4th grade completely bored in class
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Anonymous
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Our school system doesn’t do gifted, so that’s not happening even though they are identified as gifted.
Had already topped out on all the Lexile and math work, now ends up just reading like half the days which I guess isn’t the worst as long as we provide them with enough books. The teacher doesn’t seem interested in crafting level appropriate work, and is busy with the large class that is still below level, so without gifted support no one is going to step in it looks like. They were open for us to send in packets or similar to work on. Any recommendations on what we can do to make the best use of time? We are going to stack her backpack with a good selection of books, not sure about worksheets or other stuff? |
Anonymous
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Sorry to hear about that. I have been there. My parents' fix was to move me for 5th Grade to a different school with a stronger curriculum.
Maybe look into all your options for next year's school. And if one parent is at home, seriously consider homeschooling. Every homeschool family I know is doing it for academic reasons, not for religious or philosophic reasons. |
Anonymous
We both work so that’s not an option. Moving to a better school is not really possible. Maybe by middle school we could consider private school. No one has any in class enrichment ideas? |
Anonymous
My kid read her way through 4th and 5th grade. She literally read the Lord of the Rings trilogy one week at school. I really doubted that they were giving her anything at all to do. Middle school got better, but the end of elementary was hard. |
Anonymous
| You could do Russian School of Math and she could bring her homework to school to finish. |
Anonymous
Yeah there are a lot of high need kids, and SOLs start mattering in 3rd and 4th (for the school to maintain accreditation I mean). |
Anonymous
This is what we did for our son. He read his way through 4th grade. Was able to move to a much more demanding school the next year, he was so happy. |
Anonymous
We will look into that. We were hoping for more project based work or creative writing. My older kids were at a push in gifted school and it was amazing. They learned about government and then designed their own countries in 4th grade. |
Anonymous
| ELA should be more than just getting to a Lexile level. They aren’t doing writing assignments or identifying themes etc in stories? Ask the teacher if she can hold your kid to a higher standard, have them write longer assignments, do some outside research on a topic, etc. |
Anonymous
| CTY has online courses starting again in January. My fourth grader did one over the summer and it was a lot of extra reading, research, etc. Might be something she could do in class if she really is being ignored and left to entertain herself. |
Anonymous
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Generally speaking, the Core Knowledge series is excellent. They have a whole series of books What Your ____ Grader Needs to Know. You could start with the 4th grade one:
https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Grader-Needs-Revised-Updated/dp/0553394673 Will she have access to a computer? There are some fantastic websites for instruction and enrichment. What is her math level? I had a mathy daughter, so I can make done suggestions for enrichment, but I’m not sure what “topped out” means in those case. Does she have any specific interests? She could do some in-depth projects or explore some subjects that are outside of the standard curriculum. As other posters have pointed out, you’ll basically be homeschooling her, even though she’ll be at school. You might want to post in the Homeschooling forum for ideas from people with experience in providing their kids a full curriculum. |
Anonymous
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I'm sorry, OP.
That's the age when my gifted kid went into the MCPS elementary school magnet. Before that, she used to bring all sorts of books to read and occasionally her teachers would throw her a more involved math worksheet than the curriculum called for. At home, she read some more and we did Beast Academy (from Art of Problem Solving, excellent math program, highly recommend). DD returned to her home school for middle and high, because the secondary school magnets involved a long bus ride and she didn't want that. She was fast tracked for math (Algebra 1 in 6th), and started a foreign language. In her public school, the English classes are abysmal, so she keeps reading on her chromebook even in 10th grade "Honors" English class - the class has spent a month reading the first pages of Odysseus, so she's going cRaZy and has spent the last month reading 1984, Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (basically, anything she can get her hands on in the online library that's not blocked on the MCPS chromebook). But thankfully, all her other classes are more interesting, because they're all AP level. All of this to say... your child has a long road ahead of her, in terms of getting used to boredom at school. She should think of school as a place to socialize and catch up on her reading 
Also, find challenging non-academic things outside of class. DD started violin at 3, and has become quite proficient at it. She's been in youth orchestras for years and participates in competitions, etc. |
Anonymous
| Let her read the Beast Academy guide at home and bring the workbook with he to school to work on the corresponding lesson during math class. |
Anonymous
| I sent mine to Catholic school for MS after an underwhelming ES program. He read tons of books at school during k-5 after he finished his work and would write down words to look up in the dictionary. He improved his own reading level that way. |
Anonymous
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4th and 5th grades are boring. The only way I can see a student having free time is if he finishes a test early and even that isn’t a lot of time. Teachers talk a lot and write things on the board. The kids get into little groups for projects.
If they are writing essays he can write a longer essay because he has the time. He could be looking at maps at whatever they are focusing on just one continent. |