What to do with my 2nd grader?

[Surfside Academy]

My middle son is obviously bored with school right now. He's very different from my first son, who while bright, isn't an accelerated learner so this is new territory for me. My 2nd grader is a strong reader and normally scores 100% on his math & spelling tests. When he does make mistakes in math, for example, it's usually sloppy mistakes, not conceptual issues.

 

I can see he's not being challenged enough and I'd like to make a couple of changes now but I don't want to overwhelm him being that's he's only 7. I've stepped it up a little in math & spelling but I'm struggling with what to do with grammar and writing. He's 1/2 through Growing with Grammar's Grade 2 but it's really not challenging him at all. Just today his lesson was to underline the pronouns in a sentence. I had planned on switching to FLL3 next year but I'm wondering if I should do it now. It's the same with WWE 2. He has no trouble with the narration/dictation so I'm wondering if I should just move him into WWE 3 now??

 

I guess my question is how to keep a balance of challenging him without expecting too much for his age. :confused: Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[2smartones]

You'll know when you've pushed too hard. To challenge a child who is bored, you have to feed them more and more until they either tell you it's too much or you see a negative change in behavior. That's when you know it's time to back off. You've found the right level of challenge. For a child who likes to be bored and doesn't want a challenge, that won't work. Sounds like it would work with your 2nd grader, but not with the other one. Another thing you should consider is to give end of unit tests as if they're pre-tests before teaching a unit of material. That way, you're not wasting time on things a child already knows, and you can concentrate your efforts only on the things that were missed.

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

I'm using WWE 1 with my young first grader and we are doing two weeks worth of lessons in one week. For grammar, it might be simpler to just jump to FLL 3. Honestly, though, my dd doesn't really mind when her lessons are too easy for her. I challenge her by feeding her lots of good books from the library, both for her to read and for me to read to her, and by letting her loose with crafts. She also loves studying foreign languages, and we are currently learning both Latin and Spanish.

[SunshineMom]

I have a bright dd7. We are using MCT Grammar Island along with Mad Libs for fun reinforcement. As for writing activities, I have my dd7 write up summaries of daily reads from books I have chosen for her to read (classics). We are not doing anything formal for writing other than summaries. My dd7 loves logic type puzzles such as those found in Mind Benders and we are soon going to try Wordly Wise books (we were given some for free). We may try keeping a daily writing journal for fun. As far as math is concerned, my dd7 is using Singapore along with math games. Thinking math puzzles maybe helpful as well. I totally understand your dilemma; keep trying to challenge without burning your little one:)

[EKS]

I would take a look at the MCT language arts materials. It is kid friendly, but also steps it up a notch conceptually. I'd also consider switching him to a more challenging math program, such as Singapore. You could also go double speed through MUS (MUS is easy to compact), but that might upset your older child.

[Dmmetler]

I have an accelerated 1st grader right now, and while I'd picked materials that largely corresponded to her grade level except for reading level in the start of the year, I discovered that she wasn't willing to wait and just how fast she could go when she had the chance! The big difference in what my DD does and what an older child using the same books would do is that DD writes much less, and we do much more orally or with me scribing. It also seems to take much less time for DD to do a days work than the publisher expected, so what looks like a lot on paper is still only about the 1-2 hours expected for a 6 yr old.

 

As far as writing goes, what I did at the beginning of the year was to have her tell me about what we'd done in history and draw a picture, and I'd write it down and have her copy one sentence to label her picture. Now, after several months, she skips the middle man and simply writes her sentences herself. They've gotten longer and more complex with time, and she's now up to short paragraphs. She doesn't seem to notice that she's writing more and will still complain that there's too much writing on a worksheet that only wants single words.

 

The curricula that have worked best for us so far are:

 

Singapore Math, especially with the IP-lots of depth without necessarily moving to harder concepts.

 

Sonlight History/Literature cores-harder reading level, but not going into the gory details of history beyond what DD can handle emotionally.

 

Latin and Greek-Forces her to slow down and really look. We've used SSL, SSG, LfC A, and Minimus so far.

 

Other subjects have been hit or miss, and I have to say, more miss than hit. I've got MCT Island, and it looks really good, but I'm trying to convince myself to wait until we officially start next year (which, since we go year-round, will be in May) before I start it with DD.

[Surfside Academy]

I would take a look at the MCT language arts materials. It is kid friendly, but also steps it up a notch conceptually. I'd also consider switching him to a more challenging math program, such as Singapore. You could also go double speed through MUS (MUS is easy to compact), but that might upset your older child.

 

Can you tell me a little more about MCT? I've looked at the website but I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around exactly how it works. I've seen lengthy discussions on the Elementary Board but haven't followed them too closely. Would he just jump into Grammar Island? Would you recommend the Sentence books along with it?

[Crimson Wife]

You would need the grammar, practice, and writing books if you're going to use MCT.

[Storm Bay]

You would need the grammar, practice, and writing books if you're going to use MCT.

We don't use all of those, but our dc are older.

