Lucius, a third grader...

So the second week of school was a real tough one for Lucius. On Monday he came home and was pretty much in tears most of the night. He was so upset about something he couldn't put into words that he told us he didn't want to go to soccer practice. For the kid who loves sports, this was a big deal. At some point during the late afternoon he mentioned how he hated school cause math was too easy. I think his exact words were something to the effect of "I just want to do Multiplication!"

Then much later when he was supposed to be sleeping, he told me he was sad because his friend got to leave the class to go do 4th grade math and that day was the first day his friend left the classroom to do that. I emailed his teacher (we had this problem in Kindergarten as well- because Lucius' favorite subject is Math and he loves challenging math problems). She talked with his second grade teacher and figured out a plan to help him get the challenge he wants.

See his second grade teacher let Lucius and his best friend work independently on advanced math work, as long as they could demonstrate that they understood the second grade standards she was teaching everyone else in the class. They worked so well together that the two of them finished most of the third grade math curriculum while still in second grade. We had no idea till conferences in the spring that he was so far ahead.

All this to say that his new teacher is looking for ways to help him be challenged and one way they are going to do that is by having the gifted and talented person in our school district come to the school and evaluate Lucius, have him take a math test in both 3rd grade and 4th grade level to see where he is at. The data they have on him so far show him in the 94-99 percentile for third grade math and the 82 percentile against 4th graders at the same level. So yeah- this kid loves his math!

I always seem to document more about Oliver, so I just wanted to get this down in my documenting for Lucius. It'll be interesting to see what happens. As long as he is happy and having fun learning, I think it'll all be fine. 

This is Lucius and his buddy. They have been in the same class since kindergarten and are adorable together. They have a super healthy relationship where they can work together without getting super competitive. The school almost put these two in separate classes so that Lucius could be with Oliver's old third grade teacher, but I asked them to move Lucius back so he could stay with his friend. We're getting to know a new teacher, and she seems amazing too. It was more important to keep these two fellows together.