Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Puzzles and a PreK Question

So glad the resources have been a hit! FWIW, we have a few hundred Magformers and have made some terrific structures. The possibilities are endless.

Yes, spontaneous reading is both possible and initially shocking at that age. DS started to regularly read simple 3- and 4-letter words a little after your LO--a few months before 2--and I was so grateful to have this forum as a sanity check and support.

Bottom line: you're among friends here! Our kids are all different from the norm, and we celebrate and nurture that diversity of abilities and interests.

Legos have already been mentioned, but I will mention them again. We started duplo Legos I think the Christmas before 1 year, and have kept building our collection until switching to regular the Christmas before 3. Don't worry about getting rid of the Duplo at the change over time, because duplo and regular Legos mostly fit together.

Also dd now 3 is warm and cold towards jigsaw puzzles. If she likes the picture she will put them together, but she does it for the picture, not for the enjoyment of the puzzle.

Now, games are a different story. I started tic tac toe and hangman when my dd was about your little ones age, or just a little bit older. The hangman may seem strange, but my dd knew her alphabet and how to spell a hand full of words, so she could throw out letters at the time, but I think what she liked was the fact that I was drawing as we played. I usually drew the whole person because she did not win often, but she would keep asking to play again and again. Now we play board games like Surprise Slides, Connect Four, and Ghost Blitz. Also, card games. Lots and lots of imaginary friend games.

As for the daycare... We had no choice. Both parents work, and so she has been in daycare sense she was 3 months old. I personally think it is a net negative, but with some positives.
Negative, she learned to underachieve to fit in at a very young age. That bothers me a lot. But, the positive is that she does have several friends - mostly in the older classes. Neutral, I do not think she has learned very much other than socialization in her pre-preschool. We get report cards every day of the things that they "Learned Today". Everything that she is learning on a daily bases at school are things she knew while she was 1 year old. I suspect she will not learn much in the real preschool which will move upto next.

We do a lot of things less well than I would like with regards to preschool, but we are living in a real life with real life constraints. It does not make sense for either one of us to stay home right now in our careers.

I got out some duplo Legos when I was at my ILs house and DS had zero interest. I think he didn't like that the tower could not be easily destroyed since it falls over in one large lump of blocks.

I'm having a blast watching DS learn and grow and now that I can read about other kids here I no longer feel like I am raising an alien.

Haven't played with the magna tiles, but we are HUGE magformers fans here (DCs 8 and 10 still drag them out regularly. Actually they're all over my living room floor as we speak). What my super visual-spatial one really loved was the way you create 2D shapes on the floor, and then pick them up to transform into 3D ones, something quite different from other building toys. (OK, what he *really* loved was tormenting me to use my pitiful ability to see what the resulting 3D shape would actually be!)

The Easter Bunny brought some magformers and they have been really popular around here.

The obsession for the past several weeks has been letters and numbers. Some kids want to take a stuffed animal to bed and my kid wants to take his letters. I cannot leave the house without an alphabet. The good news is this has opened up a whole new realm of "I spy" when we are out and about.

The Easter Bunny brought some magformers and they have been really popular around here.

The obsession for the past several weeks has been letters and numbers. Some kids want to take a stuffed animal to bed and my kid wants to take his letters. I cannot leave the house without an alphabet. The good news is this has opened up a whole new realm of "I spy" when we are out and about.

My MIL used to get different sets of alphabet flash cards with pictures on them from a school supply store and then would get inexpensive small photo albums where you just slide one picture in on each page (same size as the flash card. My boys when they were toddlers and preschoolers LOVED their alphabet "books" and they were portable and somewhat contained...but also the cards could be pulled out and manipulated (on the floor or on a table) and just the right side for small hands.

Not that we were drilling the kids on the alphabet...but they were obsessed with letters and it was a nice way to feed that need to talk about letters.