 

Singapore Math has been a far better fit for my dc than MUS; I ended up using MUS as a supplement since it was good for dd at times.

 

You could move faster with what you have, and if that's enough, do that. If not, you could try the next grade level if you have it, or you could switch to something like MCT. MCT does have more pith to it, but it's not going to fit everyone. My ds has mixed feelings about it (he's doing Paragraph Town) but I love it. As for which level to do, none of them starts at gr 1, so I would think that Island would be the best level with which to begin.

My dd's used R&S for English (MCT is fairly new in the homeschool world from what I've gathered. The books we have used are rigourous for their grade levels, and after the gr 8 book you don't need anymore grammar. However, ds hates R&S because it's too old school. I am planning to switch him to MCT completely next year because I am so impressed with the writing book we're using, at least so far.

 

MUS has been too light for my dc as far as math goes although it certainly covers all of the arithmetic things dc need to know as well as some geometry. I find that the word problems and heuristics of SM have helped provide more of what they need.

 

It often works better to have a more highly motivated younger dc use a different curiculum than your older one does.

 

What I would NOT do is to keep a bored dc at a regular pace where they are, as others have mentioned.

[Surfside Academy]

We don't use all of those, but our dc are older.

 

Singapore Math has been a far better fit for my dc than MUS; I ended up using MUS as a supplement since it was good for dd at times.

 

You could move faster with what you have, and if that's enough, do that. If not, you could try the next grade level if you have it, or you could switch to something like MCT. MCT does have more pith to it, but it's not going to fit everyone. My ds has mixed feelings about it (he's doing Paragraph Town) but I love it. As for which level to do, none of them starts at gr 1, so I would think that Island would be the best level with which to begin.

My dd's used R&S for English (MCT is fairly new in the homeschool world from what I've gathered. The books we have used are rigourous for their grade levels, and after the gr 8 book you don't need anymore grammar. However, ds hates R&S because it's too old school. I am planning to switch him to MCT completely next year because I am so impressed with the writing book we're using, at least so far.

 

MUS has been too light for my dc as far as math goes although it certainly covers all of the arithmetic things dc need to know as well as some geometry. I find that the word problems and heuristics of SM have helped provide more of what they need.

 

It often works better to have a more highly motivated younger dc use a different curiculum than your older one does.

 

What I would NOT do is to keep a bored dc at a regular pace where they are, as others have mentioned.

 

MUS has always worked well for my boys so I'm hesitant to change. He is moving quickly through Gamma but will begin multiple digit multiplication next week so I suspect he will slow down some. I supplement with TT 4 because it takes little or no prep from me (being computer-based) but I'm disappointed it's not more challenging. I haven't really looked at Singapore because it's spiral whereas MUS is mastery. I wonder if anyone has successfully blended both?

 

I'm also wondering if I could use Grammar Island with both my boys. My oldest is definitely an auditory learner and really dislikes all the diagramming in FLL 4. He's almost finished with it though so I'd have to switch him to something else anyway. Off to do more research about possibly switching to the dark side...MCT :D

[Jill]

I vote for the the MCT materials too. At 7 into 8, I used Grammar Island and Building Language with my son after having already done most of FLL 1. We didn't really need the student book of Building Language but I could have used the teacher's book for Grammar Island. I can't remember exactly why I ordered what I did except that maybe I was hesitating. For this year, I now have the basic homeschool package for the next level that includes Grammar Town, Ceasar's English, Paragraph Town and Practice Town. My son is 9 now and we just launched into this again having spent some months focusing on spelling, handwriting and dictionary skills more to get his fine motor advanced a bit. He responds so well to this series. He generally HATES writing but almost always enjoys the exercises with the MCT materials, probably because he is engaged rather than just given busy-work. On the outside, it doesn't seem that different to me than other grammar books in terms of what it covers yet it just suits him better and that may be because of "how" it covers.

I recall it was difficult to tell from the samples on RFP's site whether the approach would be suitable or not, that's probably why I only bought a couple books instead.

[Storm Bay]

I haven't really looked at Singapore because it's spiral whereas MUS is mastery. I wonder if anyone has successfully blended both?

 

I'm also wondering if I could use Grammar Island with both my boys. My oldest is definitely an auditory learner and really dislikes all the diagramming in FLL 4. He's almost finished with it though so I'd have to switch him to something else anyway. Off to do more research about possibly switching to the dark side...MCT :D

We used both MUS and SM. You can't really blend them, so we did them separately but together. Honestly, if you want something with some challenge, I'd look at SM or MEP or something along those lines. For my middle dd the combination was great. She still needed some review on certain things, but that had everything to do with her learning style and nothing to do with what we were using. After SM 6 she did a Russian math that cemented all of preAlgebra math for her.

 

As for mastery, my eldest didn't need any type of mastery program in math because once she learned it, she had it, even if it didn't come up again for 6 months. We didn't know about SM when we pulled her out of ps, and so she did Saxon. Since she didn't need much review, if any, we skipped much of the books. My middle dd did one sheet per MUS lesson until Epsilon, so I saved the rest for ds.