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    Originally Posted by Kim Jensen (DK)
    He has very little interest in classical school subjects such as spelling, reading, mathematics and foreign languages. When you insist that he makes an effort, he is extremely strong in mathematics and he also reads really well. But he could never dream of touching his schoolbooks in his spare time, or asking for more or more difficult homework.

    Originally Posted by Kim Jensen (DK)
    After all, there is a consensus that gifted children must be held to the fire and learn to make an effort and that they benefit from accelerated education. But how do you do that in an appropriate way when the child clearly prefers play, creativity and inventions to classical teaching? How do you teach the child to make an effort without the child losing his creative and imaginative abilities? We have often considered hiring a private tutor who could teach him, for example, mathematics at a higher and far more specialized level than what takes place at school, but this does not immediately feel like the right solution for him - there is a great risk that he will see it as a kind of punishment rather than a "gift". Should we completely forget about the classical education and just let him cultivate his creative abilities?

    The school maths curriculum is designed so that formal progression successively builds solid foundations for the next set of concepts, but it’s difficult for young students to see the point of learning some of these abstract concepts and rules. He might be more stimulated by a problem/puzzle based approach.

    Here are some websites with free puzzles with solutions:
    https://www.mathsisfun.com/puzzles/
    https://www.thinkwellhomeschool.com/pages/free-math-puzzles
    https://mathforlove.com/puzzles/

    I’ve previewed them for you. I’m not sure where he is at in his learning journey, so they cover a range of different levels of understanding for different areas of maths. Hope he enjoys some of them.

    Originally Posted by Kim Jensen (DK)
    He is extremely curious and asks questions of everything he meets, and it often drives us crazy. He has never needed a TV, computer or tablet to entertain himself.

    We gave our son an iPad at age 5, with unlimited access to the internet and he looked everything up himself. I understand many parents are concerned by the potential of device addiction, but we decided the benefits outweighed the risks. By his teens, our son had grown bored of games and used his internet access to learn how to play the keyboard and guitar and compose music (at age 12, he won several eisteddfod first prizes playing his own arrangements, against AMEB grade 5 & 6 music students) and optimised his techniques for a range of track & field events for which he competed at state sports level (based on all his PBs, if we had allowed him to do pole vaulting, he would have been very competitive at national level for the decathlon), so with these activities (daily music practice & training), he spent less time on electronic devices than any of his peers.

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    Thank you very much, Eagle Mum, for sharing your experiences. It’s encouraging to read about your son’s journey from early interests in games and puzzles towards academic and creative pursuits later on. It helps to be reminded that every child’s path can look quite different, and that there isn’t necessarily one “right” way to do things.

    I agree that it can be challenging to find the right balance between providing structure and keeping creativity and motivation alive. Your examples of alternative approaches to maths, like exploring different number systems and using videos or puzzles, are very helpful.

    Thank you also for previewing the math puzzle websites. I will look into them, although our son is not quite ready to work independently with English-language puzzles yet. I hope we can adapt some of the ideas to Danish for now, and that his confidence with English will grow as his interests develop.

    I also wanted to mention that we have a fairly relaxed approach to tablets at home, and our son spends a couple of hours each day watching YouTube. This has actually inspired a lot of his play and creativity, and he’s learned a surprising amount of English from the content he chooses—mainly because it matches his interests. The contrast with English lessons at school, which focus on topics like family members or clothing, can be quite striking for an eight-year-old who is far more interested in Minecraft, Pokémon, and Fortnite.

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