Have you tried MEP math program? It is a great program and it is free and you could just print out any of the pages that you like. http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm

I afterschool and am overwhelmed but keep going at it because I too volunteer in the classroom and know that my child is not adequately challenged or even fully engaged at all times in the classroom. My suggestion would be to use vacation time (spring break, mid year break, staff learning days, planned closures/early dismissal days-in california) and weekends to catch up and then try to keep your children ahead of grade level in the subjects most important to your family. I would also suggest that you get hold of a curriculum (or more) per subject and spend some time reading the teacher's guide for that grade level and then use your own judgement to either teach a topic if it needed remediation at home or skip it if it seems elementary to your children (for e.g. my child skipped the geometric shapes and patterns topics because he seemed to have mastered it from somewhere). That way, you can save some time while also systematically reviewing all the material for that grade level. As a PP mentioned, I too like staying ahead of grade level because that means that when my son is taught a topic in class it serves as a review and I am not too worried about how much of it is taught at school. Good luck.

I live in California and PE is mandated. My son's school and school district has a published set of disciplinary actions for bad behaviour. The teacher and principal went through them with all incoming students and parents. So, ask to see their disciplinary action philosophy. Ask the teacher why she is not following it and take it up with the principal. In my son's school, there is a multi-step process starting with sitting alone in a "thinking corner" and progresses on to other things before meeting with the principal.

In our school we have a "Back to school night" in the first few weeks of school where the teacher mentions all the curriculum they use, any projects that need to be done, field trips, schedules, disciplinary processes etc. And at the beginning of each month, there is an emailed newsletter to all parents detailing what they will learn in the following weeks. An example: Math: Students are learning about… addition and subtraction Reading: Students are learning about… beginning, middle, and end Social Studies: Students are learning about… Martin Luther King, Jr. and Presidents This is standard operating procedure over here, but I see that you live in Tasmania. I am pretty sure that if you wait a couple of weeks, you will get more information on similar procedures from your school or the teachers and also about any goal setting parent-teacher conferences that are coming up. So, I would suggest waiting a couple of weeks and if by then, you don't hear anything, then you may want to approach them for more information.

Try online math programs like DreamBox math which look like entertainment to them while they make the kids stronger in concepts by playing math games. Also, my son will not do Singapore Math sometimes (I admit to having bought all their workbooks, practice books, intensive practice etc and requiring him to do a lot of writing) and at those times, I volunteer to write down the answers for him while he dictates the answers. That works very well because mom always makes silly mistakes while writing down the answers and he gets to correct them frequently! We also do a lot of verbal math from the book "Verbal Math Lesson" which do not require pencil or paper. And we subscribe to the free email service "Bedtime math" which sends out daily email problems along with a fun trivia that will keep your child interested. All these help in reinforcing basic concepts. And you are doing the correct thing in keeping his love of math alive. Good luck.

This! I have been hoarding curriculum for all elementary levels for math and science since my now 5 year old was 3. My online shopping carts are always full waiting for me to click and buy :) And I afterschool for just a few hours. I am also subscribed to a lot of online learning programs in addition to real curriculum. One day I might decide to stop hoarding, but right now I am having too much fun learning from all the stuff I bought.

I regard it as a supplement meant for more practice as well as a "change of scene" from bricks and mortar curriculum even at the Kindergarten level. EPGY progresses to the next level fairly quickly so it does not have a year's worth of curriculum for your child.

I had the same situation as the OP with my 5 year old. He was way ahead of grade level and was going at a speed alarming to me. I was not concerned about how far ahead he was but that his speed and progression might simply deter the retention and recall of concepts at a later date and that he might lack the ability to go beyond regurgitating the concepts and unable to apply the theory to real life situations or problem solving. Frankly I am not sure how good long term memory is at this age. So, I let him learn concepts beyond his grade level for the "fun" part of mathematics and to keep that spark/curiosity/interest thriving. But, I have changed my approach to the formal learning by adopting the "mastery" concept as well as using multiple curricula for math. We dig deep until he is rock solid in a concept before moving on to the next concept formally. We use Singapore math (workbook, IP, Extra practice, CWP etc) as well as do a weekly math lab using manipulatives (cuisenaire rods/miquon), do word problems and verbal math where we use no pencil and paper at all, perform experiments like counting change, doubling/halving recipes, watch Khan academy videos related to our current topics and then read LOF for some extra fun. This is in addition to the advanced concepts he learns for fun as well as using EPGY math and Dreambox math online. Believe me, this amount of digging has slowed his progress drastically because it takes a long time to dig really deep. For example, when he finished addition, he could add 3 digit numbers mentally with carry overs which is when i decided that he should move to subtraction formally though he already knew simple subtraction (while his PS K class is just introducing 3+4=7 which is how far they are going to get this year). We are working on multiplication and geometry (measurments) now and it is going to take us a few months to get through really delving into it before we move on to division. What I am saying is if your kid is able to deal with it, dig as deep as they can go into each topic while keeping it fun so they do not get bored. This will automatically slow them down while making them very strong in concepts.

