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What is considered to be early math for a 3-yr-old??

From what I have read, I've learned that early math is a sign of high intelligence. DD3 (actually turns 3 in Jan) has been showing signs of what DH and I consider to be early math, but sometimes I feel like we might be over-analyzing DD (yes, sometimes we're still in GT denial, but then again we're so new to this thing).

Here is some of what she does:

1. Has commented on the number of cars in that will be left in the garage if daddy goes to work. For instance, we have two cars and DH will tell DD he's going to work. DD will say, "Daddy's going to work. There's one car left." She started doing this around 2 1/2 years.

2. Adds and subtracts simple math like 1+2, 1+3, 4-1, 3-1, etc. Sometimes she does it in her head, other times we use visual aids like the pieces of a play-doh pizza or raisins.

3. Understands the concept of zero.

4. Completes simple tangrams on her own. (I'm not sure if that's considered math, but it's geometry so I'm assuming it qualifies.)

So I guess we're wondering if this is just your run-of-the-mill GT math for a 3-yr-old?

I read all these posts out there on this forum about these amazing kids everyone has. It seems like all these kids are so incredibly smart that they came out of the womb reciting the encyclopedia and solving theories of quantum mechanics. This makes my GT denial set in -- Is my DD really GT or just "kinda bright"? Because compared to some of the kids you guys out there have, I can't imagine having a child that smart! But then again, maybe I do!

Any thoughts you have about what's considered to be early math for a 3-yr-old would be nice.

Thanks

Nope, that sounds GT to me.

I think ND 3yos are not yet counting reliably with 1-to-1 correspondence, at least not all the way to 10. (In other words, they might have the numbers memorized, but they don't realize that each object corresponds to a number.) Adding and subtracting are beyond them.

The addition and subtraction (especially the subtraction) and the tangrams are the most telling points for me, particularly if she initiates these interactions. The more it's coming from her, the more GT she probably is. (For example, DS7 always drove the train and he's clearly HG+, but we have to ask DS4 for most things because he doesn't intiate school-y conversations as often. Granted, if he's GT, it's more creativity-based than DS7's. But I still don't feel comfortable calling him GT because he's just not as motivated to learn as DS7 was.)

How GT your DD is, I wouldn't hazard a guess. It's a bit early to tell. But especially if she initiates the math talk a lot, I'd feel pretty confident about saying that she's some level of GT.

Sounds like some of the same early stuff that HG+ DS6 was doing at the age of 3. DD4.5 started with the same math stuff closer to age 4. Both my older two chilren took an early interest to tangrams at school once they were in the 3 year-old and older classes and had exposure to them. I really think I should buy a set for DS2 and see how he does since he already loves counting various objects (does up to 3 reliably and as much as 5 or 6 if the mood strikes).

At around 3.5-early 4 both my older two loved playing the balloon game in the car. We would take turns asking how many balloons we would have if we started with 3 and someone came along and popped 2 or we started with 5 and someone came along and gave us 3 more.

I agree with Kriston, based on my limited experience with my own children and their GT status--I would agree that those type of things probably mean some level of GT. The more she initiates the stronger the correlation.

Sometimes DD initiates the math, like talking about the cars in the garage. Or she likes to point out how many of us are wearing blue that day, or how many girls are in the house, etc. But other times, we initiate it. For instance, the other day DH made a play-doh pizza with 8 slices. He gave DD a slice and asked her how many were left. The thing that got us was that she became super enthralled with this game and he had to do it with her for another 10-15 minutes straight, subtracting and adding pizza slices over and over again. We could see DD was really thinking about it and when she's trying to learn a concept, she will do it over and over again (that doesn't seem normal to me, either).

About the tangrams: she annoys the heck out of me because if I am in the room when she pulls out the tangrams, she acts like she needs help. But if I walk into the room after she's already started, she will do them all by herself -- until she realizes I'm in the room! Grr! She does that with other puzzles, too -- drives me nuts.

She asks DH to count to 100 when he gives her a bath and she seems to understand what it means to go by 10's and 1's because she asks specifically for him to do it those ways.

