I'll have to keep an eye on him to try to figure it out, but I don't think it could be the first example. If anything, I make sure he isn't being asked to perform simply to show off. We simply do the same projects along side the preschool mom/kid pairs. Since they are made for multiple levels of development (some kids are working on gluing, some on letter recognition, some on letter writing, etc), we are simply doing the activity on the level that is challenging for him. He's not even the most advanced in the room, as there is another little boy who is also very smart but is a year older than DS3. There is no showboating about it and certainly no attempt to draw attention to him for what he's doing. But it is a small room and it has been noticed by a few moms. Really, the only way to prevent that would be to not let him do any learning activities in public, which isn't a solution in my mind.
He might just be playing around. With his shoe thing, he seems to be because he's always grinning as he does it, but I don't give it a lot of extra attention and it still continues. I'm not sure if it's the same reason when we are with this preschool group.
