MSNative Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 I'm hoping y'all can help me. I have been happily home schooling my 2 older boys (5th and 3rd) for 5 years. They are both bright - probably gifted level 2 on the Ruf description scale. Never bothered to have them tested because they are just lovely, bright boys. They're working 2-4 grades above in many courses, but def. manageable. Then I had my third boy. We actually had him tested and he is p.g. I always thought that would be so cool - until we had a p.g. child. He is 3 and into everything. He has run through all the books, curriculum and toys we have. He's not bad. He minds me fairly well (he is only 3). His brain just seems like a ravenous monster. If it's not fed, it turns destructive. It might work better if he weren't so much younger than the older boys - he could just join the mix. But they are still a couple crucial years ahead of him. Really, I'm not trying to whine. I'm thrilled my child is bright. But I feel like I don't have a handle on anything. How do y'all handle teaching older bright kids and still keep your younger child engaged and out of trouble? Currently I feel like I'm letting all three of them down 'cause there just aren't enough hours in the day. Thanks for any ideas and help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaMa2005 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Sending you lots of :grouphug::grouphug:. I have one DS who is PG and he runs me to exhaustion every day :001_smile:. I don't have any advice on dealing with three bright children, but some of the things we started with DS when he was 4 were some outside enrichment classes and a private tutor to teach him Mandarin. At least that has given him some things that stretch him (a little). This year, at 5, we added piano, but that kind of backfired as he is also gifted musically :w00t:, thus leading to private piano lessons. I'm sure some of the other parents here will have some wonderful advice. Again, :grouphug: . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Can he read yet? If you can get him reading to the level that he enjoys it, that could take some of the strain off you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Can he read yet? If you can get him reading to the level that he enjoys it, that could take some of the strain off you. :iagree: Reading will give him the ability to feed his hunger. Also, if he doesn't use the computer independently I would start that. There is so much information available online and sites designed for kids that could help satisfy him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSNative Posted February 11, 2011 Author Share Posted February 11, 2011 Thank you for the responses and for letting me know I'm not alone. :) He is reading which I was hoping would help more. He really wants to read with me. He loves starfall.com and can run it independently - yay! That is the only thing that has given us any peace. I'd love any suggestions on other good websites. Thank you for the ideas and please keep them coming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Reading A-Z has an online version of their leveled readers that might be good. I subscribed to Reading A-Z when my DD was about your DC's age, and she loved their books, reading them in both English and Spanish. They didn't have the online fully up yet, but if she'd been able to do that online, it would have been even better. It was well worth the money for the peace-and I only have ONE language-oriented PG kidlet :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Thank you for the responses and for letting me know I'm not alone. :) He is reading which I was hoping would help more. He really wants to read with me. He loves starfall.com and can run it independently - yay! That is the only thing that has given us any peace. I'd love any suggestions on other good websites. Thank you for the ideas and please keep them coming. Does he have a couple interest areas? I would spend an afternoon surfing the web finding sites that you think he would enjoy. Bookmark them in a file for your son to access. My son spent a lot of time on sites like Nick Jr and science sites that had anything to do with dinosaurs. Years later the computer is still a great way for him to feed himself. I let him have a bunch of time on the computer too. I'd also get many picture books from the library on various topics and set aside some time each day to read with him, but the rest of the time he would have to access them on his own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cylau Posted February 12, 2011 Share Posted February 12, 2011 (edited) I have a pg ds 9 yo. When he was young, he used to jump all day to let his energy out. He was into everything, causing lots of trouble that I didn't anticipate little boys could do. He required lots of attention. I mean it. He would take every single minute of my life if he could. Then I had my daughter. She was born with a condition that needed lots of attention when she was a baby. I finally sat down with ds when he was 4 to teach him how to read. In 4 months (3 days a week, 1-2 hours a day), I brought his reading level to 2nd grade. Yes, this kind of kids can do it! One day, my husband came home. He wondered where ds was because he didn't hear any thumps in the house. The house was all quiet, because my ds finally got "sucked" into Magic Tree House series. That was the turning point of our lives! My point is you need to find something to get him into. Once he gets into something (reading, puzzles, legos, army man, etc), you will have some time to tend to other kids. Three is a tough age for pg's. He barely sat down long enough to learn how to read when he was 4. Edited February 12, 2011 by cylau Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donna Posted February 12, 2011 Share Posted February 12, 2011 My kids are about the same space apart as yours. When my youngest was 3yo, her brothers were 3rd and 5th grade age. She was involved in nearly everything they were but all in her own way and when she was interested. She sat in on read-alouds, she enjoyed listening to their science and history lessons and I gave her pages to color or let her make the same projects in her own way. While the boys did math, she got out the math manipulatives and I made up games for her to play with them. She also enjoyed the Kumon type workbooks....mazes and letter writing kinds of things. There wasn't much we couldn't find some way for her to be involved or allow the boys to work independently while I played or worked with her close-by. She also started Suzuki violin at 3yo and practiced that for 10-15 min intervals throughout the day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaMa2005 Posted February 12, 2011 Share Posted February 12, 2011 Here are some site that we have used: http://www.bigiqkids.com/ http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm http://www.mathplayground.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
talexand Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 This is bringing back memories of my oldest at this age. In fact it was from birth until 4 years old. He was so difficult. He wasn't content unless he was doing a very immersive activity which usually meant he wanted to do things with me and it had to be science or math or legos where his little fingers couldn't keep up with him and he'd get frustrated. Left to his own devices would always end badly. For some reason breakfast was a challenging time so I would keep a stack of maze pages and I would put one at the table with him. This would buy me enough time to get the kids fed. Comuter games helped and like others said, it all went away when he started to read enough to get immersed in a book. It was also better when he could play games with friends but this came much later when they could finally play the imagination games that he wanted to play. Until then he wanted to play with me. Ds is 12 now and he is so different and has been for such a long time that I can't believe he was ever like that. He still needs immersive activities though but he can provide them for himself. He reads, blogs, has several programming projects going on. He has friends that he shares interests with. He is self motivated to learn and is very independent. He is an easy child. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mammaofbean Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 video games, jigsaw puzzles, matching socks, foreign language television, beading, cut and paste Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sevilla Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/fruitshoot/fruitshoot_addition.htm http://www.factmonster.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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