January--what are they doing now?

[no5no5]

I thought I'd start a new thread, since DD is actually doing something new.  She invented a new game where she thinks of a number and then tries to come up with different ways to make that number.  I figured it out after she asked me about six different questions in a row, and the answer to all of them was "5."    Since then we've been playing it together.  I've also heard her mumbling numbers under her breath a lot, e.g., "1, 2, 3, 4, 10."  It took me a minute to figure out that she was adding them.  I'm glad she's getting back into math, because she had an early interest but it's been a while since I've noticed her thinking about it (though of course I don't notice everything). 

The other thing I have to share is just cute.  DH & DD were playing legos and DD began to be concerned about something DH was doing.  This conversation ensued:

DH:  Don't worry.  I'm a professional.

DD:  Really?  You're a professional???

DH:  Yes.

DD:  Someone pays you to do this???

I'm pretty sure he had no idea that she'd know what that word meant.  That'll teach him to underestimate her. 

[The artist]

We're doing the solar system right now.

Almost 4 DS explained "See Mommy? These four have rings. They are protected then, but these other ones don't have any rings...I don't think they are safe to live on. Is Earth not safe?"

Me: "Well Earth has something special to protected her. Earth has air. None of the other planets have air like we do. You can feel it when the wind blows. And we can breath it into our chests and blow it out like this."

DS, as he's huffing and puffing: "Look mommy! I'm making the Earth safer!"

All I could do was laugh, and then he goes on.

"Mommy, you know what else is special about Earth? Earth has music, but the other planets don't have any. So maybe she can sing to the other planets."

I could have melted in the sweetness of that statement!

[moominmamma]

Dd16 is practicing up a storm for her National Youth Orchestra audition which we just found out is next weekend. (We hadn't heard anything, so had assumed it would be later in the month. Luckily we were planning to travel to "the big city" next weekend anyway, since it's an 8-hour drive that isn't necessarily easy to fit into a random short-notice weekend.) She's been practicing hard for a couple of weeks, which means she'll be pretty well prepared I think. Still, she hasn't managed to have a lesson on any of the audition repertoire. Too bad, since 80% of it is orchestral excerpts, which she's never had to prepare before. She's also madly trying to complete her Canadian History course, doing two assignments a day. The course is very heavy on assignments: about 65 in total. She's now more than three quarters done. She dislikes the course intensely for all its touchy-feely "creativity"-nurturing assignments. She's of the "where's the beef?" persuasion when it comes to required coursework. She's also taken on the piano accompanying job for the local violin/viola recital, so she's working on learning the orchestral reductions of Haydn, Vivaldi and Bach concertos and other stuff. She spends her free time dreaming of living in Montreal on her own, a dream we're going to try to facilitate for next fall.

Ds14 has been doing some awesome virtual robotics stuff, scripting something he's called "Followbot v3.0" in Garry'sMod / WireMod, building scripts and virtual logic gates in a virtual physics environment that allows him to test everything out. Even better, he's been writing about his process, explaining everything in detail in a blog he keeps in order to report to the supervising teacher who is our liaison for this homeschooling program. He's an amazing technical writer, but hasn't had much interest in writing this year. To have him write in great detail in a clear and incisive way about his projects takes a lot of heat off me and his liaison teacher in terms of providing proof to the school system that he is in fact highly literate. It also functions as a de facto major final project for the Grade 11 InfoTech course the school hopes to give him credit for. And he got totally stoked by some new viola repertoire he was given just before Christmas: the magnificent Schubert Arpeggione sonata in particular. He's taught himself the first two pages and is now chomping at the bit waiting to receive the last two in the mail from his viola teacher with her fingerings and bowings. 

Dd12 has been taken under her brother's wing in the programming and gaming department. She's learning some basics in WireMod. She's also been doing some awesome artwork on RateMyDrawing.com -- using a laptop touchpad, for heaven's sake. She is waiting on a Wacom Bamboo digital pen tablet which was a family Christmas purchase and should be here soon. She's been puttering around with the microscope a lot too lately. Not too interested in academic bookwork the past few weeks, but is doing lots of ice skating on our backyard rink and hanging out at our friends' farm, helping with milking and cheese-making and feeding the animals and such. Oh, and she sewed some really brilliant gifts for us for Christmas, figuring out how to do all sorts of nifty stuff with the sewing machine in secret using Youtube and her own intuition. She seems emotionally on a much more even keel and is happy. For a 12-year-old girl anything else is a bonus.

