teaching DS (7 y.o.) to "think out of the box"

[clumsymum]

Right, altho ds is bright, and loves recalling facts, has a V. high reading age, and a good grasp on straightforward maths, he cannot do problem solving, applying knowledge to a situation, or what school staff call "thinking out of the box".

When put in this situation he just shrugs, and gives up saying "I can't do it". So I need some problem solving resources to work with GENTLY at home.

I was going to buy some books from a company called Mindware, but they seem to have gone out of business, I can't remember what the books were called, and can't find anything similar elsewhere.

Any ideas please?

bump

computer games are great for this

bright minds website is good

Lego Bionicles and Knight's Kingdom sets are great for this sort of thing - challenging but rewarding. The instructions are clear, but they can always just put them together however they prefer.

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinies is very good for encouraging logic esp for bright children (its a game)

Cheers both.

Enid we have encouraged him with some computer games. including LegoLand. He has got heavily into the Lego Star Wars game too, but didn't progress very far until someone gave him the guidebook to the game. Then he quickly read thru the workrounds, and applied them, but was reluctant to find his own way round, and in fact stopped playing for a while before he got the book.

Emerald, I have noticed that he has VERY recently started experimenting with lego models. Before that he would get us to help him build Exactly as the instructions described, or just building huge walls if he was playing alone. So I do see some movement in the right direction.

I do know brightminds, but they don't have the same sets of puzzle books that mindware had (and to be honest they are much more expensive). I wondered if anyone had seen educational puzzle books anywhere else.

I'll look for that game Enid, Ta.

Website recommended is great, you can also encourage them to think out of the bos just through talk. I tend to use lots of ideas from my classroom with dd who is 5. For example discussing things such as " how would the world be different if there were no ladders" "What if there were no wheels?" You the just keep extending the conversation, classic text books stuff but young minds like that kind of thing, and sometimes dd will refer back to it days later whichi sometimes confuses me as I think whaton earth is she talking about!

twinsetandpearls
This is interesting, as ds does this anyway (recent discussions started by him include whether God had parents, and what the world would be like if there were no gravity).

I'm more concerned with his apparent inability to see how you apply maths techniques to problems (I have 20 sweets. Jane eats 7, Dave gives me three, how many do I have?), and his tendancy to just give up.

maybe do something with him that he findds more interesting and won't give up on. If you push ds to hard at home when he is also at school you will turn him off learning.

I know you say you aredoing it gently but if he is not interested I would just leave it or rather than getting books out justtry the games and introduce such tasks into everyday life eg when sharing out sweets or shopping. Kids can do a lot more when they think it is a task with a purpose rather than a task for the sake of it.

But I do want to support what school are doing, they obviously don't have time to concentrate on him in a class of 25. Apart from which, the standard number work and word work they do are well beneath his abilities (I know from the spellings and one set of homework he gets a week), and he is in danger of getting bored with those.

I don't intend to slave-drive him, but on those days when he is a bit bored (esp over half-term) then we could do something together).

Anyway, I assumed that our help at home would be appreciated as this was brought up in his IEP meeting.

Didn't mean to imply that you were not supporting the school as you clearly are. Am just thinking thatif whatyou do at home mirrors whatis being done in school it could be too much.

Dd is in a similar position and dp does a lot of maths with her at home but dd does enjoy it and is always asking for more and the minute she says she can't dp stops, although we have an issue which perhaps you do with dd not wanting to find things hard as most things are very easy for her so the minuteshe is given a challenge she becomes too tired or upset.

We try and stimulate dd with her interests so it is very unlike school, for example we have just started keepting tropial fish with her and we count them, ask how many woudl be there if we took some away or added more to the tank, how many of a kind are there, what if we only had half as many etc.

Could you aske for your son to be moved up a class for numeracyor literacy, we have done this with dd who was straing to be naughty and it has worked wonders.

Oh twinset, leaning on an open door there.

