Ladies and gents, I need your help please! I'm wiped out and need some veteran parenting advice on new activities I can introduce to DS.

Over the last month, my sweet DS20mo has morphed from tornado into typhoon. He's all over symbolic representation like white on rice...numbers, phonetic decoding, IDing vehicle makes and models by decal...and analogies. Everything is an analogy. For example, "I want to hang upside down from ceiling and spin like pile driver."

Thankfully, he's self hot-housing so I can sit idly by and goggle at him occasionally while I take a mental vacation to Kathmandu for 2 minutes. (I was gently called out on this yesterday by DS with a, "what's on your mind?") For instance, he's invented a game wherein he uses a toy hammer to hit the letters on book covers to sound out words phonetically in sequence. But Mummy. Must. Watch!! Or else...doom, terror, freak out!

He's that exhausting type who, once he masters something, tosses it aside and checks it off his list forever. He also is a performer and loves to probe into new subject matter with Mummy at his side to answer his every request. Interest-wise, there's no interest whatsoever in physical interlocking puzzles--he gets furious at interlocking pieces that he can't manoeuvre, though he enjoys some on the iPad/laptop.

He's obsessed with garbage trucks, so I'm trying to swing a visit to a local sanitation facility. We also hit the park and paint daily, the library at least once each week, stop to watch local comstruction most days, and visit a local museum at least weekly. He has a few young friends his age, but he grows weary of them quickly. I'm trying to broaden his horizons past garbage trucks for my own sanity (he even talks at length in his sleep about them) and have noticed he's quite interested in our Brio trains again, but more suggestions for self-entertainment options are welcome.

Thanks so much.

Shouldn't mathematics keep him busy for a while?

Or astronomy/cosmology?

Both of those are pretty infinite.

Analogy is a pretty good mode of thought, generally, so he should be able to self entertain there.

Thanks Jon.

Both math and astronomy are on my list, but I'm looking ideally for specific activities therein that he can self-entertain with. He's already somewhat interested in the solar system. In between gulps while nursing yesterday, he said he was thinking about Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, I kid you not, so you're probably on the right track.

This is going to be a tough one for you, I think.

suggesting electronics probably isn't the best way to go but Leapfrog Leappad (we have Leappad2) is what keeps me sane! For DS3.3 it's been his personal speech therapy, learning tool and time killing machine for the last year. It's not just a mindless system. All their games are really learning games. Some of them teach facts about geography, animals, etc (aside from the usual math and language arts)

There's also a game for Leappad that's about the Solar system with facts about the planets, games to practice putting the planets in order, etc.

An old style calculator, the kind that prints. I attribute some of DS7s crazy number sense to hours spent mashing the calculator adding and multiplying numbers.

We've joked that we measure DS age by the number of minutes that pass before he needs an audience. Figure it's been increasing about ten seconds a month.

Since he was a whole word sight reader, magnetic poetry was quite popular for a while. Oh yeah, and almost anything on the TV with closed captioning on.

Oddly an abacus barely caught his attention.

This has been getting a lot of mileage in my house.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0002CYSQ8/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1373150135&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX112_SY192

My boys (2 and 5) like to play with it in the tub. Water really changes the sound.

My DS (now over 6) has had this for a couple of years:
ALEX Water Flutes

It's been fun for him to measure out different amounts of water to see what sound they make.

I'm sorry to say, but I think he's in transition from tub-time to showering.

My baby is growing up.

(Excuse me, but where's the sobbing parent icon?)

Thank you all so much for your input. I'm on my phone right now, but will respond personally as soon as I have the opportunity. It's been a hectic week and your thoughtful feedback has eased my weary soul.

