Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Interesting Drawings

My generic doodle is a bunch of descending arrows.

I have negative art ability

Which means that if I were commissioned to restore art, the result would look like this:

http://www.pri.org/stories/arts-ent...tches-jesus-painting-in-spain-11245.html

Also, I don't think I could pass the Draw-A-Person test.

I've heard various ideas on the roles of right hemisphere/ left hemisphere dominance- here's an interesting discussion of the topic:

http://www.visualspatial.org/files/idvsls.pdf

The link for the Nature by Numbers video is cool! I studied art with Myron Barnestone in PA - he taught the Golden Section/ Ratio and seeing it in action both in nature and in art history was mind-blowing. I hope to teach and inspire my little guy with that stuff when he is ready.

I have previously found Silverman's work less than compelling, and don't consider it to be good science, but rather a bunch of anecdotes and catchy phrases that have helped to make her a household name without reliable support. I wouldn't use handedness as any sort of criterion in determining a child's educational needs, except maybe in choosing a pair of scissors.

So, basically just let him be creative with graph or dot paper? Or give him stuff to copy? Any particular images/ websites you recommend as a starting place? I'm always impressed with how much he can remember visually- one day in church I sketched out a sphere by drawing all 3 central planes in a cube (I learned it from a "truncated sphere" art lesson years ago) He repeated about 3/4 of the steps just from watching me do it. Non-verbal directions, cause we were keeping the boys quiet through the sermon.

I will check out the iPad app. I've been trying to get my husband to allow more time on educational apps for our boys- he thinks they are too young to be responsible. However, now that we have some data to back up the unusual abilities of our DS, he might be a little more open to the idea. I checked out the research project- not sure if anything will spark with a 6YO, but who knows- sometimes I think they are better at stuff because they have more creative freedom due to inexperience when looking at puzzles.

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The message is written on a facebook page and there's a link that takes me to my fb homepage.

Agreed- handedness doesn't determine educational needs. Do you think it has any influence over specific abilities? It's hard for me not to think of it as part of the uniqueness of our DS, as his left-hand dominance was evident at such an early age- we chalked up many of his differences to being a lefty- before we linked them to aptitude.

A lot of the stuff for which Silverman is most famous seems to lack reliable support, including this whole "visual-spatial learner" concept. I see a lot of danger in putting trust in untested concepts like this; it could, for instance, result in someone not working hard enough to find a learning disability, content with the notion that their smart dyslexic child was "just visual-spatial". Silverman appears to buy into a lot of other stuff without solid research support as well, such as multiple intelligences theory and learning styles.

Because of this, I wouldn't ascribe any sort of learning differences to handedness based just on Silverman's speculative and anecdotal writings. And I haven't seen anything else to convince me that, for instance, left-handedness means a parent should look harder at math enrichment or acceleration. Until I see something credible, no, I wouldn't believe in it.

Being left-handed isn't that unusual. Even if there were some small correlation with certain abilities shown someday, you couldn't make decisions regarding a specific child based on that; you'd have to rely on the evidence about that specific child. Here you probably have compelling evidence of a need for gifted math support (PR scores, plus whatever you've seen of his actual math ability) and should proceed based on that, in my opinion. If your child seemed math-average in your day to day perception of him and were happy with average schoolwork in that area, but wrote like Dickens at age 7, it would of course also be foolish to prop him up in math based on something Linda Silverman wrote, while ignoring his other demonstrated talents.

It might not be unusual, but I'm not sure whether we have enough evidence yet to determine whether left-handedness is a subtle form of evil or not.

From Wikipedia:

"Various innocuous activities and experiences become rude or even signs of bad luck when the left hand becomes involved. In some parts of Scotland, it is considered bad luck to meet a left-handed person at the start of a journey.[22] In Ghana, pointing and gesturing with the left hand is considered taboo. A person giving directions will put their left hand behind them and even physically strain to point with their right hand if necessary.[23] In some Asian countries, holding eating utensils in the left hand is considered impolite.[24]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people#Negative_associations_in_cultures

About developing math and art skills. I am. Well, actually I'm developing the three Rs (reading, riting, rithmatic), math, science, history, music, and art from my kids. My kid's around your kid's age and I guess a similar level of gifted, although he's not been tested.

Here's some drawings of a train, George Washington, and a zombie.
They're all from step-by-step how to draw lessons. There's tons of them online for anything you could want to draw.

http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad296/Hablame_today/66f9e3b6.jpg

http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/...D-FB8EA4CE0749-1560-0000029A79400122.jpg

http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/...B-4D0F95EA2861-1560-0000029A6BEB14AB.jpg

Here's his introductions to division. He's able to do multiplication with a number line so I'm having him fill in a couple of multiplication charts so he starts to memorize them. He has done enough Bedtime Math © brand word problems (little kid level) that his addition facts are almost memorized just from using them. His sense of place value (borrowing and carrying) has become cemented by this division process (search youtube for khan academy division lectures to see). We've also worked through the book "Apple Fractions" a few times including eating the apple pie at the end. Now he's doing a workbook about adding and subtracting fractions and decimal places.


http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/...F-AE420C8F516D-1560-0000029A72B82E21.jpg

Now what's the point of teaching them ahead? There are different parenting and educating philosophies, even among the parents of the highly gifted there is no consensus of "the right answer", according to the internet forums. I'm going with my own understanding of the term "zone of proximal development". I'm teaching my kid at his own pace the things that I know children are usually taught. There are legitimate arguements against teaching kids ahead of time. What will they learn at school? There are compelling arguements for being child-led and delight driven rather than teaching young children "the boring parts of school" when they don't have to learn it yet. ("you might be altering their natural development"). Plus, where will they fit educationally? I'm throwing caution to the wind and teaching him these things and sending him to school anyway. Your milage may vary. Results are unsure.

Sinister is a word meaning the left side.
I know someone who calls herself Ambisinister
because she has two left feet.
My husband's a lefty.
They tried to get him to switch hands when he was a kid,
but he would just put his fork back in his left hand.
He and my left handed sister say, "Only lefties are in their right mind."