Any ideas for summer camps (science or math) for accelerated kids? We are after-schoolers only right now, but are looking for opportunities for my son to meet other children that may be struggling with his issues (high intelligence, low maturity level). Our schools "gifted" program is a joke (basically parent chosen and no difference in the actual curriculum or pace). Thank you!

Thank you all so much for your advice! I let him sleep for about an hour and he woke up so much more pleasant than the past few days! He still went to sleep at 9 without any problems. :hurray:

Does anyone have kids that come home from school tired and ready for sleep? My son comes home exhausted and grouchy and tries to head straight for his bed. I tried forcing him to stay up, but that has caused massive meltdowns. This was my child that took solid naps until he started school at 6. He goes to bed around 8:30pm and wakes up between 6:15am and 6:45am, so he is sleeping a good amount at night. Should I allow him to nap? Limit the time? Move bedtime later to accommodate the nap?

Yes. Both of mine were reading before K, but it is very much expected that students have already attended a preschool program where I live. However, I can't take much credit for either of them. I love books and read to my children a lot as toddlers/preschoolers and books were always strewn about on the floor. I did do some phonics with my son, but the lessons were never longer than 15 minutes. His reading just took off one day less than halfway through the (very expensive!) curriculum I bought. My DD is mostly self-taught after listening in on some of big brothers lessons. I'm always finding books in her bed so I think the words must seep into her brain during her sleep :lol:

I have to agree with Ellie. I held my son back a year based on maturity and the fact that he was going to public school. He learns in waves (stalls out and then jumps ahead randomly) and public school doesn't really accommodate that type of learning. His reading clicked around 6 1/2 with a lot of intensive phonics work done at home. If I was able to homeschool, I would have just called him the grade level that matched his age/cut-off date and worked with him wherever his skills were at. We absolutely love AAR for a child that needs the slow and steady pace for phonics. My son really needed the "nuts and bolts" approach to reading. Once he had a good phonics base, his reading progressed quickly. Don't rush to read at "grade level" and just keep progressing. :grouphug:

Is this Kindergarten? My daughter is in a wonderful Kindergarten class and can probably read at a 2nd grade level (estimating!), but she is very slowly moving up in reading level at school. Why? The school requires the student to show proficiency in each level before moving up. This means my daughter must bring home a reader at each level for at least a week so that she read it and show comprehension. I have a good relationship with the teacher as she was my son's teacher last year. She has mentioned several times that my daughter is not challenged at all by the levels so far. However, her hands are tied by the rules she has to follow.

The author recommends that elementary students begin at Apples, but several people have jumped in at different points and just gone on from there without any trouble. There is a very active Facebook group for Life of Fred if you want to get more reviews or opinions. They also have used books for sale often.

He doesn't spend much time daydreaming at home, no. He does have attention issues at home, but I remove distractions when he works here so it isn't the same environment. I know that it is a lack of intellectual stimulation. If he finds the work boring or already knows the material, he doesn't see the point in completing the assignment. I understand this and we are working on completing work that is boring and doing things we may not like but certainly still have to do. I've tried relating it to my disdain for laundry. I hate doing laundry and it is the most mundane task for me. However, no laundry equals no clean clothes. They do not offer accelerated work or alternatives to the worksheets. He is in a class of other gifted students, but they basically work at the exact same pace of every other 1st grade class. Many other parents have expressed their concern that this really isn't a "gifted program" if it doesn't go above and beyond (or do anything different really!) than students who are not in the "gifted program". Basically we are looking into a new school again.... sigh.... my daughter is loving this school.... I wish I could homeschool, but that is not an option at this time.

No, no, no. There are other activities that occur during this two hours. It is not at all a sit at your desk the whole time. However, my son is stuck sitting because he doesn't finish the work in order to move on to the next activity (silent reading, reading groups, centers, etc.).

Oh and he now easily completes a chapter a night in less than 15 minutes. However, don't ask about the sentence he is supposed to write about the chapter in class each day.....

Update: I met with my son's teacher on Tuesday just to clarify for his father and I what not using his time wisely meant. I know that he isn't finishing his work and I want to work with his teacher to improve the situation. It turns out that days when my son comes home and tells me he did "nothing" at school, it is quite possible that he did nothing! He has about two hours in the morning to complete 2-3 worksheets. Sometimes he zooms through them and other times they are still blank at the end of those two hours. Talking is an issue that we are addressing, but daydreaming appears to be his biggest struggle. Even when he is at a table alone, he stares off into space or just stares at his paper without moving his pencil at all. His teacher seemed to want to work on this issue with us. The main concern is next year when he won't receive credit for work he doesn't do and could possibly fail. We've started the process of evaluating him for any learning disabilities or ADHD so that we can put accommodations in place if necessary. Thank you all for your help!

I was having him do this work at home up until this past week when the work started coming home with a grade rather than incomplete to finish at home. I always enforced incomplete work to be done first thing and sent it back the next day. I scheduled a separate conference for next week to discuss solutions to incomplete work and to clarify what "not using his time wisely" means in his class. I don't know if he is talking, dawdling, staring into space, or simply too distracted.

No he is not in an accelerated program. The class, however, is full of all the gifted 1st graders. His reading level isn't my issue. Just the abrupt jump from small printed readers, to chapter books is taking some adjustment. Thank you for all the suggestions to help!

It appears, in my opinion, that with the incomplete or simply not done at all work beginning to come home that the struggles are impacting my son in a big way. He can't get credit for work that he doesn't do despite if he has the knowledge to complete the work. I do think that the teacher hasn't communicated this issue because it doesn't impact the class. The class can continue to function whether my son completes his work or not. They simply move on to the next activity. He is not overly rambunctious and doesn't interrupt the other students.

