How Exactly Do You Accelerate?

[Paige]

I have a child who appears to be somewhat gifted mathematically. She may not be highly gifted- she's not solving algebra for fun at 6- but she's really good at whatever I throw at her. So far we've been doing MM. We started MM1 when she was 4.5 and wanted to do big school like the other kids. She was about 1/4 of the way through it when she went to K at school and didn't learn a thing all year. I would have liked to have kept up with the MM after school but she wasn't interested and I didn't push.

 

We picked it up where we left off this fall when I brought her home for first grade and she's just started MM2 last week. I feel like every single lesson is easy for her. We do 2 pages (just like my older kids doing MM) and she's done. She could do the 2 pages in under 10min if she didn't care to color and make it pretty. I have started letting her skip some problems if there's a series of similar ones that she obviously doesn't need to practice, and then she may do 3 or 4 pages. She does not push for more work and wouldn't think it's fair if she has to do 4-5 pages and everyone else does 2. I feel like I shouldn't skip ahead because she's never seen this stuff before- or at least not with me. I don't know what she doesn't know or where she'll hit a wall and she does not like to be frustrated. I think if I gave her the chapter tests, she would fail because she has never been shown what to do and doesn't understand the language yet. With each new topic, however, once it is explained, she knows it immediately and well. She figures many things out before I explain them just by looking at the example problems and gets frustrated with my attempts to walk her through it.

 

I don't know what to do. On the one hand, she's perfectly happy just doing her pages quickly and being done. She'd much rather play with Barbie. On the other, I feel like that would be doing her a disservice. She's been doing Dreambox for about 15min a day along with MM and according to them she is beginning 3rd grade work and finishing up some 2nd grade work. I guess that means she has seen quite a bit of the MM material in grade 1 (that she just completed with me) and grade 2, but Dreambox teaches things a little differently sometimes. Since I don't sit with her, I'm not sure where she really is.

 

If your child is working well above grade level, did you completely skip some levels, skip problems so that not all work in each level was completed, or did your child love math so much that he or she just did all of the work for every level quickly because of spending extra time doing it? I think if we go along doing every page and I don't increase her work load then she won't be able to go much farther because there's only so many days in a school year. If she does 2-3 pages a day, then she will stay just a little ahead and may never be challenged. Maybe that's ok? She likes math, but she wouldn't do it for fun. She's a very young first grader and close to the grade cut off, so I'm hesitant to make her work too much. I want to keep it fun so she doesn't get burnt out.

[AmandaVT]

nm

[jennynd]

We skip questions even chapters. But not years. Starting when DD was in kinder level, she started learn multiple fact concept Then skip count. ( after done with her standard math work which took 5 -10 mins) By the time she starts 2nd, her multi facts are very solid, so we test her out on multiplication/divide related topic. soon after she is pretty decent on multi- fact, I gave her 4 word questions either I made up or from SM CWP related to one of each operation and all multiple digit. So when we were at those topic on third grade book, I test her out on those. And the same time, I introduce her decimal multi, divide. So, even though DD is working on starting 4th grade, she already done many topic that is covered in 4th. So in short, we go through the book, each level, but at the same time, I introduced topics that is a grade or 2 ahead at the same time... And skip those if she show me that she has it. Not sure if that make any sense to you.

[laughing lioness]

I'd get a more accelerated program -Right Start, Singapore or Saxon and see how she does. Also add in some mazes and mental math. My mathy kids always thought solving problems mentally was a fun game.

[laughing lioness]

double post

 

[abba12]

We do 2 pages (just like my older kids doing MM) and she's done. She could do the 2 pages in under 10min if she didn't care to color and make it pretty.