Dance parties in the kitchen!
Sprinklers
Leaf piles
Finger painting on newspapers
Blowing bubbles in the bathtub
Toddler playground equipment
Stackable and connectable toys for building sorting and patterns
Reading (sometimes for hours!)
Hiding goldfish inside easter eggs
Posters covering the walls
Leapfrog singing refrigerator letters and build-a-word toys, and leapfrog videos
Contents of the kitchen cabinets
Puzzles
Slinky
Big cardboard box forts (We made a Space X Dragon with windows, doors, and a ported ceiling that lasted for a month)

Thanks for the suggestion, MK. Which applications would you recommend? If you have experience with the Tag system (we have the world map, human body, and solar system "posters"), how does the tone and delivery of the Leappad material compare? I have a touch of auditory OE and find the Tag materials grating, so they get very little use. If you have any good iPad app recommendations, I'd also be curious to hear those!

Thanks for sharing!

Portia, thank you, thank you, thank you! You have some really creative ideas in that list that I will definitely leverage (as well as your pipe joints idea from another thread a few weeks ago)!

I also am truly grateful for you commiseration with the exhaustion. It's such a fun age, and I wake up every morning excited for the new day, but the fatigue is cumulative and compounded by the fact that:

A) I'm doing another grad degree part-time for fun,
B) DS is a co-sleeper who still wakes about 2-3 times per night to nurse, and
C) We live in a 900sqft condo in the heart of a big city, so we're always right on top of each other at home

So thank you for validating that the great privilege and joy of parenting these sorts of children doesn't come without a parental cost. Up until recently, even DH and family were skeptical of my claims that parenting DS is exhausting. I'm a high energy person, but DS definitely outpaces his slightly less extroverted mother.

Idea-wise, we are definitely on the same wavelength because I had Scrabble in mind, but was trying to devise an ability-appropriate hack for DS. You have the elegant solution I needed.

I also particularly like how your suggestions are multi-sensory...music, tastings, experimenting with pigments...these will satisfy DS' inquisitive mind and provide a nice variety. He's a soulful, imaginative child with a mechanical bent. We have a void in our schedule because our music class has recessed for the summer, and that was a source of real enjoyment for us both, so those ideas will inject a bit of creativity into our days again.

The chemistry/Presidents type knowledge might be a bit early for DS yet, but I can see him warming to that sort of more detailed information in a few months.

He's fascinated by categorizing dinosaurs, so we do a lot of excavation in our sandbox, visit the dinosaurs at the museum, etc. The extent of his information isn't too broad yet-- just name, diet, special features, and biped/quadruped for maybe 50-60 dinosaurs. We haven't really touched on geography or time period, though he's starting to take some interest in geography now.

Aviation might be an easy sell, as we'll be visiting my parents (my father is a retired fighter pilot) in a few weeks. Grandpa would be happy to talk shop with a new audience.

Your elements tree could easily become a paleontogy exhibit at home, or a display of various tools and vehicles. Come to think of it, I may be putting too much focus on creating media for DS' use, with the end as the goal rather than the process. Giving DS ownership of the project would help foster a bit more self-reliance, I think. Hmm...time for me to shift from leader to facilitator.

Thanks again, Portia.

I think my parents have an accounting calculator at their house that is never used. We'll give it a shot!

And re: audiences, I read you loud and clear. Thanks for the reassurance that we're not alone.

Thanks KJP! We've been learning about vacuums and gravity in the tub lately, but they're getting old. I can see DS enjoying this.

Thanks for the ideas, Jenna!

MotherofToddler, just wanted to say thanks for your feedback too, though it seems to have disappeared!

Aww...*passes the tissues*

Those flutes are nifty looking. I think we'll be buying those.

Don't forget sink/float experiments in the tub.

All over it.

Oy vey! 90 minute sleep increments! Portia, I'm officially giving you a medal. That's rough. I hope your DH threw you a parade daily for that commitment. That's a ridiculously difficult load to place on one person. DS will sometimes wake 4-5 times per night, by we seem to have hit a phase where he sleeps in 3 hour blocks. It feels heavenly.