However, in our parent teacher conference she said that he was doing great and had nothing but good things to say about him. His first report card reflected that he was indeed struggling with time management skills and following directions. We discussed via email what I could address to help him conquer these issues. The "late" work and incomplete work sent home today was more than his average and some of it was just graded incomplete. He had two blank sheets, meaning even his name was written by the teacher, that came home with a "0" on top. It appears that his behavior is now effecting his day-to-day progress.

I think the bolded statement is what is irking me. The teacher has discussed behavioral issues with me once before (upon my asking after he received a "below grade level" assessment on a report card), but that was a few months ago and she has not communicated with me since. My son struggles completing assignments in class and is easily distracted. We work at this at home, but he really just has good days and bad days. This is the first chapter book his reading group has been asked to read. He is in first grade, but this book is a 3rd grade reader. The content and words are not a struggle, but he is adjusting to the length of pages per chapter. This book is also heavy on dialogue which is difficult to read aloud at times. I have no problem with the expectations and was glad to have it cleared up. However, I do feel like she took the opportunity to take a dig at my son unnecessarily.

My son just moved to chapter books as readers and I asked if he was to read one chapter a night or if it could be broken up further. My son struggles with stamina and attention span and the first chapter took him about 30 minutes to complete. Yes, his reading group is reading one chapter a night Monday thru Thursday. There is a schedule glued in his reading journal to let you know when each chapter is due. His reading group is scheduled to finish this book on Thursday, February 5th. I have time built into the class for him to begin his reading, but he usually does not use his time wisely and ends up having to catch up on assignments he has not finished during the time he could be reading. He did get all of his work finished today and began his reading in class. Let me know if this helps with his reading tonight. It should take him 15 to 20 minutes to read a chapter in his book.

I vote for Math Mammoth. We recently made the switch from Miquon to MM for the very same reason. My DD loved it and learned so much math, but she hated waiting for instruction from mom. She wants to pull out a few sheets and work through them herself. She is my workbook kid and doesn't mind a sheet full of problems either. I print it out in color to make it "pretty" for her.

This is the way it works here as well. The standard increases over the year to reflect where the students should throughout the year. I sent an email to the teacher and received back a lengthy response that verified my suspicions. My son doesn't disrupt the class or distract other students, but he has problems focusing and often drifts off while the teacher is giving directions. This results in him asking several questions that have already been answered when he wasn't listening or blurting out questions that will be answered if he would just continue listening. This also means that he completes assignments incorrectly because he missed the directions. He then has to completely redo the assignment after the teacher corrects him. This behavior isn't disruptive to the classroom so he does not get a behavior report home, but it is not the behavior that is expected of a first grader. I'm aware of this struggle and am sure it will continue throughout the year.

The terminology isn't the best, I agree. At his last school they had a citizenship grade as well (citizenship is a required subject in Texas), but it was based on how many times a child had to have their folder signed with an explanation of the issue that day. Parents could easily see where their children were struggling and how many days they had an issue at school. I loved this level of communication and am missing it this year with our new school.

Yes it is basically that. We are down South so school is almost at the halfway point. He does not have allergies and is not on any medication. We limit his diet and keep him on a predictable routine. Thank you everyone for giving me some perspective. I think I was more blindsided than I expected and reacted harsher than I really should have. I predicted some behavioral issues and we work on the areas he struggles in. I'm going to send an email just to keep lines of communication open and friendly and see if his teacher can help me better pinpoint what to work on with him.

My son came home with his first report card on Friday. The school uses a system of three letters on report cards for 1st grader. S= meets grade level expectation P= approaching grade level expectation N= below grade level expectation The 1st grade teacher explained that if these were letter based grades then S= A/B, P= C/D, and an N=F. Academically wise my son achieved all S levels. However, when I turned to the citizenship side, he is struggling. He receieved two P's for working independently and organization; and he received two N's for following directions and listening attentively without interrupting. Now my son is borderline ADHD so I am not surprised that he is struggling with these things. What I am surprised by is this is the first time I've heard that he is struggling!! We had a parent-teacher conference in October and his behavior was not a concern for the teacher. The classroom has a behavior chart and he has yet to get more than a warning within that system. I haven't received any notes home describing misbehavior of any kind! Would this cause you to request a parent-teacher conference to discuss behavior problems??

We have one of the mini judy clocks that I model on before I write the letter. My DD keeps it next to her just in case she forgets where a number is on the clock.

My son currently uses this at school. Books on their assigned reading level are available and an assignment is due every Friday based on the book they read. I do like that I am able to see what reading level he is assigned and can see when he moves up a level. However, my son does not like reading off of a screen. I use my Kindle Fire right now and he likes it better than the IPad or computer screen, but still tends to skip over words or grow tired of holding the device. I wish we had the option of using books from the library or books sent home. There is also a limited selection of books at each level and then about half are non-fiction. This is good for children that want options, but my son is not very interested in non-fiction books so he usually only has 5 or 6 books to choose from at each level.

I was on a rant just a few weeks ago about the lack of differentiation in my son's kindergarten class. He was being assigned Level A readers even though he was obviously beyond that level. The teacher hadn't even assessed the students' reading levels :huh: . Literally two days after my rant, we got a call from a local charter school (that uses a classical model!) that a spot opened in Kindergarten and my son could have it if we wanted!!! It's only been two weeks, but he is now bringing home second grade level readers, working on simple addition and subtraction, creating more detailed sentences (and yes spelling is taught and inventive spelling is corrected), and I've really seen the challenge ramp up each week. Yes, my son wasn't necessarily prepared and writing is a struggle, but boy am I much happier! This teacher seems determined to keep the students progressing and reaching them at whatever level they may be. Just shows how much of a difference there is from school to school and teacher to teacher!!! Now to cross my fingers for my daughters lottery entry this Spring.