Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion In over her head

My first grader was assigned a biography project a couple of weeks ago. When she was first told about the project (two weeks before that), she read all of the biographies she could get her hands on in order to pick a historical figure. Much time was spent reading. Much, much time. Many, many books. So that was two weeks.

In the last two weeks she read about seven short books and one 200 page book on her selected figure by herself, and then I started reading the big book with her from the beginning. Because she didn't understand all the historical context, we did a huge timeline of seventy years of personal and historical events. Then we started reading a second 200 page book that she wanted to read. At this point, this was all initiated by her or offered by me and encouraged by her.

But the second long book was really repetitive. So we read one little section that she hadn't read before and quit. Research over.

Now we're doing the project. She's still game. But she's getting tired, and I'm worried about that. She should be tired. She's done an immense amount of work in the last month. But instead of trying to make it easier on herself, she keeps making the hard choices. She was supposed to do a short biography (has to be handwritten), I encouraged her to a short one, but she wanted to make it longer and said the teacher said it was okay. Fatigue sets in halfway through. I encouraged a short powerpoint presentation. She wanted a long one and said said the teacher said it was okay. Fatigue is setting in halfway through.

She has until Monday to finish this, so there is time. But if she's going to practice her speech, she can't wait until the last minute. This thing is huge and it is going to be a long mess if she doesn't practice. And she's a normal first grader when it comes to a giving presentations, so it will not be easy for her to make herself understood.

I need to figure out where or if to encourage compromise. Do I:

1) Push her to finish the project tonight/tomorrow with time to get repetition on the speech over time? I feel like she's starting to tire and dragging this thing out might just make it feel like she's working all the time. But she will DEFINITELY feel the burn today and it won't be all child initated, that's for sure.
2) Do a little every day at the risk of really dragging it out?
2) Encourage her to skip working on it during the week which is already full of school and do it all this weekend (not dragging out, take a break, but no time to get practice on the speech)?

I know the answer is to ask her, but I feel like she's seven years old. What does she know? I think she's working way too much on it and that scares me and I do need to make sure she actually finishes. If she didn't want to go to bed at night, I'd just tell her to go to bed, end of story. But when it comes to doing a project, I don't feel right saying, "No! You must work less!" Which is what I feel I SHOULD be doing.

So now we are here...

Even though she's tiring, she still says she loves history and she's okay with all of this (except for the moments when she's doing the grunt work--which is massive and the part that is left) I just feel like it's too much and want it to end.

Thoughts?

I worry that you are expecting perfection from your first grader in this project, rather than a learning experience (perhaps I am wrong, it is so easy to misread these postings).

If she was an adult, or even say a pre-teen, I would worry about practicing the presentation. She's going to know her content really well from what you describe, so I wouldn't worry about how well she performs in the presentation itself. If she stumbles, that's a lesson learned and perfectly acceptable.

What does she want to do? Would it help to tell her what you think (from your perspective) she still needs to do and ask her how she wants to complete the project? It might help to let her formulate the plan, you can document it for her and then help her finish it.

It sounds as though she is learning a great deal about history from this experience, even if she doesn't turn in a perfect presentation.

I would email the teacher and explain quickly what is going on and ask that the teacher reviews the expectations with dd because dd's expectations are too high. Then try to do a little each day. It is okay if she misses the mark because it wil be a learning experience for the next project.

my two cents. hth.

Thanks to both of you.

ConnectingDots, I think you are probably right. I just visualize her up there mumbling and speaking too softly and swinging her body around, being understood by no one on a too-long presentation after putting in a month on this thing and it makes me really sad.

I guess as a mom I feel I should be stopping the madness (while simultaneously encouraging it to go on) and that I'm not doing my job.

You kind of talked me down, though. I think I'm probably also just sick of living with it and I want to get it over with, which isn't really the right way to be.

