Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Hobbies that surprise people

Cool kids! Love the stories.

My 24 mos DS is into flight- loves helicopters, airplanes- enjoys distinguishing between jets and prop planes. Can show you where the head and tail rotors and cyclics are- LOL. Knows the words exhaust and contrail and jet fuel-

Also really loves drumming/music/percussion. DH is a drummer, so no big surprise there. Gets a lot from osmosis, I guess.

These are great!

After abandoning an obsession with dinosaurs and outer space, my dd5 is now obsessed with fairies. This one has stuck, too - for nearly a year. It started with the discovery of a group of books called Rainbow Magic Fairies. There are animal fairies (ie Lauren the Puppy Fairy), color fairies (Fern the Green Fairy), music fairies, dance fairies, day of the week fairies ... you get the picture. Each category of fairy has seven books in it. And dd can recite the name of each book in order. And tell you what happens in each one. It's probably 70 books.

On the topic of Sudoku, when dd was 3, my mom gave her some sticker sudoku books. They were a nick jr. theme -- I think we have Dora and Diego. Anyways, the books use pictures instead of numbers and then the child places the stickers in the correct spots. I thought they were really clever for kids who were old enough for the sudoku concept, but weren't yet writing.

Dd3 has recently had a big burst of rock and stick collecting, fortunately we live on a mountain so that's not hard to do. The tough part is all the places I'm finding them. She's not 'classifying' or anything, but making little cities, rock 'stores' and other stuff with them. As usual with her, if you accidentally disturb one of her set ups, well, prepare to be chastised.
And she is still very into cars, trucks, helicopters, etc.

Ds9's most surprising hobby still has to be ballet (not sure it has much to do with being gt, but he says ballet is fun partly he doesn't end up thinking so much (??) One of the instructors used to call him 'dreamer', however, so I don't know how much less daydreaming/thinking he is doing.
Otherwise reasonable adults continue to skip a beat when they hear the words 'boy' and 'dance' together, it's even funner when the actual word 'ballet' is used.
(Rockets and drawing don't get nearly as many 'reactions'. )

Chris, I remember reading in the newspaper some years ago the results of a university (can't remember which one) study of human performance; among other things, they tested fitness of male athletes who were involved in sports at very high levels. Male ballet dancers had by far the highest overall fitness level of any of the elite athletes they tested. So there to the beat-skippers!

(I think gymnastics were next, figure skaters next, and other things like hockey and football and baseball were a lot further down the list...)

peace
minnie

Oh, I know what you mean Minnie! The instructors are all amazing to see dance (they are all pro dancers, women and men). Ds' instructor last year was a very dashing/fit guy, maybe 24, and his wife is an amazing knock-out. I just don't get the american attitude, at all.
Although I have to say our neighbor hockey playing kids are seriously fit, too - but they live at the rink - these guys are 'high energy' gt kids, too.

My DS7 is also a ballet dancer! he loves it, and ignores anyone who says its for girls. Only trouble is that it conflicts with his other passion, baseball. So we have to alternate going to baseball/ballet on saturdays in the spring. kinda funny - diverese interests but same kid.
irene

I assume you have seen Max by Rachel Isadora? Super cute.

Our high school had a fabulous dance department and the football coach required all the players to take dance instead of PE. He said it helped with their rhythm, timing and ability to work as a team. Plus that's where all the cute girls were :-)

Kriston, like your DS, my DS5 is fascinated with knowing more than just the driver in his favorite sport - only it's not NASCAR. He knows NASCAR, but can tell you more than you'd ever want to know about Monster Trucks (Monster Jam).

The other thing he LOVES is to play Hangman. Now that is definitely a kid game, BUT he doesn't just do one or two words like you might see most five year olds doing. It's full sentences, and not easy ones. We play a lot at DD3's ballet class, and he's had more "how old are you?" questions thrown at him than *I* can count (ha). And of course, the next question is always "what did you do (Mom)"?

He also really loves Upwords (haven't quite taught him scrabble yet) and Boggle - word games.

How many of your youngins like the Wheel and Jeopardy?