Potential of our children, they can do what? Please share.

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
1

I just wanted to share an overheard conversation that made me think of the moms and kids in here :slight_smile:

A man was bragging to his friend about his daughter. He was saying she is a “math genius”. He then went on to say she can count to 20 and knows all her shapes. I almost chocked in my drink when he then said she will only be 3 in September.
I am glad he is proud of his daughter. But people truly don’t know the potential of little kids. I absolutely love hearing about all the kids in here.it makes me open my eyes more and more each day and offer more things for James to learn.

I would love to hear some things that the Brill kids have been up to that goes beyond the norms.

2

ooooooo… you want us to brag? Hmmmm okay if you insist. :blush: :biggrin:

Josiah is somewhere around 3 years, 3 months old.

He can:

o accurately read most 3 syllable words without prior knowledge (at times, he even accurately reads scientific words out of anatomy diagrams)

o read short phrases out loud (and although he is often resistant to reading out loud, I’ve caught him reading paragraphs when he thought I wasn’t paying attention)

o generally knows the way to form most cursive letters (still a work in progress)

o can tell you the location of and perhaps describe the function of all his major organs

o can count accurately to well towards one hundred (another thing I’ve caught him doing secretly)

o is currently (slowly) memorizing his addition tables

o do atleast 60 pc jigsaw puzzles (we haven’t bought any 100 pc yet, though he is probably ready)

o locate all the continents , oceans and several countries on a world map

o can locate all the states on a map ( we have a puzzle for this)

o name all the parts of an atom :wink:

o count by two to twenty

o recite several things like nursery rhymes, songs, and the pledge of allegience (we are always adding to this)

o speak elementary spanish and read many spanish words (I don’t really track this all that well)

and there is just a bunch of random stuff that he knows. Some that I may not be aware of, because he reads so well or he has just learned it off of one of his videos and it sticks in his head, but not mine :rolleyes:

He may also be somewhat advanced physically. At his birthday party this year, every child but his sister was older than him. We have a balance beam that he just runs across or stands on without any thought to balance. The other children seemed to have difficulty with this. Of course, he climbs anything he can… I caught him climbing over a four foot picket fence in our backyard recently. :wacko: He runs, skips, jumps, about anything you can think of. The only thing he hasn’t mastered is the monkey bars and jumping rope really. But I haven’t really evaluated any of this officially.

3

I’d love to share…
I started my daughter with YBCR at 3 months, sign language at 6 months, little reader at 12 months and now at 14 months I’m exposing her to the doman dots.
When my daughter was 12 months old we were catching a plane together to see the grandparents. I was trying to settle her on the plane by reading books, giving her toys, food and milk etc. Then to my surprise when we were half way through a picture book she looked up at me and signed “finished” and then signed “sleep”. This was the first time she had used two signs together at once. I didn’t believe it right away, but I put the book down and straight away she cuddled up in my arms and fell asleep. I just wanted to tell the whole plane!!

At 13 months I noticed her do the sign for “car” after reading the written word. That same day she signed “chin” and “banana” from only looking at the written word. Thank you very much YBCR!

Now everyday she finds away to show me that she is just taking everything on board. She just does so many things that make me go… “you can do what?”

4

:slight_smile: I love the things these little ones an do. To me it is inspiring.

Annisis I just made a rudimentary balance beam in the backyard for James to enjoy. First time across with no spotting it took him a bit. But by the time he had been across it 4 times he was just walking across it. Now he runs.
Monkey bars are something I want him to work on. He is under 25lbs now. It is the best time for him to learn I think.
We are also working up him distance running stamina. He can walk/run up to 2 miles.

5

Kiwimum.
That is so awesome. James couldnt sign anything other than to nurse until he was at least 18 months. By 2 he was signing all sorts of ideas to me. I remember one day when he was 20-21 months that we went for a walk and he signed tree cold leaf fall down to indicate the changing of the seasons. It was our moment when we realised how good his receptive language was even though he had no vocal expressive language.