Dd7 is as always an energetic and passionate renaissance kid, interested in anything and everything, game for whatever she's presented with. Her ice-skating is coming along wonderfully, she can make pancakes and soup from scratch for the family, she's puttering her way through her current math workbook, reading chemistry and biology textbooks for fun, mastering "Treasures of Montezuma" on the iPad, re-reading her way through the Harry Potter books and the Uglies series in tandem, enjoying blogging and photography and knitting and weaving, working hard at the tail end of Suzuki violin book 5, and making pithy little observations in the course of daily life like "Helium balloons would be considered to have negative weight, but positive mass: that's cool," and "Sometimes when people disagree loudly it's because deep down they want to agree but they're afraid to admit it." 

Miranda

[marcinator19]

All of your stories are so fun to read! I just had to chime in.

So my DD 22 months has had another "language explosion" over the Christmas holiday. I definitely notice that she learns so much more when she's not in daycare (she goes 5 days a week to a play-based daycare b/c DH and I work outside the home).

She has started occasionally using longer more thought-out sentences - like "Mommy is eating Loren's yogurt. Loren is eating guacamole." It's always amazed me that she has been using -ing and -ed as well as plural correctly for a really long time - like since 16-18 months.

The other thing that I LOVED to see was her playing with other kids during the break. She likes to play with them now and not just alongside them, which I think is a pretty new development. She even understands the concept of "taking turns." We played mini golf and she would remember when her "turn" was supposed to happen and she would say "It's Ni-Ni's turn!" (she calls herself Ni-Ni - I have NO idea where this came from).

[spedteacher30]

DS asked for a talking Woody doll for Christmas. He got it last week during the after-Christmas clearance sales. The one we got knows if its hat is on or off and says different things depending on whether or not he is wearing his hat.

DS discovered this morning that the hat is magnetic and sticks to the metal leg of the folding table in our family room. We just spent 20 minutes or so trying to "trick" Woody into thinking that various refrigerator magnets are his hat--none of them worked, but DS has decided that maybe our magnets aren't strong enough so he wants to find a stronger magnet when I buy a new crochet hook later today. This has morphed into a discussion of how magnets and electricity are related.

[ellemenope]

2 year old logic:

"This is not a bath toy.  All of my cousin's bath toys float so they are real bath toys.  This dolphin is not really a bath toy because it sinks.  Real bath toys are supposed to float."

Parenting her is really starting to get difficult.  Whereas last year everything went so swimmingly because she was so easy to reason with, now she is out-reasoning me.  I told her she could not buy something because she did not have any money, and without skipping a beat she told me, "you have the money.  You are the one who buys me things.  Just get your credit card out."  A couple of people within earshot thought this was hilarious.

Also, during a warm spell a couple of days ago she turned to me and said, "It is so warm out. It feels like spring."  Her grasp on the changing seasons is pretty amazing for a 2 year old.

Oh, and that reminds me of a conversation we had about the stars that shine up on the wall from her planetarium.  She told me that they were not real stars.  She said the real stars were outside in the night, not on her ceiling.  I asked her what these stars were, and she answered, "they're just made of light."

She is just becoming such a logical little person.

[kgianforti]

My big girl is still spending about 4 hours building with her Legos. This has led to a "how it works" interest. She's been interested before but now it's more intense. She is also really getting into spelling.

My small girl jumped off a 3 foot stool and landed flat on her face. Luckily there was no blood and she didn't cry long. She's my fearless one.

[ollyoxenfree]

I was waiting until after Christmas to post in the December thread about my 2 teens, but I missed the boat thanks to a busier holiday, some unexpected guests, and a trip out of town. Most of what I can say is really about last month. With teens, I'm finding that the "gifted" achievements aren't always the most noteworthy.