 

 

The number one thing I would suggest is to switch from a page-oriented goal to a time-oriented goal in math. Rather than each child doing 2 pages, and one taking half an hour while another finishes in 10 minutes, assign a time period for which math should be worked on and let them work at their pace. If she does 2 pages in 10 minutes I would have her doing 4-6 pages each day (A 20-30 minute session not including colouring, which, in our house, would be an optional extra she could do after 'math time' is over). I'd go so far as to get a cute timer or something :) Obviously that will accelerate things, but if she is working for a half hour, and she sees the other kids also working for a half hour (or more or less, depending on their ages) it's 'fair' because everyone spends the same amount of time on it and works through it as quickly or slowly as they are capable of. She should naturally slow down her completion pace once she begins to hit challenges and new material. This also works well for kids who genuinely struggle, because it stops them from feeling discouraged, like they'll never finish. (note, time goals don't work all that well for dawdlers lol, so you'll have to consider if it suits your other children or if they will waste time to do less work)

 

I'd also cut out obviously redundant work (a page full of questions she knows down pat) but I wouldn't skip too much, I prefer working through the content quickly for revision and retention to skipping stuff (within reason. Some programs contain a lot more review and boring stuff than others)

[SierraNevada]

I have a major dawdler, so a time limit is not how we have done it. What we have done is start at the right level. So if they start school and are able to pass an end of year math test for first or second grade, start them there. If they're any holes, a quick math learner will patch them in days or less. Holes are actually a blessing to kids who just get math because those are the rare times they actually get to really learn. For the most part, we rarely skip problems. We use a mastery based program that helps naturally accelerate by not requiring as much repitition or spiral. If you are going through three years if math in one year, you need to get rid of the spiral-- you just don't need to review everything three solid times in a year. Singapore PM works well for that. Basically, if a child just gets math, they will fly through it. See how long it takes you to do one of there workbooks:). The more natural and easy it is for them, the faster they fly. Many accelerated people ask how to slow down... That is acheived once you have naturally accelerated by placing them at the right starting point. Once they are actually working at a level that they are challenged and learning on, they slow down, not always as much as we'd like though:). That's when you go deeper and wider-- covering more off-beat topics and more challenging level problems. It's a wild ride! But the base question of how to accelerate is answered best by starting them where they truely ought to be. Don't feel obliged to do first grade math if she has already mastered it. Skip whole years till you find her zone. But once you find her starting point, then I don't recommend skipping years-- just moving faster at will.

[EndOfOrdinary]

We did a lot of math talking, and not as much problem/workbook stuff. The workbook stuff we did do was much more critical thinking, color by number, or manipulative work. It was much, much more number theory than anything else. This seemed to really allow his brain to run on the concepts of math, rather than just drill and kill or plug and chug. He had small amounts of assigned problems, because practice was necessary, but they went quickly. Then we would talk, or play math games, or make cookies, or build something. It was fun math.

[Korrale]

My son is working about 3.75 years ahead in math. And I suspect this time next year he will be 4-5 years ahead. We don't skip ahead. In fact quite the opposite. We do a lot of reinforcement with games. And we cycle back and review. And also we do several curricula. But we don't bog down with a lot of unnecessary busy work when practice is not needed. We sometimes do math orally. Ray's and Singapore PM, we do orally.

But what puts him ahead other than an early start is that we do math pretty much every day. 7 days a week, at least 350 days a year. It is very rare for us to skip a day. Math and reading are as much of our daily routines as brushing teeth. Our segments are short 10-20 at most, not including games that he initiates for fun. But over the span of a year he he is doing more math than a child in public school that only has 180 days of math a year.

[Dmmetler]

We always did/do more than one strand of math-working through SM at whatever pace she set (usually several lessons a day, done mostly orally) and then enrichment. By the end of 4B, the enrichment was far enough ahead that she's already done most of the topics, so we compressed 5a/5b even more, did LOF Fractions, decimals, PreA (both books) and key to algebra, using those to transition to writing math, and then moved to AOPS. For some sections, she's done just the exercises, a few "interesting problems", and moved to the review and challengers. For others, she's done every problem and more besides. Enrichment this year is mostly from Dover math books on interesting topics (number theory and combinatorics have been big ones with statistics more recently).

