Can't Keep Up!

[HidinginaHardHat]

I have a G+T Year 1 child whose thirst for knowledge and ability to retain it constantly astounds me and the school, at a recent parents evening the teacher admitted to frequently having to google things DC comes out with to verify that they are correct, which they usually are! As such DC is currently taking a lot of classes with Year 2's and has been described as "performing at the level of the brighter year 2's"

While all this is fantastic and great and wonderful and lovely and DC really does make me proud, I'm exhausted! The questions, the thirst for knowledge, the constant talking, the attitude from others when they meet DC, the inability to join in the conversations at the school gate, the lack of support from the school, the list goes on.

The last bit actually is a bit of a misnomer because they are supporting us, but the more support and advice they provide the more DC sucks it up, they are now running out of ideas! I'm running out of ideas! I really have no clue how to parent this child!!

I have no idea what i'm asking for really, if it's support or advice or if i simply just wanted to get it out because i'm so lost but I thought if anyone can understand where i'm coming from it's you lot!

Thanks for reading.

Set her an individual project, something they don't teach at school (like the aquatic system). Make it as long as you want: research, art, facts etc. Or there are languages (not French as this is taught in secondary schools). Stretch her in a different direction. You could do with teaching her that it's OK to talk in her head sometimes, it will give you some peace and quiet.

What do the school currently do for your dc? Do they send her to the year above for lessons for example?

belle we do plenty outside of school, whilst we don't do much in the way of paid extra curricular activities, we are always stretching DC with art projects, days out etc. We can't go out to a country park without a book about wild plants because DC always wants to know what they are, what colours they come in, what other names they have etc or if we go to a historical house DC will make her own little project/game to find out as much as she can and loves it if they do a little booklet of things to find and will ask a LOT of questions (see earlier post about not stopping talking) :)

dragon Currently DC joins the Year 2's for the core subjects (Numeracy and literacy and has 1:1 sessions for reading whereas the rest of the year group reads in ability groups). They engage DC by encouraging her to be a class 'mentor', for instance, for the children who aren't quite getting the topic, i'm extremely proud of that in all honesty because it's something that DC took upon herself but the school are keen to develop. She is a very very good advocate for the quieter children and often speaks on their behalf or talks to the teacher if she feels someone has been wronged, again, something the school are helping to develop. In all fairness the school is very very good because they do a 'whole school' topic and then taylor it to each childs ability, so they are able to explore it to whatever depth they are able to. They're also very good at helping with the balance between educational and emotional development as i suppose it's very easy for one to out weight the other.

It's odd, the maturity level seems to be there in the main as well as the intellect. It's hard to treat DC age appropriately because it almosts feels like i'm patronising her. Does that make sense? The comprehension and retention of information is phenomenal and the school constantly comment on it being far and above DC's years but i've had no pointers as to what to do in that respect. I'm totally and utterly out of my depth!!

Wow, that was a long post, sorry!

What about a musical instrument? Ds was/is like this and we found that learning an instrument takes up quite a bit of 'brain space' and plenty of time can be used up practicing or playing about. Ds now plays 4 and the ammount of practice time gets quite wearing (on me!) but it does keep him happy.

As he got a bit older, lots of energy also got put into quite useless interests and fact learning (like dinosaurs, supercars) which also helped.

I was about to suggest an instrument as there is lots of scope there to learn the theory as well as doing the practicle side. Or a more physical hobby that would help her be more rounded iyswim.

Yes deffo an instrument, it keeps them focussed for a bit. Also non-fiction books, tons of them, they are great to keep busy thinkers occupied. We have over 40 'I Wonder Why' books, everyday my daughter tells me a new fact she has learnt and then she decides whether to take it further and do a project on it. We make lapbooks for all our projects, check out this site, we get most of our resources from there: www.homeschoolshare.com/

oohh jazmin those books are wonderful,my dd loves them.
I was lucky enough to find 2 in a charity shop one is about the body and another about seasons/the earth etc.

Yes they are just fab! Not too much info to overload them but just enough to keep them thinking :) My MIL bought 20 recently for £2 from her Church fair! :-o

I'll look out for them, thanks.

Re: clubs, shes attends a drama club but that 'ends' after each session, i would get her into music, but there's no interest at all.

Does she have any interest in creative writing?

If she enjoys this kind of thing, maybe exploring short stories or poetry. She could even create her own anthology of her own writing. Maybe creating creative work out of the facts that she's learned?

That was the kind of thing I loved at that age.

I was going to say creative writing - this was the outlet of choice for both my DCs who are very much like the OP's DC - working at the top end of the next year up, but not 'take GCSE at age 9' type genius.

They are at different schools, both schools handle it really well. DD1 has started algebra (simple equations) and she couldn't work it out the way she had been taught, so I showed her the way I was taught in Yr 7 and she got it at once. Teacher was quite happy with this, just said they would work until the rest of her maths matched the level of her algebra...

Was also going to say creative writing.