Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Child Inventors!!

Wondering if anyone has a little Inventor on thier hands??

My 4yr old has been "Inventing" things since she was 2yrs old

at 2yrs she took bars from her broken babydoll highchair and atached them to her babydoll stroller so she could set the baby carseat into the stroller

she one time made a frissbee out of paper (shes never seen a frissbee we dont own one) and she called it "The Disc-O-Ball (because it was a disc shaped ball)and threw it like a frissbee

more recently she used the bicycles to build a car and got upset when she realized that because of the way she connected them together it wouldnt actually move

most of the time its just little things and almost always something thats been invented already that shes never seen (like a sling shot or a top)she often builds things and is upset because they dont work the way she hoped

Isn't it cool to watch what they come up with? My little guy's playroom is getting painted and finally decorated so all of his "junk" is spread all over the living room <YUCK> His favorite toy right now is Legos and all week while he has been playing with them on the sofa, he keeps dropping pieces that proceed to fall under the sofa. I was cleaning the kitchen when I heard an "A-Ha!" from the living room - DS6 was beaming and holding this bizarre looking contraption he made out of legos - he called it his "grab-i-nator" (thanks Phineas and Ferb) and he showed me how it can reach under the couch and retrieve all of the lego pieces that had fallen underneath :-)

lol thats soo cute!

DD7 is like that. She made a rolling suitcase out of a cereal box, cut-up toilet paper roll and aluminum foil. She also made a TV out of a cardboard box and paper with different show scenes. We have to sneak boxes to the recycling bin because she wants to keep them all for her projects. She's also turned our living room into a dinosaur museum and a horse racetrack. It's fun to watch her get an idea and run with it!

yea its really neat but shes also a perfectionist and gets upset when she cant get it right today she was building a play land for her (7mo. old) baby sister she couldnt get it just right and also made her sister cry DH sent her to her room and we heard her saying/crying "Its all my fault" so DH went in and talked to her and hugged her and calmed her down... she often gets very distressed when she finds imperfections in her work

Ds8 has been like that from about 3, a lot of times he has these grand designs that there is no way he is going to be able to execute on his own so we work on things together. Mostly take-offs on things he has seen. I knew things were getting a little out of control when he asked about building a large ship in the front yard. It took about 1/2 a day of debate and then I finally just sat down and started working out the cost with him, showing him the formula for the area for each side of the proposed ship, deck, etc.
Not to be discouraging, but, really, I just couldn't build a ship with him! (Not this year anyway)
He is constantly working on new drawings for robots, armed people/things/ghosts/etc., cars, flying things, etc. etc. Other times he will build models of things he wants to build larger with cardboard, tape, odds and ends. Yes we have trouble getting cardboard boxes out of the house too!
I am vaguely considering getting some welding gear in a couple of years...

chris1234 that is hilarious....my DS6 wanted SOOOO badly to build a fort in our back yard a few months ago. I was game to a point - I was thinking simple wooden fort ok, maybe we can pull this off...HAHAHAHA...he went in and drew up his blue prints (thanks again to Phineas and Ferb) and came out to show me that one side of the fort was going to be bricks, one side was going to be concrete block and the rest was to be wood with an elaborate door and window opening. I also had to be "mean" mommy and sit down and explain the costs of all the items and the fact that our homeowners association and the local building codes wouldn't allow us to construct this in our backyard....so he settled for the 4 giant cardboard boxes we had been storing in the garage from some furniture deliveries and made an enormous fort on the back porch with everything but the kitchen sink :-)