It went so well. Man, I love this school (and this teacher!) She said there is another child in his class reading around the same level, and in awhile she'd like to group them for a "book club" kind of group. she also told me the three areas she'll be working on, which are the three things I can do at home:
- Understanding more in-depth about a story--the characters' motivation, their feelings, why things happen, etc. She said she doesn't really have a good picture of where he's at yet on that.
- Writing--not really the handwriting part, but the writing of a story. It's such a major component of their curriculum, I love it. There is, of course, a lot of actual writing involved, in addition to the dictation. We're working on getting him to accept some occasional invented spelling. He can see the words in his head, but not always get it out that way, and he gets frustrated. He can dictate a very long story to me, though, and she encouraged us to continue, working on the different components of a story while we do.
- Being able to express what he's reading, as in, answering questions, describing plot, etc. She encouraged me to read with him at home, even though he can read independently (and does read, constantly), so that we can start having more in-depth discussions.
I felt good about the meeting. She "understands" Erik, which is so comforting to see. She knows he's gifted, and she's challenging him daily. She said he's also working a lot on working on a task for 10 minutes, say. The vast majority of their day is some kind of choices time, where they get to choose whatever activity they want. And not in the pseudo-choice, that a lot of schools do, where they get assigned to an area, and they have to stay there until a certain amount of time passes. They can spend the whole time in one area, or move around. But through that they work on staying on a task, too.
Oh, they also have a huge social-emotional curriculum, and that is soooooo good for Erik.
All that in a 15 minute conversation.
I didn't really talk about math. They do "choices" for math, too, with a lot of manipulatives. Erik has such a mathematical mind that I know he gets a lot out of choices time. We'll work on more stuff at home because he loves it, but I think he'll gain a lot of depth during school. They also do a lot of estimation, which isn't something he's been interested in much before. (that's a major facet of the overall math curriculum, as they then count what they estimated, make charts, compare guesses, etc)
Anyway, I feel satisfied that he is being appropriately challenged. He's not at all a behavior problem, which should be a good indication, right? And he loves school, every moment of it.
Thanks for asking, I had forgotten I'd posted.
Long day today.
Military wife of a deployed soldier. 
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