My main strategies have been:
- Batch cook on the weekend
- Include DS in activities
- Sleep whenever humanly possible
- Place readings under pillow for subliminal learning (LOL). Seriously, I'm glad I've evolved to need little effort for grad school, because it only gets about 2% of my time. Literally.
- Go to the park daily for PT...DS needs the physical release, plus it's such a wonderfully open-ended activity. We'll easily be there for 2 hours just running and creating imaginary sequences.

I think we're going to start doing scavenger hunts at home, too. We do "I Spy" type games when we go for walks around town, but I'd like to use our own little oasis more creatively. Your DS is a very fortunate boy to have such a playful and interesting Mama. I hope you know that.

These ideas are fun! You're energizing me and rekindling that spirit of play, which is exactly what I needed. I was staring to feel like an adult which, categorically, I am not.

Re: music, I'm proud to say that DS is a rocker like his mother. He also has a taste for metal, which tickles me to no end, but this is softened by his love of Debussy and all things cello. The first video he ever watched was a 40 minute philharmonic performance with close-ups of the different instruments around 9 months, with him shouting out the instrument names. Does your DS play an instrument?

Re: only childhood, I don't think I could bring myself to have another child at least until DS is kindergarten or elementary age. I couldn't take another equally labour intensive child so soon. We deliberately started our family young to buy flexibility down the road. I would love to have another child (or two!) if I could be reasonably assured of my sanity (or maintaining my lack thereof...).

So glad I twisted your arm.

hi aquinas!

i don't know if i have a lot of advice, but i sure do have all the empathy in the world for you.

DD was like this, too - i found the time between 1 and 3 years was the craziest. everything was investigated, and then it was done. my favourite was a maze game that they assured me at the toy store that it was 8+ and included a lot of high-difficulty settings. she literally squealed when she saw it, tweaked the settings for the hardest one, flipped it upside down and solved it backwards in about 10 seconds: she was not yet 3. so... at $2/sec - not the most cost-effective, but i sure learned a lesson about toys!

we lucked into an older peer group in the early years through Montessori and her dance classes - so that has really helped us with the problem of finding proper friends. i really feel your pain on the age-peer front - it can be ok on a superficial level, for limited periods... but not all the time.

i think the best thing we did was to institute some form of "alone time" every day - it was kind of for her benefit, but it was mostly for our sanity. we started slowly (10-15 minutes, ramping it up gradually) and positioned it as "time where no one will tell you what to do" because that was her currency (and still is.) it was quite hard to get going, especially because she was so little at the time and we had to know she was going to be safe. we had major resistance at first, but in the end it gave everyone a proper break. there's been a nice byproduct, too - it has lengthened her attention span (to literally about 9 hours, if left to her own devices - so now at 5 she can mind herself the entire day if i don't suggest an activity change.)

but i have to say the biggest benefit is that it has given her the time to think freely - which must be so great for a kid who used to be so incredibly angry all the time.

ha - and we never did have a second kid. honestly, i am too tired from this one - and man, it was a relief to know that's a real hazard of this kind of child. for YEARS i thought i was just a giant wimp.

Anyone that thinks that a parent with this kind of kid is a "wimp" for quailing visibly at the thought of adding a newborn to the mix...


hasn't lived with one of these human Tsunamis.

I'm laughing out loud at the $2 per-second toy cost. Oh my. YES.

I'm also nodding at "alone time." We childproofed several areas of the house as well as humanly possible so that this was feasible.

Don't be too surprised when schooling-- even with acceleration, even with GT differentiation, even with all of the other tricks that you can muster-- is a ROUGH, ROUGH road with one of these kids. They are all about mastery and full immersion, and they don't tolerate fools, low-level or repetitive information, or drill well. At all. They want to master and then check it off of some life-list or something. My personal hypothesis when DD was about four was that she was actually an alien who was touring the planet and wanted to pack as much in as possible. This helped me to mentally manage my expectations when she would do the $2/second thing-- and she did. (And how)

The other problem with the longer attention span thing (and this might be advice, and maybe not, because truthfully I'm not sure that I could have survived the alternative)--

if they go into a schooling environment with a 1-3hr attention span (or, heaven help you-- LONGER), this is going to be a huge problem. Schools are set up for 10-minute 'activity' times for kids 4-6yo. Period. Even those things supposedly intended for HG children, it's seldom any better than a 30-40 min stretch, and then it's "stop, do something else, now let's do this different thing instead..."

