Gifted Child

DS has a monthly homework calendar for school. They have to 2 activities a week and then check a box showing which activities he did. At the end of the month he has a questionnaire to answer.

The activities are things like "do something nice for someone", "count to 10", "name 5 words that start with P".

Tonight DS was finishing up the month and answering the questionnaire (parents also have to answer questions and sign the paper). The first questions was "what did you learn", DS answered "nothing". The second question was "what did you enjoy doing most", again DS answered "nothing". The last question was "what did you need help doing the most", again DS answered "nothing".

He was being honest with his answers, but I don't think it's what his teacher was looking for. I tried to coax him into some more "teacher friendly" answers and he told me that he wanted to answer the questions as truthfully as possible. So I've decided to leave it.

Is it possible to be too honest in regards to these things? Am I letting him get himself in trouble for the answers? I did sign this paper (but he's not turning it in until Friday).

My oldest had the same homework calendar I believe. Really, it's open enough that you can help those activities be more meaningful. Doing "something nice for someone" can mean making dinner for dad. That's a learning experience that he will need some help with, that he will learn something from. 5 words that start with P means he can pull out 5 brand new words from the dictionary that he didn't know, what about 5 words that have a silent P. I remember some activities like "count the windows in the house." Sure, counting the windows is easy. However, my own kid had never actually counted the windows and so the quantity was new information and a chance to talk about cross current and why windows were in certain places in the house. There are ways to make those calendars far more interesting. Believe me, you are much better off than the worksheets DS had to bring home in kindie!

The thing is, almost all kids are going to answer "nothing" when asked "what did you learn" at that age. It's a question they just don't know how to answer yet. Most are still learning through play and they don't really differentiate the 2 activities yet. My DD at that age used to only associate learning with something you read in a book. She didn't count things you just picked-up through the course of life like coral trees have thorns (something she learned from trying to climb one lol.) It helps to subtly point out when learning is happening as well as point out when you yourself learned something in the course of your day. This makes answering those questions easier.

In my class, one of the favorite activities of gifted students has always been using the dictionary to find new and unusual words. So, for the five words starting with P - use the dictionary to find five new p words (one is the longest word in the English language with something like 27 letters...) and learn the meanings, challenge your DS to use the words every day, etc.  For count to 10 - how about counting to 10 in a totally new language?  For doing something nice for someone - how about can you do something nice for a person in your house or classroom, that goes unnoticed by the person on the receiving end of the good deed?

These homework calendars sound like a nice opportunity to teach your son how to think outside the box. I always want my students and own children to know that in any situation, you can often find something new to learn, and then challenge yourself to do so.

-Maggie

Yes, I think that you can be too honest. I don't want to sound negative, but a lot of teachers dislike smart kids. Now, before I get figuratively hit in the head by any teachers, I'm sure that many just love smart kids, but many find smart kids annoying. They think that they're being sarcastic, when many smart kids are just literal. Also, a lot of smart kids don't know how to stretch themselves. I had to push my kids - okay, if you already know all that, how can you make it more interesting? What can you do to make it harder? Some kids will do that, but at your son's age, he's pretty young to figure it out and he's also probably going to want to follow the rules and do exactly what the project says-nothing more or less-because he doesn't want to do the wrong thing.

Does the teacher know your son is gifted? Can you meet with her and say, "these activities are great, but would it be okay if my ds did something slightly different to challenge himself?"

I have a friend who has an eight-year old gifted son and when we first started talking a few years ago, I think she thought I was negative at times. She wanted to be open and honest and share her son's gift with the world. However, you do have to use some caution. I know from having two kids go through the system (my college dd and my hs senior dd) that there are good ways and bad ways to communicate to teachers so they don't feel like they're being slammed. Now that my friend has dealt with the school system more, she realizes that sometimes teachers/administrators/other parents can take offense at things that are really completely innocent and honest. She feels like she's being matter of fact, and they feel like she's bragging or insulting them. It's frustrating of course, but you need to deal with this teacher all year and if she is put on the defensive immediately (because really, you are saying it was a bad choice of assignments that taught your son nothing) it won't go well.

Don't get me wrong-I'm on your side and I CRINGE when my gifted second grader comes home with some really stupid assignment he could have done in preschool, but I continue to work with the teacher and school on challenging him and just try to be as positive as I can.

Theresa