I'm going into the gifted program at my school next year! I'm so happy about this. I don't know how good/fun/interesting the program is, but it's something, anyway.

Raevyn, here's wishing you all the best in your gifted program next year!

If you might be interested in a few tips on student self-advocacy, these are some good links:
1. YouTube video, Davidson Discussions - Self Advocacy
2. Self-Advocacy, The Power of Speaking Up
(Excerpted from this resource on the Davidson Database: Tips for Parents: Preparing your gifted child to leave your nest and build their own)

Thanks. I'll check those out.

The English unit was on the Scottish play. The assignment was a soliloquy, un-rhymed blank verse, from the point of view of one of the characters (not the king). This is generally considered the hardest assignment of the year; my older child, who writes, had found it very challenging. Younger DS, who does not turn in any writing, wrote a sonnet. Enjoyed doing it. And turned it in. A true sonnet (well, one variation in one of the lines) It was excellent. It brought tears to my eyes. It was shared around his team, and all agreed it sounds exactly like DS, with depth and honesty and insight. 100% and skyrocketed his grade from an "F--"to a solid "D".

(Maybe that last part belongs in "quirky anecdotes", or perhaps "general support/headbang".)

NorthernBen. That's wonderful. Yep our kids can do wonderful things when they are interesting in the subject.

I have something on that lines my DS17 did last week while I was out of town. My husband reports to me that DS needed to bring in a food/drink for his Spanish class. He decided to make a Peruvian drink that we get at a local restaurant. He found a recipe online, figured out he couldn't buy one of the ingredients at the local stores. Found a store in a neighboring area, drove himself to the store and found the missing unusual ingredient. My husband came home to find him boiling up the drink on the stove. It came out well for a first attempt. Although he did turn a lot of pots purple. And he got a 100% on the project. This type of thing make me feel my kid is going to be successful at life even if he doesn't get the best of grades.

Bluemagic, that's wonderful! Again, when they are interested and come up with it on their own, they are wondrous. I hope he saved some for you

July 9, 2012, aka the Day I Knew I Was in Trouble.

My kid was enjoying Free Play at Gymboree. He wandered over to the wiggly funhouse mirror. Catching sight of himself, he said, "Youuuuu!"

Pause.

"V! W! X! Y! Z!"

And then he wandered away to play with something else.

I sat there and grappled with the realization that my 22-month-old had come up with his first pun.

That's a pretty good indicator for how things have gone, before and since. He is a hoot. Challenging as heck, and hard to stay ahead of, but a hoot.

dd12 finishing up 6th grade just received the Presidents award for academic excellence!

During a family game of Yahtzee last night, my 7 year old/1st grader and I had a brief conversation about addition/multiplication being commutative vs. not commutative (a concept she knew about), which led to telling her that negative numbers are a thing that exist, and I drew out a little number line from -10 to 10 and showed her 2 - 5 = -3. I thought nothing more of it.

This morning, in the middle of her pretend play, she starts reciting "2 - 5 = -3" on repeat so I ask her what 5 - 10 equals. Without hesitation, "-5!" "What's 10 - 11?" "-1!" "3 - 5?" "-2!" I completely wasn't expecting her to actually get it when I explained it over Yahtzee, I just wanted her to know it was a *thing*.

DS6 who is also in grade 1 did the same with division of odd numbers. "What's 3 divided by 2? 5 divided by 2? 7 divided by 2? 9 divided by 2? 101 divided by 2?" He understood that you can divide the even number by two and then divide the extra number in half. And then he said that doing math relaxes him.

Also, last week while we were on vacation (and he was allowed an hour of Minecraft a day) he somehow he worked out the following: "If I am too silly two times, I will lose 10 minutes of Minecraft. So if I'm silly 4 times, I'll lose 20 minutes. He made it all the way up to 12 times he would lose his whole 60 minutes." I think he kept adding 10 for every 2 rather than actually multiplying 12x5, but still.

We're still not sure he's gifted (and have to wait until July to get the results!), but that's not usual for a typical 6 year old, is it? Anyone who has noticed all of my posts will notice that I'm not good with waiting. It must be the ADD.