Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Not-really-brag-so-much-as-quirky- anecdote thread

This morning DD6 has gone off to school with a pinecone for show and tell - with the Fibonacci-sequence spirals highlighted in silver, green and pink (thanks to Vi Hart)
I'm nervous about it. She wants to explain how cool Fibonacci is - the spiralling boxes! The natural occurrences in flowers and pineapples! The neat addition! - but I strongly suspect she'll be met with a lot of blank faces including her teacher's and she'll quickly downgrade to "look how pretty my colouring is".
Which is a major bummer because she already thinks "people will laugh at a girl doing science" and I don't want her feeling like a weirdo

DS5 wants to communicate with the ants and get them to stop biting them. Only, he's pretty sure they speak a special ant language. So first he made a key (A = this squiggly, B = this other squiggly, etc) and then wrote them a polite letter in this other ant language he has made up, explaining why they shouldn't bite him any more. He seems to think this is going to work.

My 2.5 yr old is great at tracing. She has a letter workbook she does independently and she can stay on the lines now. She wrote the first letter of her name on her bedroom wall. I said, who did this? She said her brother, her brother said her. I took a picture of it and showed it to her, saying, what letter is this? She answered "(letter) for (her name)". Then her brother played into the mystery, later, by making that dramatized voice you make when it sounds like you're lying but who knows if you are or not.
I don't guess that's quirky, it's just kids being kids. But it's my girl's first clearly written letter even though she's been tracing for a while. With all the lying it probably looks better here than the brag board.

This thread is making me wish (again) that all our kids could be friends!

I agree with your dd--I think it is one of the coolest things in nature! I would love to hear her tell about it!

This is just great! You must keep the keys and the letter to show hi when he is older!

As I suspected, she decided not even to get into it. I don't think she's got a tight enough grip on the mathematics of it herself to try to explain it cold to a class of 6 year olds, fair enough too! It was very pretty coloring though
But later at home she was humming a "Fibonacci, Fibonacci!" song to herself, so she's not too put off at least!

You might be surprised by how well this works. I used to live in a place where my bedroom was on the basement level and I'd get ants that would march across my bed. Somebody suggested asking them to leave, so I would do that, saying something like, "Look, guys, I want to respect all life, but you're up in my space and I'd really appreciate it if you'd go somewhere else."

They always would. They'd come back, but they'd be gone for a few days...

thank you SO MUCH. i really hope DD will find her people a little faster than i did - i think i was about 30 when i finally started being myself!

I wish they could all be friends, too! My 6yo girl likes Fibonacci the same way math and nature, two of her obsessions!