Which drives kids like this berserk. Just noting that.

someday, HK i will find a post of yours that i don't want to just quote in its entirety.

so YES and double YES on the rough road in school. 1 year was enough for us - the kid literally did go berserk. mercifully, we are beginning homeschooling in the fall to save everyone's sanity - but... ha - now, the evil part of me wishes (not really) that i was sending her back there in september - just to see them try to deal with that 9-hour attention span they said wasn't possible. nothing like summer vacation to give a kid a sense of (intellectual) freedom!

Mana, doubtfulguest, HK, you ladies are terrific. Full stop. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. I truly respect your parenting wisdom and warnings.

During DS' first year, I literally began questioning my own sanity. Nobody but my husband, pediatrician (thank God), and parents believed any of DS' early milestones. Comversations with outsiders began to feel very...ontological. Now DS' traits are so undeniable that only a fool could doubt him. (I can feel you nodding in the future based on your experiences.) The first time he spoke up in his angelic voice, he was 5 months old, and it was "I love you too, read book". Even then, he knew how to get what he wanted...

@Doubtfulguest: the commiseration is just as valuable as the advice, so thank you for sharing your experience. The $2/second heuristic sounds about right, though I cringe at the thought. DS is like a Venus fly trap; one hint of a new morsel of brain candy and he launches his whole body into devouring it whole. I've all but given up on buying books, too, unless they're 25-cent retired library copies. We just finished reading Steig's "Dr. De Soto Goes to Africa" which, last week, seemed too complex a storyline. As was true in your family's case, the only constant is change.

I never thought I'd find myself doing this, but I'm trying to rally some good educational resources to formulate some scenarios once DS becomes school-age. We're a long way off, and I hesitate to become to mentally attached to any one option, but I'm seriously considering starting a private HG+ elementary school with ability-based cohort assignmet. (I know DS is waaaay too young to be tested, but he's tracking a solid Ruf 4+, so I'd bet good money he's HG at a minimum. Both his parents are.)

DH and I both have business backgrounds, and I'm formulating some contacts on the gifted educator side of the equation. We're also located minutes away from a world-renowned university in a province that woefully under services HG+ gifted children. So I'm embarking on this journey hopeful that I can build a dynamic, adaptve learning environment that's designed to roll with the punches dished out by kids like DS, something along the lines of a Canadian Davidson.

If that's not a tall order, I don't know what is!

HK - Ahahahaha.... yes... I heard "DS has trouble with transitions" sooooooo many frigging times.

Have you tried Set? If not, I'd definitely give that a whirl with her.

The alien bit was how I used to describe DD to DW :-)

Yup. 18-24 months was the most trying time for me. DD needed constant interaction. I think I realized that in order to keep my sanity I needed to re-focus my efforts on childproofing the whole house and creating spaces where she could be independent. I wanted to create an independent learner. And, little kids learn by playing.

She had an area for creative play with blocks, wooden animals, and little people, a reading area, a kitchen, and an art table that was always fully stocked. And, I always kept a new project on the dining room table (usually a learning manipulative.) We pared down on toys, and went completely screen free (This works! It is not as simple as this, but simplicity goes a long way in creating a calm environment for kids.) The bed was for snuggling and telling stories, and we did that a lot. And, I had a chair that when sitting in I would read to her nonstop. But, other than that she quickly learned that I was doing my own thing at home. I would set things up, but that was it.

I did do a lot of research on how to set up the spaces and what toys I wanted for her. We invested in quality, open-ended toys, that she would grow up with--hundreds of dollars worth of blocks, 50 or so wooden animals, Fagus trucks, over a hundred magna tiles, a large set of keva planks, beautiful silks, wooden peg people, NiC modular home set, a large enamel tea seat--She has had most of these items for years, some for fours years. We love her toys.

