How much "school" for gifted preschooler

[Gabrielsyme]

I've not posted in a while but I wondered if people could chime in and give me a little help/encouragement. DS3 has been reading since he was 2.5 and now reads on a 4th grade level; he's similarly advanced in math. His sister, 6 is also very bright but learned things at a more conventional age. I understand the need to challenge bright children and make sure they both have a home environment that provides lots of opportunities for independent learning. Beyond that I'm a little torn. DS loves structured, school-type actitivites and has been tagging along with his older sister's (accelerated) school work. A year ago when his first Singapore book came in the mail he sat down and did 86 pages in one go. His fingers ached and he was exhausted when he finally quit. As many of you with similar kids have probably guessed he can be hot and cold and doesn't always work with such passion. My question is how much to encourage consistent work and how much to let him continue on and off as he gets older. He's almost four and by the time my daughter was 4 she was doing a few small things daily... I just want to be extremely careful that he retains a joy in learning and doesn't burn out. My (tested gifted) husband was homeschooled and had a lot of structured, disciplined work at a young age and thrived so he feels like we're being a little touchy feely and don't need to worry so much about crushing his spirit. Thoughts?

[Lawyer&Mom]

Can't structure wait until he is five? Six?

 

I'd be super child led until it was time for School. Four doesn't need School, right?

[mumto2]

Very quickly, My ds has always preferred one subject at a time. I tried and struggled to make him have a balanced schedule for years and was never successful. Finally I just gave in for the past year he has been assigned one subject at a time with an exam at the end. Most sure and varied year ever.

 

If I had a do over button I would probably try to do something similar, maybe a subject a week. Math daily would be the exception. I think he would have loved it and dd would have tolerated it.

[wendyroo]

I would offer everything and require nothing.

 

I would fill the house with wonderful picture books and novels and non-fiction and math games and art supplies and science tools.  I would get him a magazine subscription to Ranger Rick or Ask magazine (the free Lego magazine is also a hit around here even though it is mostly a sales pitch).  I would let him join in with his older sister for all the content subjects.  I would offer to act as scribe if he wanted to write stories.  I might get Zaccaro's Primary Grade Challenge math and let him play with that when and if he wanted.

 

I would revisit "requiring consistent work" in a couple years.

 

Wendy

[rwilk]

With my kiddo, she goes through spurts of work and dives deep when she dives in. I try to provide what she would be interested in, and help her find resources as she goes. Though I like a good schedule of what we will cover in a day/week/month/year, she is not really on board with that yet. At 4, that's fine with me.  

 

One example is her reading---she jumped from reading books with pictures to randomly reading part of the Wizard of Oz in about a month.  She had been spending tons of time flipping through books and muttering to herself, and apparently something clicked. I'm glad I didn't push her to do any other school-y work. She knew what she needed.

 

In terms of building discipline for academics, she does have (what I feel) is an appropriate list of things to do each day.  Mostly she hits them without me having to "assign" anything, but sometimes I do.  She has to do something with fine motor, something with gross motor, and read me a story.  That's....it. 

[SKL]

I think at this age I would offer him a structured "assignment" (or maybe 3 small assignments broken up over the day), on school days while his sister is doing school, but I would not fuss if he didn't do it or if he did it incorrectly.

 

Another option is to ask him at the end of each school day what he would like to work on tomorrow.  Again, more to get him used to the feel of "doing school" than to actually enforce getting it right.

 

Some ideas might be a page out of a math book that is color-by-number, with equations instead of simple numbers.  Or drawing a picture and writing about it at whatever level he can do that.  Reading un-illustrated text and drawing an illustration for it.  Or looking at an artwork and writing a story about it.  Making a graph tracking stuff that happens in his day-to-day life, then somehow incorporating it into a science lesson.

[Sarah0000]

I loosely require copywork or some other handwriting related lesson nearly every day. If he really fusses about it, then I won't push it. We don't do more than half an hour of seat work a day. If it looks like he's getting bored with what we're doing, then I'll prepare an unit study or something else fun so things don't get monotonous, but I do want to keep up the routine of sitting at the table doing something with a clearly defined goal. We also do math daily but that's much more loosey goosey.

[Jackie]

When DD was turning 4, she insisted she should "start kindergarten" like most her friends. She defined this as "having trickier math and some subjects that she has to do instead of all optional." So we did. Nothing major, but we did math, read alouds, and handwriting at least a little bit every school day. We did history and science and art and music about once a week. It was light, the programs were a good fit for her, and she loved it. Well, she nearly always loved it, and when she didn't, we declared a vacation :)

[mathmarm]

Offer absolutely as much as you can, but don't require more time than what you'd expect a 3 year old to be able to handle. If you have a very attentive and focused 3yo, then figure out what his usual attention span is, then "teach" him for 3-10 minutes less than his attention span--end all lessons on a high note.

 

Find or make up simple educational games and play those instead of "just games". Keep books within the child's reach. Keep workbook pages and learning activities accessible to the child.

[purpleowl]

My DD#2 (turned 4 a couple months ago) is similar. She needs input, input, input, input, input--STOP! Then she needs processing time.

 

I think it depends on the kid, but for her, I've noticed that for a while, the "processing time" phase goes well, and she's doing lots of creative play...and then she hits a point where she just tells me "I don't want to do anything" and lies around acting whiny. That seems to be the ideal time to start the "input" phase again (and I have to require it for a day or so, but then she's chomping at the bit to do school).

 

Your son may be totally different, but that's a pattern I've noticed with DD. Even if it's not the same as your son's pattern, maybe seeing hers can help you identify what his looks like.

[cmarango]

I would be inclined to let him go as he likes, unless he is exhausting himself like you said with the math workbook.  Then I would step in and redirect him to something else.  

 

I had the opposite problem with my son.  He didn't want to do any school work and I foolishly believed he wasn't ready.  When he turned 5 I insisted in 30 min. of daily school work and found out that he already could read decently and knew enough math that I had a hard time trying to figure out what he did and didn't know.  He will still try to pretend he doesn't know something if it means that his school work will be shorter and he can get back to playing quicker.

[katilac]

I would offer everything and require nothing.

 

I would fill the house with wonderful picture books and novels and non-fiction and math games and art supplies and science tools.  I would get him a magazine subscription to Ranger Rick or Ask magazine (the free Lego magazine is also a hit around here even though it is mostly a sales pitch).  I would let him join in with his older sister for all the content subjects.  I would offer to act as scribe if he wanted to write stories.  I might get Zaccaro's Primary Grade Challenge math and let him play with that when and if he wanted.

 

I would revisit "requiring consistent work" in a couple years.

 

Wendy

 

:iagree:  

 

I did not require school work until first grade, although we did do more than enough. Kids can easily understand we will be doing daily work when you turn 6. Or 5, or 7, or whatever one decides upon. 

 

My kids did not have many days when they did not want to do any 'school work' in kinder, but even if they had, I think that's perfectly fine as long as they are living in a rich environment of books, games, and active play. 

[shawthorne44]

One idea is to suggest the kids play school together.  Your older can be the teacher.  Since it is play, they will stop with angst when it becomes too much/not fun.