DD, 14 y.o., is feeling some pride and accomplishment after cooking our Christmas dinner - a 17 lb. turkey with stuffing, scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots, broccoli and for dessert, Chocolate mousse. She ran out of steam near the end of the preparations, so I made the gravy for her, but she pulled off a wonderful meal. For Christmas, she asked for donations to charity instead of gifts, except for a red apron, so she would be festively clad while she prepared our dinner. In addition to the apron, I found a pouffy white chef's hat for her, and she was thrilled to look the part of master chef! With her gift money, she bought some chickens, a goat and a donkey, clean drinking water, textbooks and planted trees - a very nice collection! I admit I did also fill a stocking for her, with some fair trade chocolate and tea, and a batik scarf from Indonesia, and a few other treats, from a local shop that supports international fair trade in developing regions. I figured it was within the spirit of her request.  

DS, 17 y.o., is over the moon lately, because his band's demo disc received some radio play recently. It was on a small, local station but the DJ was really enthusiastic about the band. DS is also trying to sort out his preferences for university programs. The research is a little daunting because there are so many options and he isn't quite as motivated as he could be, since his ultimate plan is to defer acceptance and take a gap year to travel.  He also finished the classroom portion of Driver's Ed. over the holiday. He's been driving with a licensed driver beside him since last summer, so he should be ready soon to take the on-road test for the next level of licensing (and consequently, independent driving  ). 

I'm enjoying watching them grow into wonderful young adults.  

Edited by ollyoxenfree - 1/3/11 at 5:55pm

[St. Margaret]

ollyoxenfree, your kids sound so awesome!

I noted in the last thread that DD is reading now.  She can do easy readers, some all on her own, some with a touch of help, but she does tend to get fatigued before the end of the long ones.  She keeps trying to read her Rainbow Magic books but stops and says, "This book is pretty tricky!" lol But we keep catching her in her nook sounding out the chapters titles and first sentences. 

Of course all day long she narrates her days, and has adopted a lot of grammatical and narrative devices from those books.  Today every hour or so she'd announce, "Chapter One: An Idea" and then "Chapter Two: A Second Idea" and so on.  Other days the chapters are silly things or things from what she's doing right then.  And then she "tells the story of her day" all the time, adding narration to what she says, like she'll say, "'I want to have some crackers,' she said, scurrying to the kitchen."  And then she'll recite or make up rainbow magic dialogue and description... we are just seriously entertained and cracking up all the time, basically.  God love DH for reading her a book a night.

Every morning she thinks of something hilarious to come in and say to us.  It started where she'd wake up and be thinking and talking for a bit, and then come in and declare something about whatever topic, and now it's like her goal to come in and crack us up.  It'll be "Chicken Fricassee!" or "Princess Perlipat!" (from The Nutcracker) or "Plucking without Putter!" (from the beloved Mr. Putter books) or, today, "Guacamole!"

[ollyoxenfree]

Aww, thanks St. Margaret! They have their moments and it's nice to be able to share them here. There are definitely other moments that I could dwell on. Like the fact that DD has been asking for all sorts of junk this past week (stuffed toys, t-shirts etc.) that she doesn't need or really want. I'm not sure if she realizes yet that it's a reaction to a low-key gift Christmas. I know she'll come around soon, but it's been....challenging and interesting to watch. It was her idea to donate to charity and she know her brother wasn't going to participate with her, but I don't think she realized how "character-building" (as we call our tougher challenges) that would be. 

It's fun to read everyone's anecdotes and updates. They all sound like awesome kids.  I like reading about the little ones. We had my 6 y.o. nephew for a day over the holidays and it was such fun to have someone that age in the house again - but exhausting too! 

[majormajor]

i've never posted here about my younger DD (and only rarely about my older), but she's 2.5 years old now and looking to be gifted too. but gifted or not, the girl sure is a riot, so i thought you guys might like a few anecdotes. this weekend she announced from her carseat, "mommy, i don't have to wash my hands any more after i go potty because god told me i don't have to." trumped by god! way to go straight to the top kiddo. the next day she ran over to the toilet while i was in the bathroom, rubbed her hands on it, and ran out yelling "GOD TOLD ME!!" this is the same girl that i tried playing the santa card on (why do i bother with santa? cultural pressure? my death-obsessed 5 year old only likes to talk about whether or not santa, and by extension his elves, are immortal like god, jesus, and mary. what i wouldn't give for a santa discussion that doesn't involve death!). anyway, i told the little one she had to listen to me or else santa wouldn't bring her the belle dress she asked for. she said, "that's ok, i saw a good one at target. i'll buy it there." yup, screw santa, she's an independent woman!!