 

We also use Mathletics a grade behind for review/skills practice and mental math.

[sunnyday]

Here's a recent thread about compacting math resources. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/506620-the-nuts-and-bolts-of-compacting-curriculum/

 

This was tough for me too, looking at the materials and my kid and others' kids and asking, "How does acceleration actually *happen*?". At first I was just plugging slowly through the boring math and providing lots of fun supplements as counterpoints to the tedium. But between the supplements and his intuition the boring basics got so much more boring over time. So now I'm doing a minimal number of exercises in each section, verifying that DS gets the concepts I think he gets, but then moving on. In Singapore we crunch through most of a chapter in the text, skim and cherry-pick the workbook exercises, and then maybe linger a couple of days in that section of the IP. In Beast Academy a guide section sometimes has 12 or more pages of practice on subtly different kinds of problems (a page or two of each). So we'll read the guide, then choose a practice section and do enough problems to get it (usually 1-2 regular problems and all starred problems) then put it away. The next time we read the guide again, then choose the next practice section. I love how my repetition-hating kid will embrace a re-run of the BA guide! He thinks through the embedded problems every time. And of course, some days we just choose "the really interesting green books" and have a conversation about what the Borac competitive math books are showing us today. :)

 

By ability and by choice and by circumstance, we're not nearly as accelerated as some. But I feel confident my kid is working at the level he needs to be. :)

 

As an aside I will offer my favorite quotation on the concept of being so good at math that you just fly right through it. "Mathematics isn't meant to be easy; it's meant to be interesting." At the very least I'd get *something* into your routine that your bright little one can really chew on, so she can start getting a taste for *mathematics* and not just "doing math problems".

[zenjenn]

My approach was to have a requisite amount of *time* spent on math each day. Throughout Kinder and 1st I noticed my mathy child was finishing in 10-15 minutes what used to take my older child FAR longer to complete. 

 

I let her get away with just doing her math fast and moving on to other things through K/1, but in 2nd grade I started requiring at least 30 minutes spent on math a day. Then it was bumped up to 45, and now (in 3rd) it's an hour.

 

The upshot of that was she ended up doing 2 or 3 math lessons a day (and some of those lessons weren't even meant to be done in one day). Everything seemed trivial for a while but eventually she "caught up" to a level of math where the acceleration is not at such a frenzied pace. Based on past trends, projecting it is likely that she will be starting Algebra in 5th grade, at which point she'll be paced at the intended rate of those classes (keeping in mind that pacing is intended for teenagers.) We'll have to re-evaluate what happens after that,

 

I *occasionally* do let her skip (sometimes assignments for elementary school students demand a level of repetition that is just useless and tedious for a child who doesn't need the repetition to 'get it'), but I never let her skip any topic. I felt it was important to make sure she covered every topic in the curriculum to make sure there weren't any gaps. But yeah, once a kid can consistently read a clock, there was no need to keep revisiting the topic - "You learned to read a clock the first time, and you still remember how to read a clock. Skip and move on!"

[Crimson Wife]

In general I believe in going "deeper" rather than faster. So my kids are only mildly accelerated (about 1.5-2 years above grade level) but I use more rigorous programs (Singapore "Intensive Practice", Beast Academy, etc.) to try to up the challenge level.

 

I did skip Singapore PM 6 except for a few chapters in 6B on probability & stats that we wouldn't get to in DM 7 until after the state mandated test (we did those to keep our charter school happy). SM 6 is mostly a review for the big secondary school placement exam in Singapore. However, after DD finished DM 7B, I felt she needed more work on certain pre-algebra topics. PM 6 was too easy after DM 7 so I did a quick run-through of selected units from MEP years 7-9 using the Express (honors level) track questions. I gave the MEP placement tests and any concepts where she struggled, those were the units we did.

