Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school I don't know...

Thinking back most things she would ask me once, like she asked me what the name of a shape was and I had to look it up. I told her it was a quaterfoil, and she has known it ever since. I also once told her a shape was an elipse, and she told me, "well then an oval is an ellipse" LOL.

Most things she just pics up from talking with me or us reading. She knows all the months of the years days of the weeks, is starting to be able to understand telling time with clocks, learned her letters, counts, counts by 10's, can count objects, knows all colors, shapes, concepts of on, under, behind, between, etc., beginning addition and many more things that my friends are trying to teach there children who are 3,4,and 5. DD just seems to know, but examining it, I find I really don't have to teach her....if it is mentioned she learns it and then later applies it. No wonder she gets board so quickly.

Example would be I guess last night she was watching the Discovery Channel and ancient crocidiles that ate dinosuars and she can now spout off amillion facts and explained to her dad that the crocidile has a 4 chamber heart...and that other reptiles don't and that the crocidile bit the dino on the "buttocks" LMAO. So it seems like she just knows because often I forget or don't realize where she heard something, but truely she just does not seem to need any repitition. Once and she has it.

DS2.5 watched that and loved it too. He wasn't into the crocodile dissection (viewed that portion as mucking up a perfectly good dinosaur show, LOL). DS seems to really get some great brain chemicals out of remembering information and naming things he knows, it seems to make him happy. Its not so much wanting to understand how things work for him, as wanting to have factual info about everything. The last little while he wants to learn what all the dinosaur names mean and then makes different words with them. The cat steals his broccoli and he says its a broccoli-lestes. He's suddenly also into what everything is made of or what produced it. I'm not sure I understand why he cares -- I don't mean that in a mean way, there is just so much else that seems like it would be more pressing for a 2 year old to ask, like "why can't I have another brownie?".

What do you think it is in your DD that motivates her?

Polly

DD thought the sisection was "cool" As for motivations, she seems to have an incessent need to know. To understand why everything happens. She will ask why, ask questions until something is explained to her liking. And she wants such indepth answers that I often have to go look them up. I also feel hr thirst for knowledge is because she gets so board just being....she seems happiest when she is learning something new. If she is not challanges, not exploring new topic...she acts up and is miserable. I definitly understand her in many wasy as she isvery simiar to I was as a child, but this inate drive to know and understand, especially at this young age definitly baffels me. I just try to answer her questions and explain EVERYTHING! LOL

Motivation is a huge part of defining HG+ kids. Ruf argues the major difference between level 4 and level 5 is motivation. So understanding what drives your child is important. I have recently discovered that my DD is not motivated by prizes. Her's is an Intrinsic Motivation. The desire to excel comes from within. One example that comes to mind is potty training ... we tried all the tricks to motivate her to potty train and nothing was working. We even bought a huge reward for her and left it in plain sight to remind her that she could have it once she is potty trained. It didn't interest her. She had to come to the conclusion that she wasn't a baby anymore and this meant potty training. When she did set her mind to it she was potty trained in no time. We literally had a couple of accidents. She was excited when she received the big reward but it wasn't what drove her to do it.

Chances are your daughter has the same kind of motivation. The downside to this (for us anyway) is underachievement. We watched our DD dummy down while in a social preschool. She bent over backwards to not stick out. It was so upsetting to watch because she would bring it home. We finally decided to pull her and put her into a more academic program. All was going well until a kid bit her on the nose. When we moved her over to the school she was not potty trained so she had to go in with the babies which definitely motivated her. She is now potty trained but her spot in the big kids class is not available until December. She has had major anxiety over going back to school thanks to being bit. I understand how upsetting it all is to her but at the same time we can't just give in to it either. So in my last ditch effort I tried to motivate her with a reward ... yep I tried to bribe the kid to have a good day today at school. I promised her that if she had a good day which meant no crying, hitting, or pushing ... examples of her bad day the last time she was in class ... we would go to the toy store and pick out something for her dollhouse. I should have known that wouldn't work but I tried. Hopefully since today is her last day of baby class and she moves into the big kid class she will let the biting go and be back to enjoying learning. Crossing my fingers!