6

Isn’t it nice to be able to talk (or brag) about our amazing kids here? I always find it so inspiring. My Big Girl A is 21 months and can:

Recite the numbers 1-20
Count out up to 4 objects (occasionally higher)
Recognize the letters of the alphabet and make most of their sounds
Is just starting to sound out words phonetically
Recognize some sight words
Recognize a few chords on the piano and their solfege names
Make music on the harmonica and tin whistle
Recite a number of songs, nursery rhymes, poems, and stories (I keep being surprised by how many she knows)
Talk like she’s a year older (according to random strangers in the grocery store; she’s a chatterbox)
Walk/run half a mile (we should do more, but I’ve been too pregnant to focus on physical goals)
Take off pants and underwear and sometimes shoes; put on underwear and pants if they’re lined up properly for her
Use the potty
Compare sizes to see what fits
Name shapes, colors, etc
Do simple wooden cut-out puzzles

I imagine I’ll come up with more. It’s so much fun to teach her! And I love reading about what everyone else’s kids are doing. It’s my favorite time-consumer!

7

lol… well Julia can do all these things, oh - and she’ll be two in October, lol. Just posted at the top of the forum.

8

My son has never been the type to show off, and when he got good at reading I went through a brief phase where I was so excited about his progress that I’d try to get him to read something to grandma or whoever but he was just stubborn and never would so I gave up trying. So I sat in disbelief the other day when my son was being as open as ever with his skills in reading and Spanish.

I was at the bank opening a savings account for our son, 5 yrs old. I’m not really sure how it happened but my son said something in Spanish and the man sitting across the desk asked him if he knew Spanish, to which he replied “yes” and spoke a little Spanish. So the man asked me how he knew Spanish and how we taught him, etc. Then my son read the words on a sucker wrapper (his sole excitement for going to the bank) and the man commented that he was surprised he could read so well! He asked my son, “is there anything you can’t do?” and my son thought and said “well, I don’t know very much Chinese” to which the man looked surprised and then chuckled a bit. Then the man started having my son talk to the other bank personnel in Spanish, he was actually showing off my son, and my son was just beaming! The other tellers also asked me all about how he learned, etc. It felt very strange. I actually had to step back and think “wow, i guess i didn’t realize how unique he is”. I mean, as a parent we always think our children are special and great but I really must be in this early learning bubble where I don’t really see it as being special or different any more, I must spend too much time on this forum!!! :slight_smile: Has that ever happened to anyone else? where you’re just suddenly struck with “wow, my kid really is doing something kinda different and unique”

This weekend my son (kindergartener) made it to the “Fleet Admiral” rank on Raz-Kids, which means he’s read enough and answered enough questions to where he earned 30,000 stars, giving him the rank. He had to start on level aa and, although it was clearly too easy, his teacher said he needed to do each level, so we just do around 15-30 minutes a day. He’s now level G which is still 1st grade level, and he is reading them with no problems, so he’s clearly above a 1st grade reading level. Anyway my son got an award at school today for reaching Fleet Admiral and when I picked up my son his teacher told me that she’d never had a student reach that level, not this year or last year. And we are only 2 months into the year. She had never seen this before and was just amazed. I was a bit surprised at this too and a little proud of my son at the same time.

Anyway, just wanted to share!

9

“well, I don’t know very much Chinese”

LOL, thank you for this.

I do think we perhaps get a skewed view of the typical, because in this little “bubble” the norms are different. In fact, I’m starting to read up on some Thomas Kindermann studies that parallels this to some extent (peer groups influencing achievement)

10

The little girl I have in daycare with Down Syndrome has been with me a year and a half. She had no early intervention until last fall but it was mostly speech therapy. She just turned 4 two weeks ago - during the school year I have about an hour of good work time with her a day. During the summer a bit more, but she doesn’t attend regularly.

She can:

Play piano with the right hand. Recognize all notes middle C to high D and 4 cords and translate notes and cords to the keyboard.
Count to 30 forward and backward and recognize the numerals when she sees them.
She knows about 100 words by sight - that I know of - she won’t tell you what she knows.
She is adding single digit numbers to 10.
She can sing/recite nursery rhymes
Has been potty trained for a year and a half
Can ride a balance bike (at my house - she doesn’t have one at home)
Hop on one foot or both feet - that is huge BTW
Climb up the slide part of any slide
And give the best hugs in the entire universe

EDIT: She also knows all the basic shapes and colors

That is off the top of my head

11

I had a moment when organizing my son’s birthday party when I realised that we didn’t have any ‘kids’ music. He has classical music, tune toddlers, Chinese songs, maths and science songs… we ended up using my album of Disney music :biggrin:

I forget that it isn’t ‘normal’ to not play nursery-rhymes and cartoon themes! The same goes for TV- the mothers at playgroup were discussing their child’s favourite cartoons and it struck me that I couldn’t really join in, since our favourite was either a Chinese-speaking panda (Pim :D) or an old Soviet cartoon, both of which would be regarded as ‘odd’.