We also spent a lot of time out of the house. In the car she had my full attention, and we played word games. And, we usually visited two museums a week and did kids programming out and about, where again she got my full attention.

I know that by 2.5 she was playing by herself for a good two hours by herself. She now can entertain herself all day. She reads to herself for hours a day, creates these fantastic play scapes and has a huge imagination.

Just getting caught up on this thread and it is amazing to me how many of the suggestions I've tried myself these past few years... and, yes, I'll weigh in as one more and validate that you are not alone -- as you already know! Parenting HG+ kiddos has been exhausting for me! Before I realized that ours are a bit more intense than many of our friends' little ones, I was always stunned. The questions our kiddos are asking are simply more exhaustive... and, thus, exhausting.

We had both the saxoflute and the water flutes and those were huge hits! (Pretty much anything with music is around here, though!) So, lots of singing, dancing... family band is a huge hit... and, as was mentioned by someone, the Dr. Seuss books just lend themselves to singing!

A huge hit for almost 3y.o. is "baking" with colored water. She gets bowls full of different colors of water and tsps, tbsps and cup measures to create with. if needed, I can quickly print out recipes, e.g. 22 tsps "blueberries", 3/4 rose water, etc. She LOVES the counting and measuring!

They've all loved creating the backdrops for stickers, since they get frustrated with the lack of detail in their own sketches at that age. A favorite was creating "habitats" for each animal and adding in animal stickers.

Hmm, when ds6 was about 3.5, i'd give him a cookbook and ask him to select something for snack. He would read dozens of recipes aloud (while i did whatever) before making his selection, which was a life saver! Literally, sometimes he'd read them for almost two hours, providing quite a nice mental break for me.

Hmm, I suppose once DS (PG) could read to himself, things did become a bit easier on me, provided I kept him stocked with non-fiction! (Hang in there!)

Lastly, I'll add that we had our three kids very close together and while I find parenting them to be exhausting, they have way more fun together than they do with any of their other playmates. It has been a blessing that they can keep up with one another!

Oh, and I love your ideas for your school. Can we sign up?

My father taught me and my brother to play blackjack when we were preschoolers, as exercise in counting, addition, and probability. We were instructed to call it "21," though, especially outside the home.

DD9 kicked my butt at Set for the first time this past weekend (she just started playing a few days ago, because I didn't think of it earlier). I have a feeling it won't be the last.

Thanks ellemenope. I'm going to look into all those ideas you suggested.

By dint of the lack of storage/play space in our tiny 900sqft condo, I've had to be vigilant about only picking toys with some longevity. We have a lot of blocks, cars and trucks, a keyboard, Schleich animal figurines, a few puzzles, some simple musical instruments, a Playmobil fire truck, paints and art supplies, and a little Magnadoodle. We also bought a large Snap Circuits kit on speculation. Bookshelves feature prominently in every room except the kitchen and bathrooms! My in-laws have lent us an extensive Brio train set, but we don't have any space for a permanent train table, as it would occupy all our floor space in our downstairs.

The space, or lack thereof, is a challenge because everything has to be assembled and reassembled upon each use. But, c'est la vie. Living in the heart of downtown is only affordable in a condo (a home one block away would conservatively run over $2 million...yikes!), and we want to access the amenities we use extensively without having to take a 1 hour drive whenever we want to go somewhere.

Sounds like we spent our time in school similarly, Mana.

I'm in early stages yet, brainstorming and mobilizing contacts and financial info. The concept is a school that runs to 8th grade, as there are good gifted options in town for 9-12, but which can service students up to an early undergraduate level of study in the upper years.

