After reading the "Life of Fred" thread, I bought the first Fred book to read to my son. He is 5 and preschool ends next week. I was looking for some fun things to read over the summer to keep him stimulated before kindergarten starts in the fall.
We received the first book yesterday and my son kept begging me to read more until we had finished 100 pages- in one sitting. He wanted to read it first thing this morning and we are now almost done. While I'm glad that he loves it so much, I feel a bit conflicted and wanted to check in with others here.
I worry that if we blow through several Fred books this summer that I'm setting my son up to be extra bored in kindergarten next year and that will translate to behavioral issues. My son is already a couple of years ahead of the math that he will be doing in kindergarten. For example, he already understands fractions and has been doing multiplication in his head (including factorials, exponential notation and square roots) for over a year (his dad is a mathematician so they talk about math a lot). On the other hand, a psychologist we work with has urged me to provide opportunities for stimulation in areas that my son is interested in.
The kindergarten my son will be attending in the fall is at a small private school that has a math/science focus so maybe they will be able to differentiate enough to keep him engaged. But I am concerned that if he knows more he will be bored. I want to stress that I'm not pushing my son. We follow his lead and provide access materials that we think will interest him. How do you balance your child's need for stimulation with concern that teaching them too much on your own will lead to problems in school?
