Bugsy... gifted too???

From all my reading on giftedness i know that siblings are generally close in IQ however i've never really felt that with my kids, well not until recently.  Flossy was so clearly different right from the start.  She was amazing and quirky at 18m.  Bugsy is completely different, he's a boy, LOL.

Flossy is clearly language inclined although she can hold her own in math too.  Bugsy is not language oriented at, all.  Just over two years ago he started getting into Lego and building and more recently has started to explode with it.  It wasn't until the last week that i realised that he has a STEM mind!  Where have i been?  Under a rock?!

I'm not sure why it took me SO long to wake up to myself LOL.  Perhaps i was secretly in denial hoping that he wouldn't be gifted too.  Perhaps with everything going on in my life it just didn't enter my mind.  Perhaps because it's through his play and not through his lessons that i have come to realise this and that is why i didn't notice earlier.

So, this week i have been busy looking at STEM things that might interest him.  We pulled out the Snap Circuits and i have given him free range and he has built some great designs.  We already encourage Lego and i've been looking at Lego WeDo and Lego Mindstorms for next year.  We've downloaded and started using Scratch and he's spent hours having fun with that.  He also has a knack with logic puzzles and games which he already has access to on his iTouch.  I'm not sure what else we will get up to, but i can see it will be fun.

Ironically, Bugsy and I are so similar.  I loved all things STEM as a kid.  I built a solar powered car from bits and pieces at age 11 and took it to school to show the class.  I wanted to be an engineer and went to women in engineering workshops at the local uni's.  In the end i never followed a STEM career, math makes your brain work, and everything else was much easier than that! LOL, i guess i was lazy, i had so much potential.

An unofficial grade skip

As the middle of the year approaches it is time to review what we have been up to and where we are headed. It has become very obvious to me that the course of study Flossy has undertaken this year, her Pre-Primary year, is far in excess of what Bugsy will be capable of next year which will be his Pre-Primary year. It is also certainly in excess of her age peers at public school. So with much thought and reflection I have decided this Pre-Primary course is actually a Year 1 level course and on completion Flossy will move into Year 2 next year.

That leaves a gaping hole in my programming. Not only do I need to come up with a Year 2 plan for Flossy, I now need to come up with a Pre-Primary year for Bugsy. He will then roll into the Year 1 course of study the following year.

So all hands are now on deck to get some decisions made and materials purchased so that everything is scheduled out and ready to go well before the end of this year. I want it all ready to move on well before our new baby arrives throwing life into chaos.

*Watch for some shuffling in the plans on my sidebar*

Gifted Kids

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of attending a lecture conducted by Dr Deborah Ruf entitled "Bright child, gifted or not?" She was lovely! Basically she went through the levels she outlines in her book titled 5 Levels of Gifted. Some interesting points that I jotted down to share are ...

• where kids show a keen interest when they are young shows potential for future careers
• no busywork
• IQ's can be measured by suburb ie - professional people tend to have higher IQ's and tend to congregate by suburb, think Dr's, lawyers, accountants
• siblings generally have a 15pt range of one another and are also close in range to their parents
• married couples tend to be close in range to each other
• many gifted kids don't do well with phonics, many prefer a whole to parts approach than part to whole
• don't teach gifted kids expose and discuss, they are inquiry driven
• a level 4 child will be ready for algebra by age 10
• a HG child can go from not reading anything to reading at a adult level within 2 years
• L5 kids tend to have a musical aptitude that isn't as present in other levels
• we naturally like to do what we are good at, so look at kids when they are chilling out, what are they doing?
• teachers teach to the top of the bottom 1/3 of the class
• for math, single sex classes are best
• girls do better in single sex high schools
• HG kids can be left handers and highly excitable, also have sensory issues
• in countries where kids are tracked from 9 or 10 the gifted kids tend to have better outcomes, think Asian countries
• L5 kids are a suicide/depression risk in years 11 & 12 (late highschool)
• Book rec about boys "What could he be thinking? How a man's mind really works" - the author doesn't go into giftedness but knows his stuff about boys/men
• gifted kids, boys inparticular should not go to school until age 7

I am currently half way through her book so there will be more to come.