Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The ultimate brag thread

Gasp. Are you sure you don't have my son, NanRos?

DS8 (as of yesterday!) wants to start a colony somewhere out in the universe. He needs plans for cities, for attracting humans to his settlement, for new equipment to combat the various gravitational/living condition issues, and is also pondering the moral hazards of subjugating a different species (if they're pre-existing).

ha ha Blob! Too bad they can't get together and discuss their out of galaxy plans. Mine assumes the planet won't be inhabited...I will have to ask him what he would do if there ARE beings there. DS is currently all about the physical layout of the city and the equipment needed to accomplish constructing it. The physicist part comes into play because that's how he's going to calculate where the ideal location is....someone else is going to do his grunt work of actually piloting him there. LOL

Lol. At one point my son wanted to be an astronaut, then decided he wanted to be a space lawyer. As he put it, "Astronauts and space aliens need lawyers, too." After he hit 5, his perspective settled down a bit, to where he only wants to be an astrophysicist/artist/movie director/President.

DS2 loves our new robotic vacuum (roomba), but we don�t allow him to play with it.

I caught him yesterday pressing buttons on the roomba. After reminding him the 1000th time that he can�t play with it, he proceeded to hold my finger and use it to press the buttons.

I was not sure how to respond to his out-of-the-box solution.

In keeping with the recent space theme...

DS put the right planet stickers in the right places, and there were no clues other than the text and the circular shaddows... which were all the same size/colour/etc...not even in solar system order or anything. The shaddows were captioned with short sentances about the planets, so I don't know exactly how he did it, but it sure seemed like reading of some sort or other.

This is the first time he's done something so starkly... academic. He's been rapidly getting more interested in following directions, which I guess opens the door to that kind of a performance, but... I was surprised.

On pressing with your finger: Yeah. I'm familliar with that kind of dilemma. It elicits my use of DS's name in a tone of voice REMARKABLY similar to my clearest memory of my father -- him saying my name in utter exasperation. The good news about that is that it makes me think of my dad, which always makes me smile. The bad news is that DS gets away with a lot.

Ah, I guess this is not something really to brag about, just me being amazed because I'm behind the times. Santa brought the family a Wii with the sports game and Mario bros. The first time after that the boy (3 yr old) was back on the computer he called me over to see that he found demos of our Wii games we've been playing using his firefox kid's browser. I was like, what? He knows how to look up stuff? I thought he just used the favorites and YouTube and the games they put on the home page. I bought the kid safe browser because I really don't pay attention to what he's doing on the computer. He also has a remedial education package for kids struggling in 1st through 6th grade. He showed me a page the other day with something like 40 blank stars on it. He had four or five gold stars and a few silver stars for lessons completed in language arts. And he's starting to get a few scores higher than 0 in making change. (the reward being feeding grapes to a virtual pet mouse, very motivating). I guess when he's done with this he'll be ready for epgy or Aleks or k-12 or something. It will be a while, but I'll make a post asking for suggestions when the time comes. Maybe ask for early enterance to prek because he's a late birthday.

La Texican - what package is that - the remedial one?

Mr W loves the letter games on Starfall. He spent three hours on it on Sunday.

He also thinks his own thoughts -

DW had the Womb Raider.

When I picked up Mr W, I told him.

"Mr W, Mommy had the Womb Raider today."

"No more baby in mommy's belly?" he asked.

"Yes."

"That means mommy can pick me up now!!" he said.

http://educational-games-grades-k-3-review.toptenreviews.com/elementary-advantage-2011-review.html

I put that link because it had The review I liked. The one that complained that the student could just poke around and it wasn't divided neatly by grade level. Amazon doesn't have reviews on the 2011 version. One of the older versions has Carmen Santiago on it. The program is common. It's at walmart and best buy.

If you haven't got Supermind and Mightymind magnetic blocks yet, they've been a big hit here. Just make sure you don't lose a single piece or the puzzles no good. It buys me close to an hour of peace to put him at the kitchen table with it. Just have to put it up and only give it to him sometimes.

I've never posted on the "brag" thread, but this one is kind of fun for us...

Our K-8 homeschool charter has been really great, and started a school-wide spelling bee (the first step in the Scripps Challenge) at our request. DS6 is technically only a 1st grader and the regional competition is for Gr. 3-8, but the school opened it to 1st graders to let him participate.

The first round was a written round, using 500 study words (evenly spread from grades 1-8). Everyone who scored 25+/35 words on the written moved to the "finals." About 30 participated, and DS6 was 1 of 8 who moved up. In the final round, he came in 4th after spelling "raisin" too fast. He was bummed to come out b/c he knew all the words, but forgot to slow down. (We were secretly just as happy that he didn't come in 1st, b/c it's good for him to do well at something but still not be the best, esp. against some GT 8th graders!)

Anyhow...we just learned that in the first round of spelling, amongst the 30 kids (all 3rd-8th grade besides him), he was the only one to get a perfect score. Apparently, the teachers and director were all buzzing about it. It was great b/c everyone knows where he is academically, but few get to see him in action. I'm hoping this will help us to open even more doors in terms of activities/curriculum I'd like the school to implement.

Next step, he wants to do a geography bee. I guess we're off to study rivers!

So cute!! (and I really want one of those!)