I got together with my DB and his DD (same age as my DD) and the difference is astounding; I'm always amazed just from a scientific standpoint how different the girls are from each other. DN would say, "They made big mess!" Meanwhile, my DD is saying, "Come on, Kaitlynn. I'll hold your hand so you won't get lost." (Yes, she likes to mother other kids who I think she finds on a mentally lower level than her.) I just find it fascinating, the differences between those two. Not to say I don't love DN because she's ND; it's just interesting to watch the differences. I cannot imagine DN doing any of the stuff DD does when it comes to reading, operating the computer, playing boardgames, counting.

Okay, I kind of went off on a tangent there that was unrelated to my original question.

I cannot believe that other 3-yr-olds do not understand 1-to-1 counting -- is that really true? When are kids supposed to know how to do that? I read something that they expect kids to count 10 objects after completing kindergarten -- is that accurate?

Big smile on my face! You are so much like me in the questioning game b/c I believe we are both still in the denial stage. I, too, still can not believe that ND kids count to ten around kindergarten. That seems so far off base for me I can not wrap my head around it. My DD was counting before she turned 1 (an interest she made clear to us while putting on socks one day) so to think they should be understanding it 4+ years later is nuts to me.

And your comment about your DN is what I do everyday we are around other kids, especially some close friends' children. I was just discussing with DH the other night how DD (28 mths) grasped the concept of Santa which was very exciting for us and comparing her to my friends DD (2 mths younger) who still is not close to understanding. It seems a little petty when I get into that mode of comparison, but I think I have concluded that it gives me a reality check for my GT denial.

Well, our pre-K teacher for the 4-5yo class was excited/worried because on the first day of class, pretty much all the kids already had 1-to-1 counting down pat, as well as IDing the letters and writing their names. Apparently this was very unusual, as she told us that she spent the first week trying to figure out what she was going to teach for the year! So I'm pretty sure those are not the norm for 3yos!

She did find some great things to do with them, and the class is a marvelous fit for DS4. I suspect nearly all of the 16 kids (including DS4) are at least MG, and I'd bet money that several are HG+. The moms are not hothousing moms either. It seems that lots of really smart kids (who all get along incredibly well, BTW. SOOOO much fun together!) all stumbled into the same class. Bliss!

Ah, if only we could keep them all together for elementary school. *sigh* I fear this Nirvana only has a shelf life of about 5 more months. Then it will be back to the real world. At least we found each other now, and maybe playdates will help. Four years later, I still arrange playdates for DS7 with a buddy of his from pre-K: a MG boy who was a year older, so the relationship has remained a pretty good fit. Maybe the same will happen for DS4...

Anyway, I digress. Sorry! My point is that I'm pretty doggone sure that 1-to-1 counting is advanced for a 3yo, and simple math is GT. I feel pretty confident in stating this is true.

Kriston,

This really goes back to the highly gifted ratio of kiddos in the school district discussion we had a while back! You seem to have the same thing going on in the preschool. Lucky You to have a nice ratio for your DS. Who knows, maybe it will spill over into the elementary school if you go that route.

Over the holidays we (DD and myself) had a special teaparty with the girls from her dance class and their moms. This would be the first time for the girls to really interact outside of the 1 hour instruction they get every week. All the girls are advanced for the age (2-3) with solid sentence structures. Given that this was a social setting I couldn't tell you more than their ability to verbalize. It is weird how many advanced kids live in our immediate area and when I evaluate them against some of my friends' kids the differences are striking. And this is just in regards to vocabulary abilities.

This does bring up a question that someone might be able to clarify for me. ND verbal ability for a just turned 2 year old? I know that they should be putting together at least 2 word sentences, but is that just reciting words or actually composing sentences to get what they want, such as me milk or want milk? Or should it be more advanced than this? My friend's little girl has some issues which include muddled words that are hard to understand or even made up words, but also has 2 word sentences that for the most part is just reciting back to her DM. She is 26 mths. Her clarity of the words has gotten better. At 24 mths I could only make out about 5 words and now I probably can understand 25 - 30 % of what she says though still not perfect words. Yellow for her use to be yyyyyeeewwwwoooooo strung out to 20 plus syllables but is now down to about 6 syllables and more understandable. I could give more examples but really want to know if she fits in the normal category or below normal and might need testing? Her Ped suggested speech therapy since she was not speaking in 2 word sentence at 24 mths, but gave them the option of waiting 6 mths and they have chose to wait and see. Now that she is 26 mths she has had some improvements but does that put her at norm?