We have an IEP because ds has certain behavioural issues, which school say are because he is emotionally immature. I think some of it is because he is bored and frustrated by the work, but school won't move him up anywhere anyway because his behaviour isn't up to it.

So in my view it's a touch catch-22.

DS loves doing those goldstar workbooks, but these tend to be straight maths, and English.

This is why I'm looking for books that can give us ideas for problem solving, my own imagination having struggles with it.

games like Rush Hour, Tantrix are also excellent
BTW not to put a damper but I have a dswho has thought outside the box for all his little life and quite frankly he can be very tiresome esp when dismembering jokes you had thought were funny
You have been warned

I see, am going out for a pamper session in a moment but will have a look to see if I can see anything for you.

It might be worth your while looking on the teachers tv website and seeing if you can see anything useful there.

Piffle
Blimey, we have a rush hour somewhere which ds got a present a couple of years ago. I put it away, cos if he did try to play it he would just get frustrated, and the bits would fly everywhere.

But now might be the time. Thanks

Twinset ..... enjoy

Great minds and all that - I was going to suggest Rush Hour!

I think talking to him about the process of learning is important too. Praise him for trying, for listening, and for concentrating: rather than focusing on the end result.

Many children of all sorts of abilities are scared of failure, and therefore reluctant to try. A phrase I like, and my boys now know off by heart is "If you don't get anything wrong, you're not learning, you're just practising."

Cheers Roisin, once again.

I'll remember that phrase.

Anytime!

I must say I am quire surprised at the fact that he stuggles to "apply maths techniques to problems (I have 20 sweets. Jane eats 7, Dave gives me three, how many do I have?)".

Is his Maths knowledge actually secure? Does he really completely understand the concepts of number?

Do you know any Maths specialists or teachers who could advise on this one?

Ages ago I got this book - Stories for Thinking - after an ed psych told me my ds needed to be given "questions with no right answer" to think about (posted on here at the time, I think). An example of the sort of thing ds was meant to think about was imagining "a machine which might stop a cat and dog from fighting".

The book is meant for classroom activities, but you don't need big groups. In fact I really should dust it off again.

(PS - a good way to use Rush Hour is for your son to set up the cars himself, move them into what looks like a tangle and then see if he can un-do the sequence he has himself created. Rather than follow one of the templates on the cards.)

The Robert Fisher stories Bink recommends are fantastic. He's a leading proponent of Philosophy for Children (P4C), which I'm a huge fan of: it definitely encourages children to think outside the box. All the staff at my sons' primary school are P4C trained, and it's used extensively in every classroom.

We're just establishing an extra-curric group at my (secondary) school, and started by watching an excerpt from The Truman Show. We ended up discussing the concept of free will: it's great fun!

Cheers Roisin,

Yes DS's math skills are VERY secure indeed. Give him sums that just have numbers, and he rattles them off.

But get him to read a sentence to himself and solve it (To be fair, my example was Very simplistic, he could do that one), then he doesn't stop to think about it, he just yell "I can't do it".

If you get him to read it out to you, and stop him at each stage, he's fine.

We need to teach him to THINK before he gives up.

Hiya it's me, not been around much and haven't seen/spoken/pc'd you in ages, and have just come across this.

I THINK what you are trying to say is that DS is giving up before processing the information because it's lots of things to do, not that he can't do it, just that he gets phased by the amount of info that is there so won't even try to see the steps. It's organisational skills that are the issue rather than ability? IYSWIM?? Am I in the right area??

My DS (who as you know is an academic year ahead of yours) whilst also being a bright child can be very like this, but has been helped by having his verbal processing /organisational skills assessed and identified by the SALT. The report has been passed on to school who have been able to put in adaptations of their approach to help him and get his organisational skills working better.

Simple things have helped. Like breaking problems down on the page and getting him to do one bit at a time. Then talking through the process afterwards.

Do you still have my email address? Would you like to get in touch, I have some ideas that I think might help but would be easier to explain in a conversation IYSWIM!

Hiya Wedgiesmum and clumsymum