Though I understand what you mean and agree with the philosophy behind giving up school homework, I would not do this with my son. We live in a "homework intensive" school district and we get regular homework + optional homework that is deemed challenging and meant for kids who are above grade level. It amounts to 20-25 minutes each day for my son. He finds the "challenging" homework trivial too. There are a few reasons that I insist on him doing all his homework: because he needs to develop the discipline of sticking to a task even if it is repetitive, boring and unstimulating (as an adult I do such tasks every day of my life because I have to and I am not given choices). Also, repetitive and easy homework acts as positive reinforcement and a confidence builder for small kids because they feel very successful if they can accomplish it easily and without mistakes - I always say "Wow, there is not a single mistake in your homework and you finished it fast too!". Doing homework no matter how easy it is also reinforces the respect for authority in the classroom - namely the children following the teacher's directions unquestioningly (at this age, that is very important). And most of all, even though my child is fast tracked academically due to afterchooling, I do not want him to be consciously aware of it and also not to stand out in class for not having to do the homework. It would be best to finish it all in one evening if you can and get on with the afterschooling for the rest of the week.

I agree with you. A parent has to handhold kids to make such a presentation and they are way too involved for this grade level. My Kindergartener just finished a monthly sharing "Cultural/Country Poster" which was mandated to be all "his own work". The teacher had sent a note saying "Remember this is your child’s project and he/she should do all of the work. Your child should do ALL the writing, coloring, and cutting". And she wanted him to cover the following topics: - Flag: What does the flag for this country look like? - Foods: What are the traditional foods? - Sites: What are the famous sites in this country? - Clothing: What is the traditional clothing worn? - Music: What type of music is played in the country? - Flowers: What flowers are found in this country? - Animals: What animals are found in this country? - Celebrations: What holidays or events does this country have? - Sports: What kind of sports do they play in this country? My child picked Japan as he was interested in that country. Honestly, he has no clue about anything to do with Japan except that he likes Japanse Martial Arts! So, I printed out the pictures, had him cut them out for me, glued them in myself on to poster paper (because he cannot do a neat job by himself) which I had to run to Michael's and buy for him and then drew triple lines at the bottom of each picture and had him write the words by spelling them for him. And finally I talked about each picture and what it was about for 30 minutes to him while going over all these items on several websites, basically making a presentation to my 5 year old. At the end of it, he could say Kimono, Cherry Blossom Festival, Koto Harp, Red Crowned Crane etc by himself while pointing to the pictures. I would say that the opportunity helped him to learn a lot and his classmates liked the presentation very much, but it was so obvious that it could not have been done without an adult's major contribution or hard work :)

Apparently all the parents who send their kids to these charter schools have that type of money. In my area, this kind of money is cheap compared to prices for private education so these schools are oversubscribed several times (like 500 applicants for 70 seats in K). And the "voluntary" donation is really mandatory or the parent name is published in the school's "wall of shame". You can read all about one such (in)famous school in my neck of the woods here: http://www.dailykos....Charter-School# - you need to scroll down to read about the "Wall of shame". As for the OP's post about parental involvement and responsibility in a child's education, it is only possible if the parent is educated and is confident enough to know how to teach their kids or have time to afterschool or have extra money to afford suitable afterschool tuition and most importantly, the need for the parent to have stability in their lives to be able to focus on their children's education. A lot of American families are low income (middle income is also considered to be "on the poverty line" in my neighborhood where the costs are sky high), have family issues like divorce/custody battles/visitation/health etc, have not enough education and expertise to do what it takes, are struggling to put food on the table with 2-3 jobs for each parent while videogames are used as babysitters for their kids. These families take any education provided by the PS. Whether they get a dedicated teacher who sparks that flame of interest in some field of education that lasts a lifetime depends on luck. PS: I have a friend who teaches PS 1st grade in SoCal and her stories about children of immigrant laborers who do not have any parental help (ability or time) to do even simple posters like favorite foods, favorite animal, culture of any country etc is heart breaking. Some of them send their kids to school because it has subsidized lunch and acts as a free child care center and she says a lot of the kids just disappear and move on every few months.

deleting because i really am not sure how I landed up in such an old thread today. Sorry!

