I have no focused on accelerating my children accedemically at all, nor have I assumed they have any gifted abilities, but take my cue purely from them and what they are interested in.
Quinn tends to be very inquiring and wants to understand and rationalise and intellectualise things, whereas Griffin is more artistic and emotionally in tune. He is also more of a performer and likes to charm people. I find them to be quite different.
Quinn is a thinker. He ponder things and then comes out with statements such as ' I know why Father Christmas comes down the chimney... because if he opened any of the doors our alarm would go off'.
I have freckles, and Griffin now has a smattering of them over his nose. Quinn declared that Griffin had got them from me. I was impressed and told him he was right. he though for a moment and then said, ' So does he get them from when he kisses you sometimes?' ;)
Quinn does a 500 piece Dinosaur puzzle. He could do it unassisted, but we sometimes sit and work on it together. We finish it over several days. If I am stumped by a piece I give it to him, and he'll know where it goes.
He learned to ride his bicycle without training wheels this week-end. Even though he was lagging badly and would hardly ride it with the training wheels - because if it leaned even slightly he would refuse to ride it. We took the trainers off, and gave him a few supported runs and he was off. :)
Quinn also tells the time of a digital or analogue clock. I taught him this at about 3 years old, and have not been able to con him that it was bed time earlier than it actually was since ;) (I have considered setting the clock forward at times) LOL.
I have also been doing 'work' with him in a little note book recently. We have been tracing patterns and letters and drawing pictures starting with various letters etc. I was not sure if they had done any number work at school yet, so I asked him if they do 'sums'. He wanted to know what that meant so I explained '1+1, 3+2 etc'. He sighed and said, ' That's not SUMS it's MATHEMATICS!'
Griffin after seeing a TV show last night about baby elephants that were burned in a fire, asked if he could chose one of those baby elephants to be his pet.
He loves animals of any kind, including bug and worms etc. He will rescue a beetle from the pool and carry it around gently for hours.
Griffin also told me on the week-end that, his mind decided that he wasn't going to swim. So he simply couldn't.
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We are battling a bit with Quinn's school as they want him to stay in Grade R (0/K) next year, and we want to move him up to Grade 1 as he turns 6. His teacher has conceded that academically, intellectually and socially he is ready. Her only reason for wanting to keep him back is that he is young, and a bit playful. She has even admitted that he would cope if he went, the difference would be if he waited another full year he could be TOP of the class...
Would it be worth keeping a child out of school (until 7) and enriching them with a broader scope in that year to allow them to be a top achiever in school? Also if you are ready now, but kept back a full year would it make school super boring (even if easy) once you get there? Where the challenge?
I don't enjoy tasks I find super easy, and once a job becomes too easy for me I tend to start job hunting for something that will stimulate me and allow me to learn again....
I took him for a lengthy and detailed assessment with an educational psychologist who said he is ready. We are still awaiting her detailed report back so we can see how he was assessed and evaluated but so far it seem he will start Grade 1 next year.
Griffin has had to have some physio and speech therapy to sort out a low muscle tone issue which was affecting his self-confidence. He is now progressing smoothly that he is not finding task difficult and awkward.
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