Don't hate me, but RS and MEP have never jived with me. Unfortunate, I know. If we had the money for it, I would probably try G&T for him, too, since they start at Kindergarten. But the plan is to put him in Beast Academy once he reaches that level - assuming he's still showing signs of being gifted at math at that point. (And assuming BA hasn't been horribly delayed. But since we have 1-2 years before he he's ready for 2A, I think we're safe). Yeah, I don't push. I didn't really push DD much, either, but because of my experience with her I've been even more hands-off with my son. He actually asks to do school more often than we do it, and he's the one pushing for more worksheets. Like when we sit down to do math, I expect him to finish one worksheet, because otherwise why even sit down to do it? They're really short and (currently) super easy for him. After that I tell him he can quit whenever he wants to. He's the one that does 2 or 3 units' worth before stopping. Handwriting is another thing, though. He hates writing. When he's doing math, he asks me to do the writing for him, and usually I agree. I may get a HWT workbook and let him work through it at his own pace (even if that takes years), and then once he's got the letter formation down try the joke book or Star Wars ideas.

Oh, he would love that. Star Wars and Transformers copywork, yes, he would love that so much. But that does require me to make worksheets, which means I have to be on top of things. But if I could manage it....

I think I'm nervous about Singapore 1A because it was too much of a jump for my daughter. She's definitely gifted, and tested very high this past year even with math, but she's been school resistant for years and has other issues (like anxiety) that complicate things. So maybe it'll be okay. I just don't want to have another disaster on my hands like I did with her.

That's actually the approach I've come to for my daughter this year. We're doing Redbird for math (Stanford's gifted and talented math program, very engaging), MCT for language, and Mystery Science for science (which I haven't started yet, because it's "too hard" to prep the lessons :-P ). I have been letting DS do the games on the Gifted & Talented website, and he really enjoys them. I suppose I can do a lot of those kinds of math games for the time being. And I'll do Mystery Science with him, too. I hadn't considered doing cursive first. He's left-handed, will that be a problem? Along those same lines, just tonight I decided to try the free month trial of ABC Mouse. I ended up putting him in the first grade track, and it's still easy for him so far, though admittedly he only did three lessons. It may get more difficult as the lessons progress? And I think second grade would be too serious for a 4.5 yo, probably? If this is still engaging him at the end of the month, I may decide to pay for a year so he can have a more fun school option than I can provide.

I'm starting to feel very unsure about my plans for next year for my son. He is 4.5 and taught himself to read last month (he picked it up from TV, maybe, but I certainly didn't teach him). He does worksheets from Singapore Math's K workbook (Essentials, I think it's called?) every couple of weeks. We started it in a couple months ago and do it very infrequently. Usually he does several units in one sitting, and he's on unit 22/32 right now. I expect that he'll be done with Essentials by December at the latest. It's entirely possible he'll be through it by the end of the summer. But if he was in public school he would be too young for K this year, and he's wiggly and not great with attention (except with things he loves, like Transformers figures and legos, which he can spend hours on). Some of the regrets I have from when DD8 was his age (reading a bit better than he does, but not quite as advanced at math): * I didn't make school fun enough. I don't do fun well, honestly. I'm too low energy. I'm not sure I can fix this. But if I can, I want to. * I gave too much challenge too early. I remember how bored I was in school, and I wanted to avoid that with her, so I made it my goal to challenge her. I'm afraid all it did was make her think she was dumb. I will save challenge for *later* with DS, when he's more mature. * I didn't study handwriting or spelling in K, and only handwriting in 1st. She was reading so well and so often that I thought the spelling would come (ha!), and I thought handwriting in K would be too frustrating for her. We're playing catch-up in those subjects now, unfortunately. * I really regret teaching DD with materials designed for children almost twice her maturity. They were correct for her mental age, but they were designed for children much more mature than she was, and that made them a bad fit for her. What math, spelling, handwriting, etc materials are out there that are appropriate and engaging for an asynchronous 4.5 yo? I also need open-and-go options. I don't do well with projects or prepping for lessons. Is there any way to walk that line? Or am I looking for something that doesn't exist? I'm so hesitant to leave him on his own this year. He's going to develop bad habits in writing and spelling like his sister did, and I don't want to have to remediate that again. I'm okay with continuing math the way we've been doing it, 2-3 lessons a month, but then what do I do when he finishes the Essential Math program? Just jump into Singapore 1A? That was too much serious math too soon for my daughter. He's stronger in math than she was, but less mature. Any advice?