[deerforest]

I'll be honest. We've done very little "real" math curricula here. She got math concepts very early on, but she completely froze up when math became more operational. She was frustrated with trying to memorize facts, etc. So, after dabbling a bit in Rightstart, I just finally stepped back and did nothing but living math. We pulled from so many things--books, documentaries, videos online, games, puzzles, word problems, manipulatives, etc. It was one of my more successful homeschooling decisions, and about midway through it, BA came out. It was our math holy grail. It wasn't that it was immediately easy for her--she struggled with some of the problems at times. But, it was the perfect combination of everything for her--no boring, repetitive practice, challenging puzzles, a chance to figure things out before I did (which she did often!), fun comic book. It was a beautiful thing.

 

I purposely took it very slow because I continued with the living math approach, constantly pulling in other sources like Danica McKellar, Key to, anything I could find. She loved the variety and depth and rabbit trails. But, we finally finished 4A around the holidays, and I was stumped.

 

We did some more meandering and I finally started Singapore 5A, and we're flying through it. Yesterday she told me, "Yea, it just clicked so now it's boring." She's highly aware of both her understanding, her computational skills, and her limits. So, I try to listen and respect her perspective.

 

We do a lot of "math across the curriculum" I guess you would say. For example, just today we did a bunch of pi-related things, history: "Why Pi", some Archimedes reading; literature and poetry: "Pi in the Sky", "Math Talk"; art and music: Vi-Hart pi videos (or rather, tau for the most part), Danica McKellar pi videos, etc. Much of this was review, but she still loved it.

 

She's not nearly as advanced in her math curriculum as other kids here, but she's easily about a year ahead, and I feel we have gone off on so many rabbit trails that she has a really sold math basis.

 

[EKS]

I used Singapore math and accelerated by using the textbook only.  If my son could explain to me how to do whatever it was and do the hardest of the practice problems right with no issues then we would move to the next section.  This way we weren't skipping anything but we also weren't mired in too easy material for too long.  He went very quickly this way for about a year, then slowed down for a while to a one level per year pace and then sped up to double speed again.  He finished 6A in the fall of 3rd grade.  We wandered about a bit for the rest of 3rd grade and then did a good prealgebra program over the course of about six months in 4th grade.  He did Algebra I course the next year at the normal pace and is currently in geometry going at the normal pace.  I expect that we may actually slow down after Algebra II next year and do precalculus over two years (but my predictions about such things are generally wrong).

 

FWIW, my son is not particularly gifted in math (he's more globally gifted).

 

Anyway, my point here is that you may need to accelerate quite a bit now to get to the point where your child is learning mostly new material but be prepared to adjust your pace as her needs change.  It is difficult to predict what their pace will be next year, let alone several years down the road.

 

Another thing is that it is important that she understands the concepts and isn't just memorizing procedures.  My son was similar in that he could see patterns very easily and so could seem to understand by just glancing at worked examples, but then I would discover that he really didn't get the underlying concept.

[zenjenn]

 

 

In general I believe in going "deeper" rather than faster. So my kids are only mildly accelerated (about 1.5-2 years above grade level) but I use more rigorous programs (Singapore "Intensive Practice", Beast Academy, etc.) to try to up the challenge level.

 

I actually believe that too, and my kids are roughly the same age as yours. On paper my youngest is only about the same 'ahead' depending on how you look at it, you could say 3 yrs ahead. What 'grade level' is widely variable, as even in public schools most kids are operating a wide span in any given grade. (I know public schools system there can be students starting Algebra anywhere from 7th-10th grade and still be considered college-bound.) So youngest DD is currently doing Math Mammoth a little more than 1.5 yrs ahead but I consider MM rigorous.

 

But the early elementary stuff - there's only so much 'depth' that is possible to basic operations. A lot of accelerated math students 'get it' intuitively and can apply it to a wide variety of situations (word problems) and even work the problems mentally. If a child is there, a lot of the 'depth' exercises are intended to develop a skill that the math-gifted child already has intuitively. There's really little use belaboring basic operations if that's the case. Even fractions are as intuitive as basic operations to the child who 'gets it' on an intuitive level.