Probably the thing that makes it obvious that I spend too much time on this forum is the fact that I feel we are ‘going really slow’ because he’s just turned 3 and only knows his letter sounds but won’t sound out words lol

EDIT: I forgot to mention that he can sing Twinkle Twinkle in solfege, as well as sing do-to-do and re-to-re scales, recognise the solfege notes and several chords (when he wants to). He has also taken to singing up the scale as he counts (one on do, two on re etc.). Isn’t it normal for a 3-year-old to make up tunes that incorporate scales and solfege? :rolleyes:

12

Oh Mummyroo! I was in stitches reading your post. I completely understand the whole lot!
I started work teaching kindy…didn’t have any music did I! Oh well they love my science songs anyway now :wink: I borrowed some beginning math nursery rhymes ( one two buckle my shoe type stuff) so the parents think i am balanced lol
We are going slow too my 4 year old can only read 2 sentences per page, on a good day :biggrin:
Oh I surpose his math is worth skyting about. Grade 1-2 before school isn’t too lazy.
You know what I was really proud of though? Well at kindy I had them all make the big bad wolf in collage. My son cut thousands of little squares of crepe paper and LAYERED his wolfs furry coat. Took him ages and looked amazing. I wouldn’t have had the patience to do it and he is a BOY! It’s was a bit hard for people Not to notice his big bad wolf. :biggrin:
I have had that birthday party problem before too. Cassis EL

13

lol Manda

I expect that Big Bad Wolf looks incredible!

And I didn’t mention maths because we haven’t actually started it yet :rolleyes: At the moment he is just counting to 20 in English and 10 in Russian :slight_smile:

14

Jaykob was 3 years and maybe 4 months when we started on his math. I expect you will zoom past us, I can’t say my teaching is very consistent or regular. If yours is then you better be skyting here next year :biggrin:
Oh my Russian is terrible! That’s awesome! :yes:

15

Your posts are very, very, encouraging!!! I have just started EL with my 13 month twins, but they can choose the correct word between two options, even among five cards, and after only two Little Reader sessions in English (we’re Spanish) they wave, point and clap when I ask them in English to do so. And we’re having so much fun!!! :biggrin:

16

We just purchased these off Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Brain-FA038-1-Toys-Inchimals/product-reviews/B00392NSI2/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

I thought I’d share the following review. Not because I think you all should run out and buy these - but because of the mother’s attitude. I thought about posting a link to the forum under comments.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful 4.0 out of 5 stars Learning math without knowing it!, May 13, 2011 By Mommy in Texas (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fat Brain Toys Inchimals (Toy)
We use this for my 4 year old daughter, and she’s learning math without knowing it. we’re not really following the instructions in the book, as she’s slightly too young for doing the real math. She actually kept begging to go through the additions/subtractions in the book but we told her she would have to wait. Note: My daughter isn’t usually the self-motivated type when it comes to learning academic stuff…so it’s amazing that this game fascinated her so much! We made up games…puppet play, measuring how tall each animal is, stacking them up and trying to make the other animals match the height…etc. She has fun with it!

I wonder how long the child will be motivated if they keep withholding information from her.

17

:frowning:

The only time when I stymie James’ (2) desire for learning is when we have spent an hour reading books and he is doing it to procrastinate going to bed.

18

It is really sad to see how people are dealing with their kids curiosity.

Anyways! I wanted to share a sweet sentence that my 25 mos said yesterday: “The Atlantic Ocean: two sides are parallel!” What a beautiful conclusion he came up with after looking at the world map! He just was telling me he is ready to learn about plate tectonics :wink: a couple of printouts, lots of crayons and useful YouTube clips kept him busy for the rest of the day lol

19

loved to read all that the kids are doing, my kids are doing great to, reading math, phisicaly, etc, but I do like that the man was sooo happy with his doughter, I think the most important thing I have lernt with Doman is to always be proud of our kids no mater what they know!!!