Again sorry to be so off topic here.

Again, I'm not an expert, but this is recent enough in our family's past that I think I'm on solid ground here...

2-word sentences should usually be expressing what the child wants or is doing. "Me milk" or "hold doll" would count. (Pronoun confusion is normal, too.)

At two, I'm pretty sure the "words" don't even really have to be recognizable words to anyone but family. As long as the child uses the same set of sounds consistently applied to an object, that "counts" as a word at age 2. (By 3yo, I believe peditricians would like more than 50% to be recognizable as actual words to other people, as well as the use of 3-word sentences.)

You probably already know this, but just in case, I'll point out that some of that language stuff with a 2yo is just the rate at which the child's throat and larynx develop. Because the physical changes necessary to produce language may come later in some kids, speech may come later for reasons that have nothing to do with intelligence and that will not be helped by speech therapy.

I have a friend with a just-2yo who is HG+ or I'll eat my hat. He's a whirling dervish and is clearly very, very smart, but he's saying almost nothing yet. It's clear that he's trying, and he understands virtually everything said around him, but he can't make the sounds correctly yet. Late talking runs in his family, too, so he's just sort of destined to talk late. I predict that in a year, though, he'll be speaking in paragraphs...paragraphs full of big words, even!

I'd say wait the 6 months if the dr. said that's okay to do and there's no reason to expect problems with speeh, like known birth defects. I mean, 6 months is a quarter of a lifetime for a 2yo! A lot can happen! I think it's way too early to worry.

As for my DS4, you do correctly recall that we supposedly have a high ratio of GT kids in our district, so if DS4 is MG or ND, then that might be enough. Fingers crossed! But he won't be with most of these specific kids, and that's a shame. He's just having such a stellar, happy, productive, fun year! They just all like one another so much. The experience is SOOOOOOO much better than anything DS7 ever had in any school! It restores some of my tarnished faith in school, actually. We had such near-universally blah or downright bad experiences up to this point, with one lone, happy exception, that I was feelng pretty depressed about trying again with child #2. Maybe there is hope for better!

Even so, I don't think this class is the norm around here. Not only because of DS7's experiences, wherein GT kids were NOT all over the place, but also because the other classes in this same pre-K are not like this. In fact, some of the moms of kids that DS4 was in pre-K with last year who are in the 4-day-a-week class were talking with those of us with kids in the 5-day class, and the moms of the 4-day kids are all up in arms because of how far ahead the 5-day kids are. They think it's something the teachers are doing or parental hothousing ("She just won't read. I'm so frustrated! So what books did you use?" Um, maybe she's just not ready to read yet. She is just 4, after all!). Some moms were even talking about trying to switch their kids to the 5-day class mid-year! It was kind of crazy! It looked to me like playground competitiveness at its ickiest.

I suspect (total theory, here!) that the classes wound up being somewhat self-selecting for GTness. The high energy, talkative, GT kids were placed by parents in the 5-day class because the kids seemed to crave it (and to give mom a much-needed break!). The more laid-back, not-so-ready for full-time school ND-ish kids were placed in the 4-day class.

Okay, done digressing... Sorry!

I feel like this often! Ds is in the class equivalent to your K (we in the UK) - but the kids are 4-5. The last week before the holidays they 'introduced addition and subtraction as taking one away or adding one more'; they were singing '10 green bottles', doing things like getting one more car etc, in the 3-4 class they were working on recognising numbers 1-10 and 1:1 counting.

I'm always shocked by the newsletter because my just-turned DD2 can do the 3-4 stuff and my DS4 seems way beyond his class.

Your DD does sound GT from what I've read on here. My DS does the 'i can't do it thing' too.

Can someone explain to my nonGT self what 1 to 1 counting is. I think I have an idea, but I wanted to be sure.