 

To even ge* 2-3 years ahead, there has to be some *fast* acceleration happening. That's absolutely what public schools do, too - if their teachers are good anyways. They start skipping the kids with intuitive math understanding ahead so that by the time they get to middle and high (when unlike most other subjects, math classes are usually skill-based and not age-based), the student can take the highest possible math class they are capable of taking. The most math-gifted students in a good system will even be moving on to college math in mid-late high school.

[sunnyday]

But the early elementary stuff - there's only so much 'depth' that is possible to basic operations. A lot of accelerated math students 'get it' intuitively and can apply it to a wide variety of situations (word problems) and even work the problems mentally. If a child is there, a lot of the 'depth' exercises are intended to develop a skill that the math-gifted child already has intuitively. There's really little use belaboring basic operations if that's the case. Even fractions are as intuitive as basic operations to the child who 'gets it' on an intuitive level.

 

I disagree. It is definitely possible to apply higher order thinking (and I don't mean word problems) and do legitimate problem-solving with mathematical problems that require only the four elementary operations. It is also possible to branch out to math other than addition and subtraction (geometry, number theory, counting, patterns, combinatorics) with a student who's not yet formally approached multiplication or division, for example.

 

Now, as to whether the student will get the most benefit if they get higher-order problems while concepts are still new or if it's just as good to cover a lot of concepts with straightforward exercises and then save problem-solving fun for a supplement after the fact...I'm sure there's a lot of different cases to be made. At the moment I find I'm most comfortable playing with concepts as they arise and while they're still new, so that, say, addition and subtraction are "what we can use to figure out digit sums and order of operations" rather than just being "that baby stuff we have to get over with before we get to algebra and calculus."

[MEmama]

Your daughter is what, 6? I think if she's content and enjoying her work you have nothing to worry about. Some kids just intuitively understand new concepts; my son is that way and trying to force a different pace simply wouldn't work. We didn't (and still don't) time his math sessions or go by pages completed; he just does as much as has the mental capacity for that day. That has meant sometimes he'll work for 2 hours, sometimes it's for just half an hour. As long as he's engaged and getting it, the rest doesn't matter.

 

I'd say just let her go. Right now, she needs to be enjoying schoolwork--it isn't a competition to get her to algebra at eight. Even if she could--why? Unless she's pressing for it, of course, but it doesn't sound like she is. A happy student is priceless, kwim?

[Paige]

Your daughter is what, 6? I think if she's content and enjoying her work you have nothing to worry about. Some kids just intuitively understand new concepts; my son is that way and trying to force a different pace simply wouldn't work. We didn't (and still don't) time his math sessions or go by pages completed; he just does as much as has the mental capacity for that day. That has meant sometimes he'll work for 2 hours, sometimes it's for just half an hour. As long as he's engaged and getting it, the rest doesn't matter.

 

I'd say just let her go. Right now, she needs to be enjoying schoolwork--it isn't a competition to get her to algebra at eight. Even if she could--why? Unless she's pressing for it, of course, but it doesn't sound like she is. A happy student is priceless, kwim?

I do get that...I'm not in a rush and it would cause some upset feelings if she outpaced her older siblings who struggle in math. My only concerns are that I don't want to waste our time and have her bored. I think people with an aptitude for something generally will enjoy it if placed in the right level. If she's working below her abilities, it may get tedious and boring and I would feel like I failed to encourage her. It would be like forcing a gifted pianist to play scales all day- pretty soon she may hate piano. I can already see this starting with DD as she makes comments about how easy and dumb her math work is and she can't believe she has to do "this" again. She's happy to be done with it quickly- happy that she's good at it- happy that it's easy- but she's not interested in it anymore. She's much more interested in spelling, for instance, because while she also does well in that, she doesn't know every answer the first time. She likes doing Dreambox still, probably because it is a more appropriate level for her. I had no idea she was doing 3rd grade work until this week because I almost never log in to the parent account. It was a sign to me, that maybe what we're doing is not enough.

