December-- What are they doing now? - Page 3

[Tigerle]

Have realized that there is happening more here than just stressful stuff...DS has branched out from volcanoes (finally!) - he's got a science DVD and now he is enjoying (and learning by heart!) not just the volcano chapter, but also the chapters about planets and space, the moon and rocket ships, the weather - he is extremely interested in the reasons behind summer and winter, night and day, thundestorms and hurricanes...and our house is rather often, a rocket, and we're all astronauts, even the baby!

I have recently had occasion to read up on telling apart issues arising from giftedness and from AD(H)D and have come to the conclusion that when you can't get a newly four-year-old to stop jumping and spinning around on your mattress when it's time to go to sleep it might be AD(H)D, but it's probably giftedness when he excitedly tells you he is earth being orbited by the sun and right now it's day on his front and night on his back and you are immediately suckered into explaing "no no, you're orbiting the sun yourself - look I'll be the sun beaming at you and you're orbiting me and now it's day - um, back into bed! now!"

[kgianforti]

My small girl has exploded in the counting department! She counts EVERYTHING (including the icons at the bottom of my computer screen!). She can almost accurately count 21 objects - if they are too small, she stumbles here and there. She is also object counting to 10 in Spanish.

Right now, she made a long train of blocks that she is counting in both English and Spanish.

[dessismama]

My 11 yo is having fun playing a contemporary cello piece written in a major key in "minor" style. This is in-between practicing the 3rd and 4th acts of Verdi's Macbeth and working on a new thumb position in his bow hold. My 8 yo is writing winter poetry and making a batch of cookies. All are sleighing like crazy in the backyard.

[ellemenope]

I just put a hopped up 2 year to bed.  She was so talkative.  I told her Christmas was over, so she started telling me that Valentine's day was next (She said, "when it is Valen-time we can get the Valen-stuff out of the box.")  I tried to tell her about New Year's but she would not listen to reason because she kept describing something in the box she wanted.  These were her exact words:

"It's like a container that you shake...but it does not make a sound...It is purple and it has a honey bear inside holding a heart...There's like water inside, too."

The best part was her use of 'like' as well as her hand movements.

I was only half paying attention at first, so she had to repeat the clues a couple of times.  I wasn't even putting together she was describing something from the V-day box.  I had to really think. I finally realized she was describing this tiny Valentine snow globe thing.  She was throwing me off a bit, because it is just a bear inside holding a heart.  I have no idea why she is calling it a honey bear other than she said that is its name according to her.  I said, "oh, the snow globe?" and she was like, "well it is like a snow globe...yes!"  I believe she came to the realization that it was a snow globe just then, lol.  I think her memory was a little fuzzy, too.

She was just going on and on, but I thought it was so amazing how she described this object she hadn't seen in almost a year (would have been 19 months old last V-day) so well.

Merry Christmas!

[spedteacher30]

We spent almost 2 hours on Christmas morning raising and lowering stocking toys on a pulley we created that ran from the first floor living room to the second-story window of my mother's storage loft. DS was thrilled to discover how heavy some of the loads could be.

It didn't even phase my mom--in fact, she handed over the mesh bag from the pearl onions so that DS could load even more onto the hook.

[kgianforti]

My big girl spent 3 hours (in a row) using her new Legos yesterday. One thing she made was a circuit board and now is interested in Snap Circuit sets. At one point, she and Grandpa were building things together - the two Engineerings working together! LOL

[kgianforti]

Originally Posted by kgianforti 

My big girl spent 3 hours (in a row) using her new Legos yesterday. One thing she made was a circuit board and now is interested in Snap Circuit sets. At one point, she and Grandpa were building things together - the two Engineers working together! LOL

Ok, the reason for this second post: I was trying to edit my original post and it WOULD NOT let me! All I wanted to do was change "Engineerings" to "Engineers"!!

Edited by kgianforti - 12/26/10 at 2:40pm

[St. Margaret]

Originally Posted by spedteacher30 

We spent almost 2 hours on Christmas morning raising and lowering stocking toys on a pulley we created that ran from the first floor living room to the second-story window of my mother's storage loft. DS was thrilled to discover how heavy some of the loads could be.

It didn't even phase my mom--in fact, she handed over the mesh bag from the pearl onions so that DS could load even more onto the hook.

Oh my goodness, this is EXACTLY what DH was joking about our kids doing someday.  We had a wild (nerdy) night in our college dorm one time helping some fellow nerds "rig up a pulley system" in the stairway, with this huge wooden wheel they found... it's become an in joke over the years, and he started talking about how our kids would totally do that with our stairs someday.  I am going to enjoy telling him about your kids!:)

I also have to add that we have officially declared that DD "can read"--it's been such a gradual process but when my parents were here she was reading the sentences on the advent wall hanging each night, and she's able to read a whole easy reader like gerald and piggie and several pages of a mr putter and tabby type book before getting fatigued... my mom and dad are in early childhood and they were saying um yeah she can read.  DD tackling all these texts that were new, from xmas (presents and like the snowflake book that has a quote she read about "like a great poet"), made that clear to DH and me!  I'm so proud of her, I simply am!  Also, it's great when I'm walking/nursing/etc DS because DD can take a turn reading and I can just pop in to help with a tricky word here and there, but she turns the pages and everything :)

Edited by St. Margaret - 12/29/10 at 4:18pm

[spedteacher30]

Tonight, after we stopped for gas for the car, DS asked, "Why does the car need gas?" I told him that everything needs energy to go--including him--and that cars use gas as their energy. Then, he said, "I'm going to make a car that runs on batteries! Oh, but then you'd need to change the battery." So we talked a little about renewable energy, and how it can come from wind or water or the sun. there is a small hydroelectric plant on the river outside my mom's house, so we talked about the guy who makes electricity at Grandma's and how he was there last week when we were there and he made sure not to hurt the raspberry bushes.

Hours later, he asked, "What's inside a battery?"

I told him, "Electricity--just like in the walls, only they put it inside the battery instead."

So, then he said, "But what is in the walls?"

me: "wires"

him: where do the wires come from?

me: the power lines

him: what are the power lines attached to?

me: the substation

him: what is the substation attached to?

me: the factory where they make the electricity

him: but what is the electricity? What does it look like? Where does it come from?

He's not even 5. When we offer to read books or watch videos about it, he usually says, "No thanks! I am still thinking about it."

Earlier today, he also asked, "are there real live aliens in space?" and I said, "Well, since there are lots of planets, I think there probably is life someplace other than earth" and he said, "yeah, the universe is really big. It goes to infinity."