Reply to Should I send my kids to mathnasium?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a 5th grader and a 7th grader, both in Algebra I Honors in FCPS.  [b]The 7th grader is a normal, smart kid who is similar to all of the other smart kids in FCPS.  The 5th grader is way beyond that[/b] and is bored in the Algebra class.  Kids who are  more than one year by FCPS are pretty rare, since FCPS doesn't like skipping kids.   [/quote]

That’s not saying much.

Yes. If FCPS is accepting the top 25 percent of a general population. Less than 10 percent of those kids accepted are even actually gifted (top 2 percent) statistically speaking. So maybe 9 kids out of every 100 aap kids. Sometimes will do stand out. [/quote]

That's the point, though.  People have been arguing about whether kids need to sit in a classroom every day to learn Algebra I Honors, and whether a class like AoPS could cover all of the same material.  The normal, smart kids, who are the vast majority of AAP kids, probably need to be in that classroom every day taking FCPS Algebra.  AoPS would move too quickly, not give enough repetition, and make too many intuitive leaps for the regular bright kids. It still might be valuable supplementation, but couldn't stand alone for these kids.

The small fraction of kids who are at the top of AAP would be fine with just the AoPS class.  FCPS will still make those kids sit in a classroom for FCPS Algebra, but it won't benefit the kid in any way.  It's just another bureaucratic hoop that the kids will need to jump through.  I bet the AoPS teacher posting here can tell the difference between the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in Algebra who are highly gifted and will always be far ahead of the FCPS curriculum vs. the ones who just have pushy parents and are only ahead from all of the hothousing.  [/quote]

Op here. My kids both scored 99th percentile on the Cogat and have always been good at math. I’m not sure if my children are highly gifted but I do think they belong in AAP. The third grader that my OP is based on recently got all questions correct on his math test. This is the unit where he was upset that he had a low score on his pretest. So his teacher seems to be teaching him and he is getting it. Ds does not struggle in math. As I mentioned in the OP, he gets 4s in math.

I keep changing my mind on whether we should send DS to math enrichment. Perhaps I will send him over the summer.

My 5th grader is not interested in going to mathnasium. He seems content. He gets good grades. He is busy with science Olympiad and sports right now.[/quote]

OP - explain to your child what the pretest is, explain to him that the kids in his class are doing better not because they are smarter, but because they have already been taught the content outside of school. Explain that as long as he’s learning the material that the teacher is teaching, that he’s doing great.

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