 

If I left it up to her, she would never do MM. I think she fills in the pages to humor me. I gave her pages (like the other kids) because she's motivated by the possibility of getting her work done early. I think her work load is pretty light- maybe 2 hours total if it was done all at once. In reality, she takes longer because of frequent breaks to play while I'm helping her siblings. I like the idea of having her do the chapter reviews to see what she needs and what she already knows. I wish I hadn't already printed the whole thing out! We could also do some more games and number puzzles. She might like sudoku, mazes, and dot to dots.

[MEmama]

2 hours a day for schoolwork at her age sounds just about right for most kids. :)

 

It can be a challenge to find the right level for accelerated kids; I think I've done okay with math, but for other things I'm often unsure how to find the right balance. I like the chapter review suggestion too, and sorta wish I'd done that with my DS.

 

I think it's okay to skip ahead right now. MM will go over everything again in MM3, so if she's missed out on some terminology or basic concept, she'll have plenty of opportunity to pick it up then. It doesn't sound like coming across an unfamiliar idea or term will stump her in any way. Or if you prefer to use up what you already have, you can have her just do one or two problems per page/ concept until she gets to something new. I'm sure you've noticed that the last problems tend to be the more difficult.

 

Have you had her take a placement test to see if another level might be more appropriate? You can find them on the MM site (sorry if that's already been mentioned).

 

I think it sounds like you are on the right path making sure she doesn't get bored. It should be fun, but also stimulating. Good luck!

[Crimson Wife]

it would cause some upset feelings if she outpaced her older siblings who struggle in math.

This is a reason IMHO to consider having her in a different program. Maybe try MEP 2 since it's a free download.

[ebunny]

I do get that...I'm not in a rush and it would cause some upset feelings if she outpaced her older siblings who struggle in math. My only concerns are that I don't want to waste our time and have her bored. I think people with an aptitude for something generally will enjoy it if placed in the right level. If she's working below her abilities, it may get tedious and boring and I would feel like I failed to encourage her. It would be like forcing a gifted pianist to play scales all day- pretty soon she may hate piano. I can already see this starting with DD as she makes comments about how easy and dumb her math work is and she can't believe she has to do "this" again. She's happy to be done with it quickly- happy that she's good at it- happy that it's easy- but she's not interested in it anymore. She's much more interested in spelling, for instance, because while she also does well in that, she doesn't know every answer the first time. She likes doing Dreambox still, probably because it is a more appropriate level for her. I had no idea she was doing 3rd grade work until this week because I almost never log in to the parent account. It was a sign to me, that maybe what we're doing is not enough.

 

If I left it up to her, she would never do MM. I think she fills in the pages to humor me. I gave her pages (like the other kids) because she's motivated by the possibility of getting her work done early. I think her work load is pretty light- maybe 2 hours total if it was done all at once. In reality, she takes longer because of frequent breaks to play while I'm helping her siblings. I like the idea of having her do the chapter reviews to see what she needs and what she already knows. I wish I hadn't already printed the whole thing out! We could also do some more games and number puzzles. She might like sudoku, mazes, and dot to dots.

 

As  a PP suggested, try a program different from what her siblings are working on. I second the suggestion of MEP.

 

wrt only the Arithmetic computations/calculations part---I accelerated my DD by having her do half the computations required. i.e. 10 instead of 20. For every error, I had her practice one problem addressing that error.

 

But we also went lateral with enrichment---She played with Sudoku, Kakuro... lot of board games- Monopoly, Connect 4, Blokus, Scotland Yard, Chess.. We also did Origami and watched a lot of math videos on Number sequences and number theory. I integrated history and science into Math by reading about Pythagoras, Euclid and closer home- Aryabhatta and Bhaskar.

