If I was pushing my 7 year old, what would I be doing?

[grassisjeweled]

7 year old boy, apparently finds the school work easy, how do I push him more academically?

Music lessons, language lessons, science has plenty of scope for lots of learning.

Get him to read more difficult, but still age appropriate, books that will hopefully expand his vocabulary and comprehension.
Teach him to play Chess.
Try him on Suduko and Logic problems, or crossword puzzles.
Do some of those virtual museum tours that seem quite popular at the moment.

Is he on a swing?

Don't think about pushing him.
If he wants it you can think about stimulating him..... with whatever sparks his curiosity.... think in parallel to his school work, rather than putting him on more advanced work that he'll be covering anyway later (that will just make him more bored later).

I was 'pushed' because I found everything easy - in terms of being made to work harder on more advanced stuff at school. Didn't make me happy. But being taken to an art gallery to see amazing stuff or being played a strange music from another culture, etc was awesome....

I thought you meant he was at the park on a swing 😂

I think if you look at the private school model - they don't make the children do extra maths worksheets like kumon. They encourage: music, languages, sport, drama, public speaking, speech & drama, dance etc

So look at ways of encouraging a rounded education rather than a boring diet of extra maths worksheets.

You could however get them to create an activity to explain the work - so get them to reflect on what they have been studying.

Mine joined Scouts and started singing in a choir

Teach him how to cook

Don't. He's 7. Add more books, art etc but don't push him, it'll start being a chore

Hahah, believe me, we're always at the park! I think coding could be good, and I like the idea of a project, could be interesting for him.

Thanks for the ideas, lots of food for thought

Definitely agree about encouraging a more rounded education. My 8 year old is quick to pick up core subjects but is much happier when we’ve introduced him to other things. He loves playing chess, creating stop motion projects, stick nodes projects, storyboarding ideas and creating characters out of clay. He dislikes actual writing but we’ve let him watch The Matrix and Lord of the Rings and things like that, and we set him writing tasks to try to discuss the themes in the stories at a deeper level - so trying to get him to think more critically. He’s obsessed with The Mandalorian and does an online class where they discuss the themes and motivations of the characters, back story and canon - so just more of that critical thinking.

Encourage being bilingual, ideally in a language such as Mandarin that has a completely different alphabet.

Ask his teacher. They should be able to provide 'greater depth' work or extension activities. Also agree with reading more, doing different activities etc. Learning a language is a good one.

My son is also 7 and are doing the following

• Greater depth maths work - He loves maths but the standard work in school isn't challenging enough. I've had a couple of meetings with the school and echo the point about greater depth rather than bigger numbers. Look up 'maths mastery' online. Also, I find the Shanghai maths books good. They are in line with the National curriculum, but present topics in different/more challenging ways. I have also taught my son a few topics outside the curriculum for his age, but happy not to rush ahead.

• Coding - If you son has an interest in coding/maths/logic, I'd really recommend looking at coding at home. I got in touch with a local code club recently and they recommended Scratch Jr, Micro:bit. Raspberry Pi's website is good too projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/

• As much reading as possible, agree with it helping comprehension and vocabulary. He was never drawn to books as a young child but now loves books and reads 1-2 hours per day.

Otherwise, I don't do anything else with him at this stage, he's still infant age after all. He has some enriching hobbies and he might start an instrument in a year or two if he wants to. Agree with the comment about chess, we're also getting into more specialist board games as a family. He's playing a number of quite complicated 10+ games that is good for reasoning/logic etc, so you could look into that too. Zatu Games is a good website to take a look at.

A new language would be a great skill to learn if he has the aptitude

@GorgeousLadyofWrestling

Definitely agree about encouraging a more rounded education. My 8 year old is quick to pick up core subjects but is much happier when we’ve introduced him to other things. He loves playing chess, creating stop motion projects, stick nodes projects, storyboarding ideas and creating characters out of clay. He dislikes actual writing but we’ve let him watch The Matrix and Lord of the Rings and things like that, and we set him writing tasks to try to discuss the themes in the stories at a deeper level - so trying to get him to think more critically. He’s obsessed with The Mandalorian and does an online class where they discuss the themes and motivations of the characters, back story and canon - so just more of that critical thinking.

Would you mind sharing details of the Mandalorian themed online class please? I know an 8 year old who would love that.

Books
Books
Books
Fact and fiction!

How about a musical instrument? Something like playing the piano has lots of stretch in it - learning to read music as well as playing the piano are both challenging.

My youngest was (and is) like that.

Books, and read to him too (they still love that at his age!) and just talking, let him lead (whatever he is interested in), if you don’t know, look up the answer together.

It’s lovely having a bright child, and he won’t need pushing at all. Better off to let him explore “sideways” so to speak and let him develop his own interests, then let him talk to you about it

It’s not something you should worry about, just enjoy it

Let him be bored to give his imagination a chance.
Reading of his choice
Cooking
Learn an instrument
Mechano
Making and decorating mathematical shapes from cardboard
Playing games with adults- scrabble, chess, sequence, bananagrams, risk, cluedo.
Woodworking
Jigsaw puzzles
Model making.
Sewing

Music.

I have a 7 year old who finds school work easy. In terms of the core subjects I don’t do extra work with her, but she loves coding, is learning to play the piano and is learning Spanish. She also reads all the time, and a variety of reading materials. Currently loving the Guinness Book of Records.

Just widen and vary their experiences -

Reading! Anything and everything. Look at a subscription to things like The Week for eg. Read books that you liked as a child to him - older books have much more complex vocabulary but are often great stories.

Podcasts like Homeschool History have sparked lots of interest here.

Music - learning both an instrument and studying music theory are great for broadening education.

Right now is a great time to get them into map work and navigational skills. My kids can now plan walks and bike rides taking into account the contours or a route and thinvs like parking and access.

My 7 year old nephew is v bright but bored easily by anything that involves sitting still for more than 5 minutes. He's just started coding, and it's the first time he's ever actually wanted to do his homework. Also, really useful modern life skill to get started on.