academically, bigger DD is progressing really rapidly with her reading, and i have to email her teacher about getting some math for her on her level. she does multi-digit addition and subtraction for fun, is figuring out multiplication on her own, and the other day was getting into fractions. i've been avoiding teaching her this stuff because i still feel like she enjoys self-directed learning/exploration best, but now she's asking for work on her level to do at school, so i guess it's time. she actually called the math they're doing at school "baby math," and i felt awful. i should have set up a more appropriate situation for her earlier, i just thought she liked doing what the other kids were doing. :-(

[ellemenope]

Originally Posted by majormajor 

i've never posted here about my younger DD (and only rarely about my older), but she's 2.5 years old now and looking to be gifted too. but gifted or not, the girl sure is a riot, so i thought you guys might like a few anecdotes...

DD just turned 2.5 as well.  They are a riot.  What a fun age.  Of course, my life these past 5 weeks has been probably the most stressful its been in a long time, and I do remember saying out loud about a few dozen times that this age absolutely sucks, but things have quieted down now, the dust has settled, and the last 4 days or so have been bliss.  She is amazing.  I am so lucky to have such a buddy.  (We moved across the country, back to my hometown, and DH set off globetrotting and will be gone for months.  I miss him dearly already, but we are actually THRIVING right now, the two of us.  And, I have to say those weeks leading up to his departure were understandably HELLISH.)

She named the little stuffed animal DH gave her "cloudy" and told me "he can go up in the sky and see daddy on the other side of the world and give him hugs."  MELTED MY HEART.  She also can carry these real long conversations with DH on the phone.  One conversation took place with her sitting in the front of the shopping cart zooming through the grocery store.  It must have been a really cute sight.  (I know I am biased, but she is the cutest 24lbs I have ever seen, saying things like "I miss you so much daddy" and going on and on about her day.)

DD is so fluent, that when she pauses for even a second I think "okay, here it comes," and she will spit out this random word or some abstract line of thinking, and it is complete with squinted eyes and a cocked head.  My mom, a preschool teacher, even commented on how she seems to be such a profound thinker, as well as how argumentative she is.  She added that I was nothing like this, and good luck.  Hmmm, I always hit the ceiling on the verbal portions of the tests.  All I can say is that I was a quiet child.  DD may well not be.

Other than her being incredibly verbally advanced, she just remembers everything and is learning about everything.  I have to remind myself that it is not typical for a 2 year old to demand explanation of the sewer system or ask if all the deciduous trees are now dead, nor is it typical for her to remember my explanations, crude as they are, and recall it whenever she needs or wants.   And, she also has this penchant for listening to all conversations going on around her.  I know, because she will ask me about them later.  It is scary.  She will wait till bedtime and ask "what did grandpa mean when he said..."  Also, how normal is is for a 2 year old to actually listen to talk radio?

What is she doing now?

She is all about time and kind of always has had this scary innate sense of it.  She knows seasons.  She knows holidays.  She knows months.  She knows birthdays.  What order they all come in.  She likes to say things like "a couple day ago,"  "a couple weeks ago."  "a couple months ago."  and again she is scarily accurate.   She likes to guess how birthdays relate to age, but can't figure it out.  But she will make inferences like "Mommy is born in April and Daddy is born in October, so that means Mommy is older than Daddy?"  Or she will say that two kids born in July are the same age.  She knows everyone's age.  It is just so interesting because she can remember all these birthdays, seems to understand that say 10 is more than 5, but still won't really count (enumerate)!

[Tigerle]

DS loves this Christmas present: Georello Toolbox http://www.amazon.com/Quercetti-Georello-Toolbox-165-pieces/dp/B001EUB2SO/ref=pd_sim_t_3

Unsurprisingly, he easily gets grownups to help him build stuff, it's such a neat system. Heartily recommended for budding little engineers for whom ordinary legos aren't quite mechanical enough and who aren't quite old enough for the sophisticated lego stuff.