My DS goes to public school K half a day. He goes to a homework intensive school so he has to spend 20 minutes each day completing his homework. For afterscholing, I spend 45 minutes with him everyday (we are very slow and get distracted, so actually it is a lot less time) and we work on: Math - Miquon, Singapore math (all their books), Life of Fred curriculum. Dreambox math, EPGY math for online math programs. Twice a week for 30 minutes. Language: FLL1, Songschool latin, reading SOTW to him and tons of other reading material - both readalouds as well as parents reading to him. Reading eggs and ETC Online for computer work. Science: BFSU once a week (random topics that I like) Geography: one continent at a time (depending on interest) Piano: practice 5 days a week. Lego building and robotics: with his dad twice a week depending on interest. He also goes to Korean martial arts, swimming, piano and chess classes. I have not yet tackled handwriting and critical thinking due to lack of time. I would also love to reenroll him in art classes because he is so bad at it, again no time in our schedule. So far it is stressful to me as a working parent to do all these things, but the teacher passed on some appreciative comments which keeps me in a good frame of mind. I will introduce computer programming and more math curriculum next year. But, this is all I am doing for the K year.

Sorry, did not realize that this was an old thread ... At 4 years old, my son used the software from Fritz and Chester as well as app from Dinosaur chess at home for entertainment and learning the basics of chess. At 5, now, my son plays chess (somewhat!). His real exposure and training in chess comes from once a week chess classes he attends at a chess school run by an IM in chess who is really patient and has a way with kids that age. The class teaches strategies (moves, gambits etc), solving chess puzzles (given a scenario, how would you checkmate in 1 move, 2 moves), a mini weekly tournament, a blitz game? (one of those fast ones) etc and they send 5 puzzles home (how to checkmate etc) as a homework. My son enjoys the classes so much as well as makes a lot of friends when he plays tournaments with them (he plays with atleast 10 kids each week). It is a great pursuit to foster critical thinking, logical reasoning, decision making, strategic planning etc. As you said, practice is what makes the player better and you will get that only if you join a chess league or go to a chess school where you can meet several other players or if a parent or a mentor is a good player. As for a chess set, my son's coach recommends "tournament" style chess sets with "triple weighted" pieces, extra queens and rollable vinyl boards so that you can take them with you for playing with friends. I bought one of the sets from the following website, though you can find similar sets on amazon etc. I chose the green board because it is easier to see the pieces on it! http://www.wholesale...ment_chess_sets Good luck to your DS :)

My 5 year old is doing simple Mindstorm NXT projects with his dad (who is into robotics and hopes to develop DS's interest in that direction). Mostly it is DS helping while his dad works on a simple project. He is so excited to help make simple robots that we hope he learns by watching - so, I recommend an early start in NXT if a grown up can help them get started or work with them to teach them about the basics.

Thanks for all the replies. I am considering sending my DS to the onsite after school program for 2 days a week and see how I like it! It will also give me an opportunity to increase my work hours and still afterschool on the other days. In my area, afterschool care is provided on site for all the local public schools in special rooms and they are outsourced to an external provider - CDC or YMCA. They cost around $ 600 - $700/month for half day care for kindergarteners (also includes "before school" care if dropped off before 8:00AM, snacks, supplies etc). But, for really picky people, there are tons of afterschool care places that are not onsite and they are academically very good (have singapore math, kumon math tutors) and also incorporate art, martial arts, music, dance, languages, home work help etc. They tie up with shuttle services which pick up kids from public school and drop them off at the afterschool care center. the shuttle costs $8 / day. Parents can pick up kids any time before 6:00 pm. The area where I live has mostly families with both working parents and it is very common for their kids to go to afterschool care. The reason I did not choose the offsite afterschool care which is more to my liking is because I am not comfortable with my 5 year old being picked up in a shuttle by a driver and taken to the afterschool center.

Thanks. Sending him to the afterschool care program for a couple of days in a week is an option that is doable. On further discussion with my DS, it seems that the afterschool place has field trips to movie theaters, christmas tree fields/pumpkin patches and chuck-e-cheese's once every 2 weeks! And he feels very left out when the other kids talk about such things during school time. I definitely do not do as many crafts with him during afterschool time because his PS K curriculum is almost 80% crafts and art oriented. I could change out my afterschooling style as well as send him to the afterschool care program for a few hours a week and put his sports on hold for a few months. Thanks for the thoughts.

