Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School 1st/2nd Grade 2010-2011

Mom2MrQ - I wish that this was the case. Originally I had planned to homeschool during the summer (very casual, just a bit in the AM, beach in the afternoons) but 3 days ago I declared that we were all officially on summer vacation because I thought that my head was going to implode. Since then my DD6 has been cutting up fashion mags obsessively. Fashion magazines!!!! She found a pile for sale at our local library! It's making me crazy but my lips are sealed. She hasn't even been reading, which is very very out of character. Unless you consider the "top ten beauty tips for the fall of 2008" reading. She's 6 did I mention that? She's on some sort of learning/academic strike.

Annaliisa

Yikes!!! Teacher Meet-N-Greet is NEXT Tuesday!!! Man this school year is fast approaching for us!!!

My ds is 6.5 and a December baby, too.


That's quite a transition. A counselor would probably be a good idea just to help him along.

I did the same thing! This is where I've seen the most growth in him, really. I decided that we would take a break for a week. "No, two weeks. Okay, three, but that's it." Here we are going into August and we're probably not going to get going again for two more weeks.


My ds did this same sort of thing right after we stopped schooling at the end of June. He cut paper and crafted for two weeks, and then he moved on to building structures and making several "inventions" per day. He's now made his reentry into the world of books and has been reading a lot this week.

As I watched him cut, paste, color, and glue those first two weeks after we stopped school, and then later move on to the inventions, I realized that he really did need that time down to do whatever his mind could come up with each day. I could see his elation at being free to create whatever he wanted to create. A lot of learning took place this past month doing seemingly mindless activities. So, it's possible that this is really something that your daughter needs right now. Maybe she'll perk up again in a few weeks.

I just want to amen that! This summer has gone by faster than any other that I can recall.

Aww, mine too!

This is what happened with us this summer, too. I intended to do some kind of math and other subject review a few hours a week, but dropped this idea because DS's time has been filled with "unschooling" types of learning. He's doing fabulous creative writing with all of his Harry Potter "wizard camp" ideas, inventing new things with his Legos, and constantly figuring out higher level math problems simply out of curiosity (how many hours in a week? How many days old is his brother? How many years ago was the Declaration of Independence signed?). After we've thrown in taekwondo/soccer/swimming (all using brainpower while learning new gross motor skills), 2 rounds of vacation bible school (character/friends), art camp (fine motor), science camp, and traveling, we've inadvertently filled the summer with lots of engaging activities without the tv/computer (yay!) or workbooks (double-yay!).

Hello! I thought I'd join up and introduce us.

We have DD6 who did K last year through our K12 charter school. Our plan initially was for her to do it for one year then go to the same school her older sister went to. K12 worked out really well for us so not only is DD6 sticking with it, but DD9 opted to leave her private school to school at home as well. We're taking it year by year at this point with both girls.


DD6 finished K and 1st grade math, reading and phonics last year. She is aware that she is doing mostly 2nd grade work so when asked what grade she is in she will say "1st and 2nd". I let her go with it and deal with any possible responses because she is just stating a fact. We've had to deal with some issues similar to this with our older DD. DD9 is coming from a very egalitarian schooling environment with an emphasis on educational political correctness. It was literally, "Don't say X,Y or Z because you might hurt someones feelings.". We had to sit down and gauge which was worse: dealing with people's possible negative responses to a stated fact or dealing with the possible emotional and developmental consequences to our child when we downplayed the truth. We decided that our first priority was to our children. We can not control how people may react to a simple statement of fact but we can control how we model dealing with these situations to our children. This is still a hot-button issue for me though as I am just now coming out of that environment that said we basically needed to hide our DD's intelligence for fear of hurting the feelings of others. It did have an impact on DD9 who was convinced that no one knew she was smart and she lost faith in her educational environment because of it. Because of that experience we stick to the facts and let our kiddos choose how they identify.

Another 6.5 yr old here (early Jan. b-day)!

DS also seems to be a bit on strike. He's been much more interested in drawing and cutting this summer and his creations have been way more intricate, like many multi-headed Hydra, so I suppose it's just something he was ready to do. He's barely reading; he just wants us to read to him. I haven't been pushing it; I'm hoping that he'll get back to reading himself when he's ready.

He is in a full-day camp right now with tons of really cool stuff, so I'm guessing that's part of it.

This may be a little off-topic, because people are really talking more about academics ... but my dd who is only just 6 (summer birthday) has really surprised me this summer with her physical development. While not really delayed, I would previously have considered her average or slightly below in terms of coordination. She's been about on par with her highly athletic 4.5 yo sister.

However, this summer she has really clicked on so many physical things. I hope it doesn't sound like bragging, but I find it really exciting! She learned to ride a bike without training wheels, learned to swim across the deep end, jump and dive off the diving board and hit a tennis ball over the net. She couldn't do any of those things 3 months ago.

Her more cerebral passions (reading, legos, math) don't seem to have suffered, though we haven't seen any major leaps this summer. She did teach herself her multiplication tables because she said she's hoping, "we'll get to move on to some hard math this year in first grade." Fingers crossed...