Thanks for the online psychotherapy :-)

I completely understand where you are coming from. But we all have to mumble sometimes, unfortunately. I can also appreciate the need to stop hearing about it (I'm guessing here, based on many projects with my DS8). :-)

You might ask her how she plans to prepare for her presentation, and maybe suggest something like practicing this weekend in front of you, or her stuffed animals, etc.

It works out, though. DS worked his little heart out on a project they did during his pull-outs and then told us that no one really paid attention during his presentation. So we let him present to us and his brother, filmed it using our iPhones and that worked out just fine.

Someone once told me that you have to teach some kids when is something "good enough". When is "good enough" good enough?

Like a half baked piece of chicken...not good enough someone can get sick.

A thoroughly cooked baked piece of chicken with a bit of salt, pepper and garlic...with a simple salad and a side of rice...good enough.

Free range happily raised chicken cooked as Chicken cordon bleu, with fancy sauce, organic baby asparagus planted and grown in your own green house, gourmet salad made from organic greens, some sort of flaming dessert. Over the top.

All three possible dinners. I wouldn't suggest option one but really I wouldn't suggest option three either.

She did what I would call the need for deep with all the research. Now she needs to do the "good enough". I always tell my son...do the good enough first draft and then if there is still time you can add a bit here or there. My son has a problem stopping the research phase and moving into the product phase.

Luckily on the power point you can do "good enough" and then slip in extra here or there.

My sons (with fine motor delays) have always been able to do typing on the computer as an accommodation so I have been able to ask for a simpler first draft and then as time permitted had them go back and add to it.

Handwritten is harder.

If I were you, I would definitely push her to finish the project tonight or tomorrow. And then, I would help her come up with her speech, help her fine tune it and help her on things like eye contact with audience, gestures, voice modulation etc. I would also help her come up with a small cheat sheet (index card like thing) where she can list the main points of each page so that she can do a quick glance in case she forgets something during the presentation. And I would leave the weekend free with just a few minutes of brush up on her speech before school on Monday. I think that because it is her first big project (I assumed it based on your post), you should try to get it done and out of the way as early as possible so that she has less stress towards the end.
I have one child who never knows what moderation is and goes to a school that is rigorous in LA and we have similar scenarios for his monthly book reports. I step in and manage it for him so that he is done with everything a few days ahead thereby letting him focus on school, tests and extracurriculars until the due date rather than be stressed about the reports.

Good luck.

Good advice here already. As a lesson for you next time, you need to help her chunk up the work EARLY. So if there's x weeks until the due date then the first week is research, the second week is the initial draft, the third week... etc.

You can't enable the frenzy early on and then try to pull back. After all, she feels like all that knowledge has to go somewhere (and can you blame her when she worked so hard to collect all of it?). Better to read and research LESS and have a more constrained problem space for doing the actual work of creating and practicing the presentation.

Once she does however well she actually does on this (and really, how much can the actual grade matter at this point?) then follow up with a 'lessons learned' discussion where you both discuss better ways to approach this sort of thing in the future.

Gosh...this is first grade. I realize my first grader's experience at Title 1 school is not really the norm, but there, a presentation by the kids would last maybe 1 min and consist of a lot of nothing. I think it's time to rein this in, with the knowledge that she learned and experienced. I would insist on finishing it up and give her a little time to learn and practice her speech and say--hey, great. Unless she is at a private gifted school or something, she is bound to have overproduced. In the future, I would work on planning a reasonable plan of work and then she can extend on her own time if there's desire. It will be important later.

A blown first grade presentation isn't a deal breaker. I'd suggest that her speech needs to be short, so she should focus on just a few slides for the class. Remind her that her teacher will see the longer presentation and the written work. I would email the teacher with a head up, too.

I remember my D2 writing a book for class that they were going to have published, and having terrible time management. Her book was far longer and more complex than anyone else's, but she also exhausted her teacher. They had a deadline to meet so the books could be bound. It caused a pretty big rift between her and the teacher near the end of what had been a good year. Just because our kids are smart doesn't mean they have any sense of time management...