In order to wind down (or wind himself up? I am never quite sure) just before going to sleep, he used to re-recite his current bedtime story in a whisper - now he recites the voice over from his favourite volcano DVD (complete with the somewhat sensationalist ominous tone: "Naples, a city with 2 million inhabitants. Not all of them are conscious of the menace Vesuvious poses..."- just like the Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon about the Hoover dam - it's a riot!) Lately he has started to work out math problems on his fingers at bedtime instead. I kind of regret teaching him that - on the other hand, maybe it does help him to go to sleep. I am ready to try almost everything short of drugging him at the moment. Waiting for a call back from the psych unit at the local children's hospital.

DD is making canonical syllables. i had not idea that that was what they were called before reading NurtureShock. but now I am enlightened. According to NurtureShoch, it's an exciting development, so we are duly excited. It's just supercute!

[Grace and Granola]

Thank you so much for posting this!  This will be perfect for my soon to be 4yo's b-day next month!  I have seen gear toys in the past that I knew he would love, but they all came with few pieces that seemed geared toward toddlers.  This looks fantastic :)  This child is so into building and how things work, he is already beyond me.  Thankful for my very scientifically-minded husband.
 

Originally Posted by Tigerle 

DS loves this Christmas present: Georello Toolbox http://www.amazon.com/Quercetti-Georello-Toolbox-165-pieces/dp/B001EUB2SO/ref=pd_sim_t_3

[EviesMom]

Lately DD has cemented my suspicion that she is dyslexic, just like her uncle, grandfather, and great aunt (she's developed great compensatory strategies, her standardized testing was 94th percentile for reading last year; and she's reading 1 grade level ahead of age roughly). Some classic symptoms, and then she also does the trick her dyslexic uncle does of reading books equally well upside down or in the mirror as they do normally. She said to me the other night, answering quiz questions in a magazine "And I covered up the upside down answers so I wouldn't read them on accident before I answered the questions." 

She was stuck on reading at roughly the same level for about a year, starting to get discouraged and we started Headsprout this fall. Now she's jumped up tremendously and gone from little readers to simple chapter books. Instead of reading lessons, for the rest of the year, I bought Handwriting Without Tears cursive we'll see how it goes. It should be helpful with letter reversals, and she likes the look of cursive. 

Meanwhile, she was learning about seeds and pollen, and then wanted to know how the seed got the directions to grow into a tree. Then where the first cell that makes a baby comes from (I said half from the Mom and half from the Dad, but she hasn't asked so far how these halves get together!). She thanked DH that night for giving her an X chromosome because she's glad she's a girl. She went around labelling things like her toys with little pieces of tape with xx or xy. She wanted to know if there's a way to locate that specific cell within her body (I said I didn't think so!). 

[leighi123]

Levi is pretty much doing what he was last month - 

- his skiing has improved SO much from last year, he did some advanced runs with no problem (and its fun to see how much he enjoys himself and how proud he is when he looks up at the mountain and sees what he just skiied down!).  If you want to see, here he is: http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u218/leighi123/baby/December%202010/?action=view&current=MOV05778.mp4 (check out that view too!, the other run you can see is another one he can do, the one he is on in the video is intermediate and then goes to advanced farther down)

-his gymnastics coach said she noticed a huge jump in his development (he had his first class on monday sense the end of november), just as far as his focus, listening, asking questions, etc.   Then I got a call today that they are moving him to the 5yr old class b/c they think it will be a better fit for him (he is 3), because of his social skills and because he is good at gymnastics!

- his reading has really taken off, he isnt sounding out words as much, he just looks at them and reads them.  He seems to want to just read words though, not books.  But he LOVES being read too, we just have 2 more books to read in "The Littles" series... now I have to find another series he will like! 

- he got a quadrilla marble run for christmas (from me!), and although I think its a really cool toy and I have fun with it myself, he is better at putting it together than I am! 