Yes, and for this reason we school year-round.

Do they actually have older children take the tests to create these grade equivalencies? Or are they extrapolating?

I got my DD's ITBS scores back recently, and I'm wondering about how much to read into the results. When the test says her overall grade equivalent (GE) is 5.6, does that really mean she's at the level of a child in the second semester of fifth grade? Really?? I look at the work she does for me at home, and it's just... not anywhere close to what I would expect a fifth grader to be doing. I know asynchronous development means that she could be intellectually far ahead of her maturity and fine motor skills, and this is definitely true, but it just feels like the test might be over-inflating things? For example, she got a perfect score on the vocabulary section, which wasn't a surprise to me, but I looked over the test and I don't feel like the words asked on the test in any way put her at an almost 8th grade level. I think she probably does have a vocabulary at least at that level, but the words asked on the test just weren't seventh grade words, you know? Seems like a GE of 7.9 is a major leap based on the vocab tested. So is GE more of a figurative measurement, or does it really mean equivalent to that grade level? I did have an ah-ha moment when looking at the national percent correct figures. It seems the test is designed so that the national percent correct on any individual section is between 40 and 60%. Assuming that translates to the test as a whole, I actually maybe understand now how why testing is so traumatic for so many children. If the average child doesn't know half the items on the test, that's got to be stressful and demoralizing. I guess as a child when I took the test, I assumed that other children thought the test was about as easy as I did. Obviously now as an adult I realize it's not that way, but I guess I thought the tests were graded on the curve, so to speak. That the difference between a 25th percentile child and a 99th percentile child in terms of percent correct on the actual test was really not that much.

Oh, I want to hear what others say. My middle child is reading and doing math at around a 1st grade level now, but he's got more than a year before he would even be in K in public school. When my oldest was in the same position, we did a very casual K "year" that spanned about a year and a half. We did a BFSU lesson every once in a while, we read a lot of stories, we did Singapore's K level math course (math wasn't a strong subject with her then), and the rest was just letting her play and be a kid. I'm planning to do something similar this time, but I'm open to suggestions. :) My opinion is that you have to let them be kids still, but at the same time you have to feed their minds. So a lot of no-pressure learning, trying to keep it as fun as possible.

These are some great suggestions, thank you so much! She spent most of the morning making paper dolls and then playing with them. I took a bit of okbud's idea and had her write a paragraph about it. She loved that idea, and the paragraph was actually quite good. I will definitely keep that up. Then she did two units of math (took her all of ten minutes). When the 2yo goes down for her nap, we'll have a quiet reading time. She should do some spelling, and probably play a math facts game. And I guess that'll be the school day today? There's probably a way to make a special project work for her. I would need to figure out how to scaffold it enough. I'm not really a projects kind of homeschool mom, haha. It's not my strength at all. Plus I would worry that she would lose interest halfway through. But in its most ideal form it does sound appealing....

It also could be that I am not communicating well what she was doing. I do know she didn't think it worked well for her kids (who, to be fair, were pretty young when she tried it, perhaps too young for that kind of approach?).

No, I haven't. My sister read it, though, and loved it and tried to implement it in her homeschool. She said it was a big flop, her kids didn't take any initiative and the projects that got done were mostly her doing the work (aka her doing the learning) and having to do a lot of prodding - which seems to be the complete opposite of self-directed learning.

Playing in the playroom (which last year when she was in her months of school refusal I used to lock during school hours), re-reading a book she's read 10x, swinging in the backyard. Or yelling at other family members for bothering her. That's a favorite with this particular child, lol. We very nearly put her in a 5-day-a-week private school at one point last year. I'm glad we didn't. This school is a lot more flexible academically. She would be doing a lot more busywork in a regular school, and one thing I learned from online public school was that she cannot stand busywork. (Also, it wouldn't be the same friends, this school only does the 2-day homeschool program.) We went back and forth on the grade skipping for a while, but the last semester has been the most peaceful one in our house possibly since she was born. I really don't want to upset that by forcing her into a school situation she doesn't want. There will be time for acceleration later if it's appropriate. Right now the goal is to give her as much acceleration and/or gifted-appropriate education as we can at home. Hopefully that will be enough.

I think this would work for her. She's required to do math, spelling, and grammar next year, so that's probably the nuts and bolts kind of thing I want to be requiring. What kind of guidelines did you have for the self-directed study?

I know, but we really needed the space in our relationship to not be at each other's throats. It had been a really long and unhappy six months before this. :( But the plan is to be more structured and disciplined next year.