Here we go again...

About a year and a half ago, when Jake was in first grade, I got a letter from his teacher saying that she thought he should be tested for the (potentially) gifted class. Ben and I had to fill out this packet of questions. It was torture. We spent hours on the questions.

Here are a few I could remember:

-How does your child apply mathematics in everday life?
-How does your child judge what is fair? Give an example
-Has your child used any unusual words, and at what age.
-Does your child prefer to write fiction or non-fiction? Give exmples of things they have written.
-What percentage of the time does your child choose to read as opposed to play outside?

I think there were about four pages of these questions. Needless to say, I was very happy when we found out he made it into the program. The gifted teacher told us that at the end of third grade he would need to go through some testing to see if he was still gifted enough to stay in the gifted program. If he passes all the testing he won't need any further testing as long as we stay in this county. So he'd be in the gifted program through high school.

When this was going on with Jake, I was a little worried that Elise would feel left out. Luckily, it didn't seem to phase her too much. Around the middle of the school year, last year, we got a letter from Elise's teacher about wanting to test her for the gifted program. I was excited for her but not so happy about filling out those forms again. When I say those forms are torture, I am not over-exaggerating. Since Elise was in third grade she had to go through all the testing as well as the forms. On top of the gifted test, she had to take the county SOL test that all third graders have to take. At the end of the school year we got a letter saying that they needed to wait to get the SOL scores and then do further teacher interviews and assessments in fourth grade to see if she would be in the gifted program. I didn't think I would hear until January whether she was accepted into the program.

Today, I had a message on my phone from the gifted teacher. She said that she had gone into school this summer to check Elise's SOL scores. She said that because of Elise's SOL scores, they would need no further testing or teacher assessments. Elise was accepted into the gifted program, and will be starting at the beginning of the school year.

I am so relieved. Elise had been getting really excited about being in the gifted program. It would have been horrible for her to go through all that and not get in.

So, Jake is in third grade this year. We'll have to go through all the testing and forms again at the end of this school year. The teacher said we could use his previous froms. Thank Goodness! I really hope he gets accepted. I think it would be harder on him than it would have been on Elise. He's already spent a year in the program and really liked it.

One down, one to go. That is, until Claire starts school.