First Day at local Public School

Z has been attending a Virtual Public School last year and the beginning of this year.  Due to some events and personal reasons we had to switch him to a local public school.  Yesterday was his first day to attend and be with 4th graders.  The 4th graders are any where from 3 months to 1 year older than him.  He was nervous but excited at the same time.

My husband picked him up after school and took Z to his office.  Z did his homework while there and at the end of the day they came home.  When they got home Z said he really enjoyed it and was looking forward to the next day.  He asked if I could help him on one of his homework pages.  So, I took a look at his homework.  He had 5 pages front and back that covered Spelling, Vocabulary, and Math.  He had done them all but one page and it was a word search.  Not hard just a really really big word search.  I looked over everything and he had done all the other sheets correctly.  Everything looked really easy and the Math was really to easy it is covering last years math. 

So, I finally looked at the front of this homework and then I realized.  The entire 5 sheets, the Z had done in about 40 min., was the whole weeks worth of homework.  Kind of wondering what the teacher is going to tell him.  Neither my husband, myself or Z realized that all the pages was for the week.  We ALL thought it was for Monday.

So, I then called out the Spelling words for him to spell out loud.  He spelled all of the correctly except for one but he knows it now.  The words are easier than what he is use to.  From what I can tell from the homework everything is easier than what he is use to and this really concerns me.  I will be talking to the teacher and see if we can challenge him more.  I may even show her what he has been doing so that she can see that what she is giving him is easier than what she is giving him.  I may also start talking to the Middle School Principal about having Z skip 5th grade next year.  I don't know but this kid needs to be challenged.  If he isn't getting challenged in 4th maybe I can get him moved up to 5th this year so that he will start 6th grade next year.  I don't know so many things to think about and not sure if I will be able to get any of that for my son.

Gifted Education Blogs

Top 10 Gifted Education Blogs

Here is the link to Online Degrees.org top 10 Gifted education blogs.

My son "Z" before school

Z is my first child. So, everything he did I thought was normal for his age and when I compared him to the carts I thought the carts where wrong or the bare minimal for that age level. It was until 2 months b4 he turned 2 that I even considered that my son was gifted or ahead of his peers.

Z was a normal baby. I was induced 3 weeks early because of high blood pressure, but he was fine and healthy. In the beginning I actually thought he was delayed. He didn't start crawling as soon as my other friends kids nor walking. However, he would sit and play with a toy longer than my friends kids, watch TV longer, and just look at books longer. He also started talking sooner then my friends kids. I just told myself that they where developing their gross motor skills while he was developing his verbal skills and that they would all even out later.

Z did eventually start walking at 16 months but nothing by that time was even so I just said later. The other kids were all climbing and running and he was just starting to walk but he could talk very clear.

Then about 2 months before he turned 2 he did something that really shocked me and made me question that he was possible gifted. By this time he knew all the basic and a few more colors, he knew all the basic shapes and some not so basic like trapezoid and he was counting to 20. He also enjoyed doing mazes and workbooks. I believe this all normal but then one day out of the blue he counted to 100 the only thing I did would to call out 30,31 and he would take it to 39. I would then say 40,41 and he would go to 49 we did this all the way up to 100. After a week of doing this he was counting to 100 by himself. I knew then that wasn't normal. That was when I started researching gifted kids.

When he turned 2 we got Leap Frog's DVD's Letter Factory series. After 2 weeks he knew all the letters and their sounds. By the time he was 2.5 he was sounding out 3-4 letter words and when he turned 3 he read his first book. During this time he also started correlating counting objects with the corresponding number. By the time he was 3 he was beginning to do simple addition and subtraction.

This was when I started considering home schooling him because I knew by the time he was age ready to enter Kindergarten he was going to be way ahead of his age peers. However, my husband said that he really wanted Z to go to public school. I wanted to honor my husbands wishes but I also wanted to give my son the education he wanted and was hungry for. So, I purchased Abeka's curriculum for 3 year olds and decided to not let my son move so fast. However that was more difficult to do than say.

I quickly decided that the 3's curriculum was way to easy so I purchased Abeka K4. He enjoyed the workbooks except for the handwriting. So, we only did the readiness skills, reading skills, and math skills. Most of it he only had to circle the answers. After a bit the K4 was to easy again. So, when he was a late 3 year old I moved him up to Abeka K5, Kindergarten curriculum for 5 year olds. He really loved this curriculum. At the same time he was also doing Singapore math for Kindergarten.

I slowly moved this this grade level with him and didn't allow him to start 1st grade stuff until he was a late 4. However, it didn't matter what I was doing because his knowledge was growing even without me.

When was was 4 we had his IQ tested and he did fall within the gifted range.

I will continue with the next phase of his life in a different post. The school years to the present.

Skipping Grades

I know with some parents of gifted children there always comes a time in which you ask yourself, is skipping a grade level(s) the best thing for my child's education. This article address skipping grade level(s) and how that sometimes it is the best choice for the child and it will not hurt them.

http://www.creators.com/advice/sylvia-rimm-on-raising-kids/grade-skipping-can-be-best-choice.html

Funny Blog Post

http://laughingatchaos.com/2010/10/19/if-i-ran-a-gifted-conference/

This is a great blog post. It is so funny and true at the same time.

Enjoy.

First Post

I am hoping to share the adventure of raising gifted children. I have 2 children. One a 8 (almost 9) boy named "Z" that has been identified as gifted. The other a 2 (almost 3) girl name "B" who hasn't been identified because of age but is already showing gifted tendencies.

Z is 8 and will be 9 in Nov. For Z's education we have done brick and mortar public school, virtual public school and homeschool (not in that particular order). Currently Z is about to be placed into a brick and mortar public school for 4th grade (one year advancement). I will tell more about Z life growing up gifted in another post.

B is 2 and will be 3 in Dec. For B's education she is currently attending a preschool 2 days a week. For the other 3 days I am going to start working with her on Preschool/Kindergarten lessons. B's post will be a short and sweet post later on because she is young and the adventure is really just beginning for her.

I also plan on posting or reposting other blogs and articles that I find about gifted children. I would hope that my blog is a source of help for others that have gifted children too. I would be more than welcome to answer any questions that anyone has on raising gifted children and their education. I am not promising that I will have an answer all the time but I will try. The one thing that is unique is that I have had experience in public schools, homeschooling, and virtual schools.