I do know my SIL gets sick of explaining things and some days she is better at it then others. However she does have a few zingers when she runs accross people that will never be educated.

I afterschool my ds who has Sensory Issues. For math we use sigapore and lots of verbal math facts. Because of his fine motor skill delay for math I write the answers on one page then he does the next and so on and so on. He keeps us going at the right pace for him without him being frustrated because he has trouble writing. For reading I used hooked on phonics - but he memorized all the books in the first box. At Kindergarten they teach him by site words or wall words. I have just started using explode the code and it is working wonderful for him. It really breaks down the phonics and makes him look at each letter. From this I have learned that he has trouble right now with the i sound and has trouble blending words especially the endings. Like he will read pal as plal. There is also writing so it is helping him with his fine motor skills and there is built in repetition so he is having lots of success.

I used hooked on phonics and liked the program because I found it easy to use. I did not use the tapes, but I used the work book it starts out with the at family then when they child masters the sounds you reach a page in the work book when it tells you to have your child read a book. The first book is Cat, when the child gets to that book they can read it and are very excited about it. I also used the bob books and tile letters. One of my children really needed to touch the letters and see the sounds pushed together. Then he flew threw the HOP program. Once it clicked. My 5 year dd loves the computer and started using www.starfall.com when she was around 4.

my dd loves her ipod. I love that I can put cd on tape for her to listen too as well as educational cd. Of course we don't call them that. It was one of the better gifts she has received.

My dd loves her ipod. We put books on CD from the library on hers as well as multiplication unplugges. She also has the sound track to the lion king and she does have music on there that is on the edge of being good music. It also helps because she gets car sick when we go on long car rides so now she just hangs out and listen to her ipod and sings away in the back of the van. She also loves writing and art - so she loves anything like that. Those velvet art books are her favorite. She has a few books on how to draw things that she enjoys and we do water color painting together. She has her own tubes of water color, mixing tray and real water color paper. She thought that was very cool and grown up.

As they get older it gets harder. For me it has also gotten harder with all the juggling of kids and I am no longer as prepared. I used to be able to pull out something at a moments notice in a free moment. Now there are no free moments. LOL For my 9 year old 4th grader - mostly it is a battle over homework. He gets a lot. Luckily it is not just busy work. So most of our afterschooling revolves around afterschooling study skills, outlining skills, and math homework. I wish we had more time to do Latin or more history or more math. For him he has agreed to afterschool writing because the alternative is a tutor and he does not want that. For my 8 year old - she has major test anxiety and going threw the normal girl stuff at school. So we have been afterschooling the difference between a friend and a sometimes friend. We also do epgy math wth her. She is going through a phase right now - so we are working on that. For my girl/boy twins - here is were I do the most afterschooling. We are doing reading and signapore math. My ds has some sensory issue so we do a lot of home therapy with him. We also do tkd as a family and the kids have soccer and music lessons. These last few months I have been burned out from afterschooling my older two and have mostly focused on my youngest. So I guess I am not being much help. My dh and I are trying to make some changes in the way we run our house, so hopefully we will be able to free up some fun learning time again. Like going to the museums on the weekend or kitchen science. This is a family favorite. I am struggling with the same issues. I have started relooking at how and why we do things and making changes. Right now I am also trying to simplify the stuff in our house to free up time and space.

I am searching for a writing program for a 4th grader. He has trouble getting his ideas on paper. He knows the grammer rules and is a great speller when tested with words, but is having difficulty using them when he writes. I am looking for a program that will work well for afterschooling, once or twice a week. He is in a GT program and basically doing everything at a 5th grade level and has a ton of homework on a daily basis. Then for me, I need something that is easy to use - as I juggle working and 3 other children ages 8,5,5. My favorite program is HOP because it came in an easy to use and easy to keep track of program. Thanks for your help.

My ds is in 4th grade but in a GT center class, basically he does 5th grade work. His teacher still reads to them - For him it is part of his literary circle. His teacher is trying to expose them to different books and then they all discuss it as a group. This however is just a small part of his reading. He is in a reading group and they all read their own books and then write summaries and present to their small group. Gives them freedom of choice and to learn about other books they may want to read. They are also allowed to start a book and then stop, but they have to write a paragraph and explain why and then get another book. He is supposed to read 100 pages a week on his own as part of his homework. My dd is in second and they divide into groups based on reading level and then the group is given a book to read. Dd books are usually 3 or 4th grade books. The teacher usually suggests two or three books and the kids vote on what book they want to read next. Her teacher all so reads to them, usually books that are above second grade level to get the children more interested in reading longer chapter books. It worked for my dd she went through a Judy Bloom phase and a Ronald Dahl phase.

You don't sound like your bragging to me. Maybe because I have been there done that and why I love boards, because then I know my kids are not the only ones doing what they do. I buy workbooks, word searchers and crossword puzzle books at the dollar store along with coloring books and just leave them in drawer the kids can always get too. They like to play school.