Key features:
-I'd like a partnership with our nearby university with professor mentors in STEM subjects to provide project oversight for upper year students and to provide field trip opportunities. All classes taught by subject majors, preferably with graduate degrees for material conventionally covered in middle school or later.
- Heavily project and experiment based classes, with a preference on student-led topics. Think: turning your classroom into a mini TED talk within a broader topic.
- Socratic/precept model of instruction for initial subject introduction, with implicit and explicit coaching in rhetoric.
- music partnership with performers/instructors at our national conservatory, and other arts instruction with artists.
- Rotational student involvement in preparing lunches/snacks at the school restaurant, with training from an instructor at the local culinary institute. If space permits, I'd love to have a school garden so students could be involved in food preparation from farm-to-table. I need to think through what this would mean for insurance and student allergies.
- Minimal class blocking, possibly with a morning/afternoon split or full-day classes with extensive free time to allow students to learn what it means to operate in a self-directed flow state.
- Foreign language instruction in a minimum of 1 additional language with native speakers.
- Quiet spaces with natural light, cots and comfortable chairs for solitary reflection, naps, and reading.

PE I need to think about. It's a tricky subject to deliver in an urban setting if you don't have an enormous capital fund.

I love DS. I love being around him and being his teacher, but I know the time will come sooner than I want (and expect) when he'll need resourcing beyond my capabilities, be they intellectual or energy. I'm hopeful that I can create a partnership of educators who "get" the HG+ and can be an extended intellectual and emotional family for DS. That's my dream.

Mama2three, thanks so much for the feedback! Those sound like great activities. I love when the learning in an activity is secondary to enjoyment, as it sounds is the case with your cooking/measuring activities.

Join the school! Right now it's in the ideation phase only. Any input you have on concept or curricular preferences is welcome. My ideas are based on what I would have wanted in my ideal school. I would enjoy creating an environment that actually rewards intellectual curiosity.

And I'm reassured to hear you were able to have a larger family. I would LOVE to have another child, maybe more, when the time is right, so your post gives me great hope.

Portia, we just received shipment of Katamino. Great recommendation; thanks again. DS has already played with it as a puzzle, read the shapes as letters, used the pieces as conventional blocks, turned it into a pretend pizza with assorted toppings, and made it into a birthday cake for his stuffed donkey. All his ideas, and he's in a grouchy flu recovery mood today, too. Wonderful!

Me too! It was fun to see how he interpreted it. It's nice that it's a game that can grow with him.

LOL-- I, too, was a child who learned to play "21" as a preschooler. I never knew it was called anything else until I was in college.

Playdoh. Right around 19 months DS became hooked on playdoh. Initially I would make what he asked. His fine motor precluded too much realism early on, but who needs realism. Still one of his favorite toys at 6. One of the most open ended toys there is. Instead of the tiny jars buy the big plastic bags so there's enough to really make stuff. Encourage color mixing, just squeeze it all up at the end and it makes the dino colors of gray or brown which saves indefinitely in a ziplock. I found making our own never worked well because it eventually went moldy, sticky etc.

Other dino ideas, will need help for some:
Dinosaurs Geopuzzle
Dinosaur Bingo (good from this age)
For Kids Puzzler Deck Dinosaur Science (mix of dino facts and puzzles, some easy like match a pic of back legs onto the right dino). Can't find this on amazon, maybe out of print.
Dinosaur Train PBS online games
Make-A-Saurus Magnetic Activity (nice chunky magnets for little fingers). For the Dino Train fan.
Dinosaurs popup book by Sabuda. If you get one dino popup this is it.
Woodcraft dino kits, inexpensive, save several to mix into new species. Heavy on fine motor. Michael's carries these. Pack into a ziplock nicely.
Zoomorphs or something similar... we have several zoomorph sets and you can mix and match the parts. I don't see the dino set available anymore. There are also magna morphs which are easier on the fine motor for a toddler but I again I dont' see dino. Getting several sets over time has given us years of mileage, still using them at 6, stores into small container.

Polly, thanks so much for the thoughtful compilation of dinosaur ideas! I'm going to look into all of them.

Re: the Play Doh, I've only ever seen the small tubs sold around here. Do the larger format bags have a name that I can google, or are you using another manufacturer's product? Thanks!