-he keeps asking me things that I have to google to find out answers for him - today about bones in your fingers, and how the digestive system works.  He also wants to know why people fart (he is smart, but he is also 3, so farts are an interesting topic apparantly)

[no5no5]

Originally Posted by EviesMom 

Lately DD has cemented my suspicion that she is dyslexic, just like her uncle, grandfather, and great aunt (she's developed great compensatory strategies, her standardized testing was 94th percentile for reading last year; and she's reading 1 grade level ahead of age roughly). Some classic symptoms, and then she also does the trick her dyslexic uncle does of reading books equally well upside down or in the mirror as they do normally. She said to me the other night, answering quiz questions in a magazine "And I covered up the upside down answers so I wouldn't read them on accident before I answered the questions."

How old is she?  I wouldn't assume that she is dyslexic if she is within a few years of when she started to read.  Apparently most early signs of dyslexia are very common in new readers.  And, FWIW, I am not dyslexic at all and read upside down very easily (and have since childhood), while my dyslexic DH absolutely can't do it. 

[mom2ponygirl]

My dd, 12, is currently composing a piece of music to accompany the lyrics of a song from The Hunger Games.  She's written the vocal melody and is now in process of writing the piano accompaniment.  She has also finished the majority of her script for an short animated feature she wants to create - hopefully not related to The Hunger Games. ;-)  I need to read it soon!

[EviesMom]

Originally Posted by no5no5 

Originally Posted by EviesMom 

Lately DD has cemented my suspicion that she is dyslexic, just like her uncle, grandfather, and great aunt (she's developed great compensatory strategies, her standardized testing was 94th percentile for reading last year; and she's reading 1 grade level ahead of age roughly). Some classic symptoms, and then she also does the trick her dyslexic uncle does of reading books equally well upside down or in the mirror as they do normally. She said to me the other night, answering quiz questions in a magazine "And I covered up the upside down answers so I wouldn't read them on accident before I answered the questions."

How old is she?  I wouldn't assume that she is dyslexic if she is within a few years of when she started to read.  Apparently most early signs of dyslexia are very common in new readers.  And, FWIW, I am not dyslexic at all and read upside down very easily (and have since childhood), while my dyslexic DH absolutely can't do it. 

I have some education classes and special ed classes, plus watching my brother through special schools and testing accomodations. I feel like what she's doing is outside the bounds of normal, but not grossly so. Normally, kids do reversed letters, confuse things like b and d, and learn to correct these after they've been reading and writing for about a year typically. She's been doing them for 3 plus years. Excels at spatial tasks and puzzles. Ridiculously good memory. With several diagnosed-dyslexic family members, there are just things that match up with her. She's in first grade, reading mid-second grade level. (If she were schooled, I'd probably be talking to the teacher, doing some support work at home, but not testing or labelling as of yet.)

It's actually nice for me to have an idea on where things are coming from with her. My brother is an accountant, earned a bachelors but hard fought, and my dad is a chemical engineer with a master's degree, not so hard fought. I just like to know, for example, that cursive earlier rather than later can help with reversals (for some kids); and spelling rules are much more useful than conventional phonics based spelling programs (for some dyslexic kids).

[dessismama]

It is fun to see another of these threads. I enjoy very much reading about what everyone is doing, from the youngest to the teens.

DS (11) is having a really busy start of the year. This weekend his youth symphony is performing semi-staged opera--Macbeth by Verdi; next weekend his piano quintet performs Piston's movements 1 and 2; the following weekend is the contemporary festival and the string chamber orchestra will perform a piece DS composed, and his quintet will perform another piece he composed; on top of this DS will play Julie-o by Summer and possibly a microtonal solo piece he is still to learn. In the meantime, he is working on two Popper etudes, a caprice by Piatti and more parts of the the 3rd Bach cello suite.

DD (8 almost 9) is playing school with her younger brother; she is preparing worksheets and activities. It is cute! She also is writing more poetry! She cannot wait for her birthday later this month... she can solve complex math problems so quickly I can barely keep up with her.

DS (5) still loves his Kindergarten class. The other day he wanted to go play outside with his older brother. So he turned on some cello music on the CD player and asked his older brother to join him outside. I was doing something in another part of the room and he really wanted to get his older brother out of practicing and into playing with him. The whole scheme was his doing. DH thinks we are really going to be in trouble when our little schemer gets older..:)