Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School 2nd/3rd Grade 2011-2012

Had to laugh about your son losing his diary--DD is starting week 3 of school and has already left her backpack at school, left her coat on the bus, and lost her bus tag. Oy.

She is doing beautifully on her assignments. A little too beautifully, perhaps. I know it's early, but I'm concerned that the level of expectations, while higher than at her previous school, may still be too low. They're still testing and figuring the kids out, though.

She has joined the science club and is super psyched about that. She is also learning chess for the first time (yes, at school!) and is REALLY into it. I don't know if she'll have a knack for it or not, but the complexity and difficulty are really lighting her mind on fire and it's lovely to see.

DS7 had his first day of 3rd grade today, and I think things went well. The first thing he said was that he and another student think that the new teacher is crazy because she's making the kids use planners. (I rather like the planners - it means that we'll finally get to know what the kid is doing in school. He's not one to talk about school. Last year I got the info from his friends...) He brought home some "getting to know you" type writing, and I was shocked by how neat it was, and it filled a whole page! DS has had notoriously poor handwriting, and we were going to work on it over the summer... well, you know how these things go. It got worked on a couple of times. So I was very pleasantly surprised.

RE: losing planners and forgetting backpacks at school... is this NORMAL? I mean, do all kids do this? Are PG kids more prone? I ask because I'm now wondering if what I've been certain is some kind of LD issue may simply be normal 7 y/o boy behavior. He cannot seem to keep more than one to-do in his mind at a time, and sometimes even that is too much. He is always losing and misplacing things. If he puts something down outside, we may never find it again, as he has no clue at all if he even took it outside! Seriously, ladies... I've been ready to have him evaluated over this issue. He's an only child and I'm no expert with children, so if this is normal, please do tell!

Mom2MrQ,

You might want to look at the books

"Smart But Scattered"

and

"Late, Lost, and Unprepared"

for help in taking a closer look at your DCs executive functioning and deciding whether further evaluation is in order. Regardless of whether or not you find that executive functioning is more than a relative weakness for your child, you will find some detailed strategies to help you identify where the breakdown is occurring, and help support and develop executive functioning, which is at least as important as IQ for eventual personal success.

I don't know, but I do know that at least one other child in DS's class of 15 lost her diary on the first day just as he did. It's certainly normal to a degree... really hard to quantify the degree, though.

In DD's case I think we may have been taking care of too many of these things for her and reminding her too much. We are working on transitioning to making her more independent. However, my husband and I both tend to be forgetful, something we cope with by using reminder systems such as calendars that beep at us and cell phone alarms. I am also trying to think of more supports of that nature for DD. Yesterday I wrote "get raincoat" on the back of her hand and she did get it back from the bus driver.

DD8 had her first day of 3rd grade at the new, more gifted-friendly public school. It was agony watching her standing alone against a pillar, her sullen face staring at the ground as her new classmates hugged and greeted each other, when she could have been at her old familiar home school hugging and greeting her old friends.

She seemed better by the end of the day. She mentioned that some of her fellow students had "hard" books on their desks, and when I told her she should bring a book to read between testing, she picked out the heavy science encyclopedia that she has hardly touched. A positive sign! But then last night she already said she wanted to go back to her home school...

These decisions are like giving vaccinations. You know it's probably going to do them good in the long run, but you also know it is going to hurt.

I think some of it is normal 7 year old behavior and some of it is giftie behavior or some of it could be slow/lack of develelopment of executive functioning skills. My DS7 has lost (although they were found) 2 water bottles, forgotten to turn a few things in and has forgotten his homework folder.

My DS attends a HG school and when I emailed the teacher about his homework folder she said not to worry she had a lot of folders left behind and that she was starting to remember why she went to packets once a week last year with her gifted kids. I am not too worried at this point as I do see that he is improving on this as he gets older. And with some procedures in place, he seems to do better. This year is much better in terms of him getting up and remembering all that needs to get done before he goes to school. Before school started we put a post it on the computer and he knows that if he does not remember he can go there and look - he maybe used it two days and has been pretty good since.

I have wanted to read Smart But Scattered for some time and it is on my list to buy as I think it might have really good tips for us. I am really organized, but somehow, I have trouble teaching him to be organized too - I just take care of it. So, like the OP, I am trying really hard to let him do it on his own.

As a small aside....
I once read that you should tell your children

"remember your lunchbox" rather than "don't forget your lunchbox"

or even better "you will remember your lunchbox"

Something about how our brain remembers and executes negative statements..

Feeling a bit gloomy today--after some discussion with DD, it appears the whole class is reading Magic Treehouse for reading and that there is no sign of reading groups. Maybe she has this wrong, but she usually has it right. DD read a vast number of MTH books in reading LAST year in first grade at a nongifted school and they were really too easy for her then. (She is now at a gifted magnet.) We are finishing up week 3 of school, so it's still early, but not THAT early.

Math is also looking way too easy.

I'm hoping this is still because they are working out placement.