Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Challenging while not teaching too much??

This reminds me of DS8 when he was 4 years old... No need to use workbooks, in my opinion. But I would think it's a good idea to let the kid think about math, or you can think with him about math. I loved math myself when I was a kid (still do), and I took it seriously to nurture mathematical thinking and deep understanding of math concepts. DS ponders about math facts and comes up with insights. For example when he was 4 he got to know the words "even" and "odd" numbers. He thought for a short while and said to me: I figured something out, an odd number plus another odd number always gives you an even number, and an odd number plus an even number always gives an odd number. This is the kind of thinking that I encourage him, and I always have time to listen and discuss when he wants to tell me about his new math "theorem" (and he has lots). I think there is less of a need to teach these kids math facts because they "get it" so fast.

But on the other hand I don't think you should worry about teaching him things in advance. If he wants to learn, let him learn. These mathy kids will not be challenged by regular classroom math anyway. They may be 2 years ahead of their classmates, or 4 years, parents trying to "hold off" really won't make their days at school easier, at least in my experience. I also tried a bit to "hold off" DS and now feel that I shouldn't have.