My DS goes to half day K in PS (5 yrs old). He is accelerated in quite a few subjects because of afterschooling, mostly math and reading. But we also do other subjects like geography, science, second language etc during our afterschooling (depending on what we feel like) in addition to sports (he attends classes run by coaches as I am a non-sporty mom). He is a super social guy and he now wants me to stop afterschooling as well as cancel all his sport activities and send him to afterschool care that is located onsite in his school because his friends from K go there in the afternoon and he is feeling left out. We mainly afterschool in the afternoon and he is pestering me to send him to afterschool care. He says he wants to hang out with his friends after school rather than work with mom on learning. In an area with 2 working parents, most kids go to afterschool care in his ps. But, the onsite afterschool place in his school is really bad - they do some arts and crafts and have supervised playtime and I don't see any special value in it. I am not a pushy parent and let my child dictate the pace as well as schedule enough playdates, shopping trips, field trips etc during afterschool hours so that there is fun as well as learning. Do I keep on afterschooling or just give in and send him to the afterschool care place and see how it goes? I am working part time by choice and it would definitely help me to send him to afterschool as he requests and switch to working fulltime, though the pace of learning would drastically drop. It is just that I take so much effort and time to afterschool and it seems that my DS does not want it anymore and I am frustrated by it. Anybody in this situation? Any encouragement or thoughts to share?

In my area all the local public schools offer EPGY open enrollment. We used it to enroll my son into EPGY (my DS goes to PS and we afterschool). It might be a good idea to check if your local PS participates in EPGY. If not, this forum periodically forms groups to enroll in EPGY and you could wait for posts on it. If you can put together 8 interested families with someone to volunteer as a support associate, then you can form your own group: http://epgy.stanford...t_form_2009.pdf Our local math tutoring centers have their own EPGY groups and enroll their students as part of their curriculum, but then we live around Stanford university and EPGY is pretty popular here because of that.

Thanks for the replies. I was hoping that Santa would bring the whole BA 3 series to my accelerated nephew. But he is going to get only the available ones now. I had not thought about checking on Facebook as I am hardly there - will do so in the future:)

It is always hard to know when to expect the next in the series of BA books. I checked a while back and was told that the 3D was due in December. Any news? And do they have a known schedule for the other grade books in the BA series? Thanks!

One option for a "cheaper" IQ test in our area is to apply to our top rated, super exclusive private schools for admission. Part of their admission process is for the candidates to go through a psychiatrist administered IQ test and the full report is issued to you. This is how we got our son IQ tested for a reasonable price. You may check out this option if it is available in your area (though it is best to let them know that you are seriously considering sending your child to their school while enquiring :) ).

I hate that my kid goes to PS. But there are no other options right now for my family as some of the things that I hoped for never worked out. So, we supplement heavily and keep DS challenged by afterschooling. It takes a lot of effort, time and money on our part as well as some sacrifices in working hours to get it done that I am worried about how long we can keep afterschooling at the rate at which we are doing now. We had parent-teacher conference last week - the goal was for my son to write 3 sentences (and the teacher would make him do advanced sentences as my son is accelerated .e.g. "The big brown horse jumped over the tall fence" rather than "The horse jumped high" - this is her example) and make him reason out math answers (e.g. make him explain how he figured out that there were 2 cows when all he could see in the barn are 8 cow's feet - again, her example). This is not how I imagined his education would proceed, and my son only pays attention to his teacher occasionally because he loses interest in the classwork frequently (I know because I volunteer in the classroom frequently and observe him). But, the school district just follows the curriculum set by the district and observes state standards and there is no funding for gifted kids and the teacher is doing her best despite the high student-teacher ratio. And apparently this is the best she can do for my kid under the restrictions she is under. Makes me more determined than ever to afterschool. We are also looking for afterschool enrichment classes down the road which might be a lot cheaper than private schooling.

My 5 year old has very reluctantly used ETC online for the past months and now that our subscription is expiring, we are planning to discontinue it. We do not like the graphics (dull, boring and cannot capture my son's interest at all), some words they use are not commonplace enough for my 5 year old to understand and we do not like the fact that he gets timed when he is looking for the letters on the keyboard to type a word. He has to be persuaded to use it once in 10 days and he cannot wait to be done with it and move on to other stuff. I feel sorry that I have to talk him into working with a program that he is so reluctant to use. Apparently, the ETC workbooks are much better compared to the online program and I did not do my research before subscribing. So, I am looking for a replacement for ETC online - Reading Eggs is one option, but I don't find it challenging enough for him - he just zips through it every time he gets on to it. I want a good, solid online phonics program which will act as a supplement to his curriculum and which he can use once or twice a week for 20-30 minutes. I want it to be fun with interesting graphics and "characters" and "edutainment" as well as give him some rigor and practice. Are there any choices out there that fit the bill? We love DreamBox Math and I am looking for similar quality in online phonics programs. Thanks for your help in advance!

Yes, I do. Mine reads before school and also before dinner. I will interrupt at both times to stop him. But, I do it gently, and in stages - by telling him that he has 5 more minutes to utilize to get to the end of the current chapter and that he could pick up where he left off later. We need to get on with studying other subjects which are important too and the whole family eats diner together, so it is not an option to let him read uninterrupted at both times. And I am OCD about schedules :D