 

 

So, worksheets was only one strand of her math 'curriculum', so to speak.

 

But, I have an only child and I don't know how do-able what I suggested is, given that you will be juggling the needs of her siblings..

 

HTH

[kohlby]

We waited until legal first grade age to start any formal curriculums, and then just math.  But, I'm a former math teacher so we likely worked a lot of math naturally into regular life without realizing it.  We used Math-U-See starting in first grade.  It's set up in a way that it's very easy to do every single lesson and move quickly.  Or slow down.  The slowing down is important too - since even advanced kids sometimes need to slow down!  I followed my children's leads.  In first grade, they finished 3.5 books.  My eldest loved MUS so we continued on.  He was in MUS Alg I by 3rd grade.  But MUS was watered down at that point, so we started AoPS Intro to Alg at the start of 4th grade instead.  That helped slow him down and gave him wonderful depth.  We don't worry about where we'll get when.  We figure it out as we go - but we don't skip.  My middle child was a little different.  MUS started stressing her out despite her success with it.  So, we switched to Life of Fred, actually going all the way back to the very first LoF book though it was way below her level for at least 6 months.  But she loved it - and loving math was as important to me as understanding math.  She finished 10 elem books, 3 intermediate books, and fractions all in under a year.  (LoF isn't one book a year pace for the elem though - but she still easily did more than twice what the norm is).  She's in Decimals now so I expect she'll be in Pre-Alg next year, in 3rd grade.  She gets stressed easily though, so we had to change our approach completely.  I wouldn't be surprised if there comes a point where we need to put away the curriculums and work on something else.  However, she also gets terribly stressed if we don't continue on with her initial plan, so it's a balancing act! 

 

I agree with trying a different curriculum than her siblings.  Even though I have two gifted math students, they learn in completely different ways.  Part of the stress problems was that the second child felt like she should do the exact same thing as her brother.  He was in a different curriculum by the time she started formal math, but she still wanted to do exactly what he did in first grade or more. It took a lot of tears and convincing to get her to try out Life of Fred.  At first, she would only do it one day a week - even though she loved it.  But she had a plan for MUS and it was hard to get her to break it.  (This is also my child who has to be in bed at 7:01 to read and lights out at 7:16.  If it's 7:02, and reading has not started yet, she freaks out and goes right to bed. So, perhaps not quite the norm!  But it shows you how I couldn't just follow what she wanted completely, since one curriculum was stressing her out).

[AK_Mom4]

Dd12 does her schoolwork because it's required, not because she likes it. Schoolwork gets in the way of all the other things she would rather do with her day (mostly music and drawing).

 

We did the whole acceleration thing a bit differently from the preious sters - we mostly used Saxon and we skipped books. We started homeschooling her in second grade with 5th grade math because that's where she placed. We did Horizons 5, Saxon 6/5, 8/7, Alg 1, Geometry and now have switched to Foerster for Alg 2. Up until this year, Dd has always finished the books well before the end of our school year, so we would do fun stuff - CWP and brain teasers and such. Alg 2 took a bit longer some will have to keep plugging along to be ready for pre calc in the fall.

 

Science curriculum is fun for DD but it never lasts more than a couple of months because she devours them and then we go back to free-reading on whatever subject interests her. Literature now is mostly high school books with an occasional adventure into jr. High lit books to cover specific topics (like poetry). She is a very good writer, so mostly we just worked on various types of essay writing the last few years. In the early years, we sped thru LLATL and Easy Grammar, usually two or three levels a year.

 

Which is just to say... There seems to be lots of ways to accelerate. I always get great ideas from this board!

