Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The ultimate brag thread

HK, she is awesome.

Two brags: a DS brag and a DH brag.

A seems-minor-but-shows-maturing brag: DS2.25 has mostly been indifferent to puzzles up until the last two weeks. I think he associated interlocking puzzles with frustration he felt around 1. At that time, stymied by his little baby hands, he would just point where the pieces went and have me interlock adjacent pieces.

Fast forward a year and he does puzzles by stealth! He decided to chance the frustration a few weeks ago, to his great pleasure, and has quickly gone from doing no puzzles to 24-48 piece puzzles. He's getting over a nasty cold, so I bought him a new wooden vehicles puzzle with a challenging, small set of graphics. We started it together, I ran to the bathroom momentarily and, when I returned, he had finished it. 3 minutes had elapsed total, tops. Parenting lesson for me: don't push if he doesn't love something immediately, just leave it in the environment and leave him to it on his own schedule.

DH brag:

My heart swells as I type this. DS ran to DH asking for something that neither of us understood. (This is a blue moon phenomenon for us, as DS' speech is so copious and clear.) DS patiently repeated himself 4 or 5 times, and DH responded with, "I'm so sorry to not understand, Buddy. I know you must feel frustrated with me for not keeping up. I would be frustrated, too. Thanks for being so patient with me; that's really generous and good. Can we try it again? I know if we work together we can find a way for me to understand what you want me to hear."

That parenting moment inspired me throughout the day. It's the epitome of everything I strive to teach as a parent-- persistence, love, empathy, open communication--and my DH exemplified it. Makes me so proud to be his wife.

Gorgeous Aquinas!

Introduced DS5 to the concept of algebra using the idea of a "mystery number" then he'd work out the problems using his balance scale. He got it right away.

(Being more humble--it's not like he's close to doing a whole lot of algebra. He doesn't know the math facts, but I've seen a few things saying that kids who don't know the math facts sometimes find interest in the higher-level areas, so I thought I'd throw it out there and give it a try. But using the balance really made the idea of balancing the sides of the equation make sense.)

This led me to apparently hit the "unacceptable level of bragging", because when I posted pics on Facebook, I only got 7 likes, and I usually get well over 20 likes for something cute or smart my kids do (recent examples being a "pretending to be a rock star" story and "Reading 'Afghanistan' in Japanese" brag).

I find that in general, I can brag about one of these things at a time, but if you put it all together, it seems that I'm going a little overboard with the bragging, so I figured I'd bring it here
The first is that my son (5th grade,age 10 - turns 11 in June) has been a straight A student in 6th grade math all year.
Second - he plays soccer, and he is GOOD. He plays on a U12 team (age is defined by how old they are on July 31st - so, he would be super young on a U11 team, which is his correct age group - but he has been playing "up" for several years now). This past weekend, they were in a futsal tournament, and he scored 11 goals - they made it to the final, but lost to a golden goal in extra time. He has also been asked to be part of the ODP (Olympic Development Program) for his own age group - this is a program for select players, to prepare them for state, college and national teams. What I find interesting is that he is super small for his age, but still excels - I can only imagine how good he'll be when he's grown a little and got some speed !!
Third - he won the chess championship in his school - last year (his first year) he came second, so he was thrilled to win it this year).
Fourth - he was accepted into a brand new full time gifted middle school program (which, happily, is at the school he already attends 6th grade math for).
All in all, he's having a great year !

That's so exciting!! He must be on top of the world, NCPmom!

DD3.5 declared she wants to go to high school. I jokingly told her she needs to learn to write and be ready for at least pre-algebra. She wanted to know what that was so I showed her a couple of very easy questions then...she solved them in her head.

The only exposure she had to equations is Dragonbox. She whipped through it including the bonus section, which is mostly numbers and letters and she was picking up concepts that went beyond what the app covers but I had no idea she retained them and could apply them a month later. I knew she liked math. I knew she was ready for 2nd grade math when she was 2 but still, I am surprised.

She has a lot of gaps. We have done no formal math lessons and she doesn't have her math facts down. I think her number placement beyond 1000s is a bit shaky. I don't know where to go from here but my guess is that we'll stick to no formal instructions until she is 6.

I just noticed library books DS8 brought home from school: A chapter book in German and a German to English dictionary. Methinks he has plan.

My son is a finalist in the (Edited) National Writing Competition! Fingers crossed!

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Irena, that is SO exciting! Definitely got my fingers crossed for him.