Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Proud of DD handling herself today

We have been having issues with DD and her same age peers. DD does MUCH better with kids several years older, is polite, converses well, and shares, but with her own agemates she gets frusterated, is short tempers, and sometimes yells....we have been discussing this behavior and how to deal with the frusteration she feels. Well today she did great! And she even told me later, "mommy, I remembered what we talked about, and I didn't yell at all. I just said 'here let me show you how to do it. Do you want my help?"

We went to watch Dh coach his kids hockey team, and the first part went well, DD pulled out a book of mazes I made for her (laminated them so that we can erase them using dry erase markers since she was going through books of mazes so quickly.) There are some pretty difficult mazes, but she has been a maze fanatic since she was 2 and we always carry some with us when she might be waiting a while. Anyway, DD met a 6 year old and she talked to him a while and then she asked him if he wanted to do mazes with her. They took turns and were even slightly competitive about it LOL. With him saying before they begun "I bet I am better at this then you." And she telling him "I bet you aren't. I'm even better than my mom at mazes" LOL. They had a great time and shared, with her helping him when he got stuck. It went great. After about 30 mins of them playing with the mazes, several 4 year olds came over and wanted to join and DD said sure. All of them tried, they were all skipping through lines, and DD very nicely showed them how and read the directions to them. But they kept skipping lines to get the the star instead of following the maze, Typically this is when DD would be rude in her frusteration, but she didn't! She kept trying to help, very nicely. She made conversation and one girl told her she had just turned 4, so DD who is excited that her birthday is comming in a few months, asked the girl when her b-day wass. The girl didn't know (which lead to questions later of how she couldn't know when her b-day was. DD has known hers and ours, and her grandparents, and her friends, for over a year now, but thats another conversation LOL.)

Anyway, there was a challange maze that is a picture grid and you move from rabbit to lion ot lion to rabbit only. DD several times showed them how, and I read the directions, but they continued to just draw a line straight to the end, touching flowers and rabbits to rabbits etc. After several minutes of this DD did not lose her temper or say anything to the girls. (WHICH is HUGE step for her) she did turn to me and say she was ready to leave, and we did after a few minutes as I was freezing in there. She told me in the car it was overwhelming and frusterating. But I told her I was proud of how she handled herself and did not yell at others while she was feeling her frustrations. Anyway, this was a huge step for her, and I am proud that she is learning some tolerance. Now, if she can just translate that into tolerance for Dh and I when we make a mistake or don't catch onto something quickly LOL. Babysteps

That's great! It is so wonderful to watch them use those skills.

LOL, so true. We found out that DS knew how to read when he was about 18 or 19 months and corrected his Sunday school teacher who read the wrong word. We really didn't believe her when she told us he was reading. Now at 6 we get used to being corrected and he does do it respectfully at least and often I notice him holding it in and not correcting others. He has gotten so much better with this, but I can see it is still hard for him. Especially when he is trying to teach his little sister (your DD's age) the "right" way to do something and she intentionally wants to do it her own different way (being the free spirit she is). : )

Anyhow, about the maze thing. Not sure if you have heard about these and not sure if Mindware or Amazon delivers to islands, but DS got these a while back and really enjoys them. He is all about mazes and puzzles...and we have plenty of things like these around the house. I thought of these because the labmice comes with dry erase markers so you can do them over. You probably could create your own, but may be a challenge in itself. DD3 likes to do them too, but she doesn't quite follow the directions that great. She connects them, but doesn't stay in the boxes and squares.

http://www.amazon.com/MindWare-Lab-..._1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294073709&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Think-Fun-582...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1294073754&sr=1-1

Also, I don't know the link but there is a game on-line called 3-d logic I believe that is very much like the lab mice game (only it's in 3-d and the lab mice is 2d). DS used to play it a lot at 4 and 5 but I think he finished all the levels so is onto new stuff now : )

Ooh, that Lab Mice looks like fun. DS5 loved getting the National Geographic "Storming a Castle" maze book for Christmas. Though the mazes seemed to be on the easy side for him (book is rated 8-12 but that seems high to me, though DS is pretty good at mazes), the book is gorgeous, with a frame story and lots of fun historical facts. The mazes are 3D, which is fun too. It even has a code section that figures into one of the mazes.

There are also some decent maze generators out there, though none is perfect-- here's one that at least lets one create a maze that should keep a kid occupied for a while, at the highest settings:
http://www.worksheetworks.com/puzzles/maze.html

Here is a math maze generator, still the most fun way I ever found of practicing multiplication facts (now we're on to other things, but it was good while it lasted):
http://www.worksheetworks.com/puzzles/math-maze.html

What I do with mazes in paper form, to save them for later, is scan them. But that might certainly be wasteful of paper in the long run. I just like having electronic copies of things, and hope this'll come in handy when my younger son gets a bit older.

ETA: I really need to get back to work now, but I posted a list of maze links:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/91959.html#Post91959