[MotherOfBoys]

MM1 and MM2 is too many baby steps for my son. We accelerate by giving the end of chapter test at the beginning of the week. I take the results from that and print off the pages he needs to fill in the blanks. I don't let the test overwhelm him. I sit with him and if there is questions or something I make a mental note of it. When he's done I take the paper and write down the notes so he doesn't see, to not hurt feelings, and go print what we need for the rest of the week. If it's perfect we will do the next chapters test the next day. He's used to getting everything right and I hate that, I want him to think. Right or wrong I don't care, just use your brain. The nice thing about mm is I can come back to something if I make a mistake of moving too fast.

 

I also like that I can print reviews. I combine mm chapters if they are too little and he wants to know more. Like place value is also discussed in grade three? So I mixed that into an earlier grade so it's a bigger chunk. Same with money, time, and shapes. They discuss it over a couple years so I pulled the chapters together and did it verbally, worksheets, white board, and manipulative s. I will review it in later grades when we get to it (pretesting the chapter). I do assign all the word problems but I will scribe or whiteboard it. I also read the chapter overview that she writes to see what the main points are and if there is something I might over look. Like chapter 3 is to memorize facts. Well that's already done with flashcards and tablet games. 

 

We do verbal math books one and two in the car. I'm going to do zaccaro primary challenge math this summer and work on multiplication facts games. Then mm3 in the fall. It seems to be working but I do want zaccaro or verbal or beast included. I guess as a way of double checking.

[boscopup]

My oldest accelerated through MM. I would teach the concept, have him do a few problems so I could see how easily he got it, and then I'd assign the number of problems I thought he needed. Usually that was half or less of the problems on the page. I eventually switched him to Singapore because MM was *too* incremental. He didn't need all the teeny tiny steps laid out for him. In MM 1 and 2, I also used chapter tests to determine if he could skip a chapter. I don't think I skipped any chapters in 3 or 4 (we switched to Singapore after long division in 4B).

 

My middle son is in first grade now. He's doing a combination of boring CLE 200, complete with speed drills and flash cards :D, and Beast Academy 3. If your DD is doing 3rd grade level math on Dreambox, BA would be a good choice. It may slow her down a bit, plus it's going much deeper than most programs do. My son is halfway through 3B right now and loving it. We do 2 practice pages per day, since we're also doing CLE. That way, we shouldn't run into a problem with the publication schedule anytime soon.

 

I also wouldn't hold her back because her older siblings struggle. Use it as a teaching moment. My 4.5 year old reads better than my 7 year old. The 7 year old has had to learn that it's ok for someone else to be better than him at something. We all have strengths and weaknesses. It's not fair to make the gifted child work at a lower level because a sibling is struggling. Put them in different curricula, but also talk about the character issue if need be. Frankly, the competition has actually been good for my 7 year old. He's working harder at reading because the 4.5 year old reads so much better than he does. ;) It's been a good lesson in working hard, and now he's seeing the fruits of his labor. I don't allow the 4.5 year old to boast about his reading ability, but I also don't allow the 7 year old to pout about it. There is too much jealousy in this world, and I'm not going to foster it in my kids. Just like I don't care if someone has a house 4x the price of mine, my 7 year old doesn't need to care that his baby brother reads better at the moment. In either case, jealousy isn't helpful. I'm happy for the person with the bigger/nicer/more-expensive house, and my 7 year old should be happy for the 4.5 year old. He should do his best and not worry about what other people are doing.

[The Governess]

A few things I have done (not all at the same time, but here and there)

 

1) work straight through a single curriculum and do multiple lessons in one day if she is getting the concepts quickly

 

2) work on the "basic math" for a set amount of time, and follow up with "fun math" afterwards, which could be more advanced/go deeper (hands-on equations, life of Fred, etc....)

 

3) work through two years of a curriculum simultaneously- as an example, we got through Singapore levels 3 and 4 in one year. I used level 4 as her main curriculum and then added lessons/problems from level 3 here and there when it was necessary to cover a previously taught concept before introducing the level 4 material.

 

4) use multiple programs at the same level that approach topics differently to mix things up