Bright 2 year old, how can I help him?

[Elizabeth996]

Really don’t want this to come across braggy which is why I’m writing here rather than talking to friends irl.

My son, 2 is what I believe very bright for his age. He can count to at least 30, recognises the numbers even not in order. He writes the numbers down also, sometimes 41 instead of 14 but has the purpose of you know what I mean. Counts objects too.

He knows a lot of shapes and can draw these mostly too.

He knows his full alphabet, again not just in order. Knows the phonics for them all too. He writes these too with ease. Occasionally does one back to front but on a whole is very spot on. He’s begun in the last month to say b for ball etc and even draws a little picture next to it, cat next to c etc. Even drew a ‘skeleton (stockman really) for X-ray yesterday. He can write his name if I help him with what comes next and asks to do family names too, after a few times of doing it he mostly remembers simple ones like mum and dad.

He spends nearly all his day writing letters and numbers and drawing. Enjoys it so much which is why I think he can do it as well as he does.

Now I’m just wondering if anyone has a child who has been similar and what kind of activities they have done to help keep them challenged? I have an older son who is in reception and he’s been joining in with a lot of his homeschooling work. I definitely am not pushing him or want to, he just has very big emotions sometime 🤣 and I think a lot of it can be frustration when he isn’t challenged as much. He is just starting at a new pre school, I know that kids are at different stages but I really want him to stay challenged and engaged when there and at home purely because he enjoys it so much. So any activities I can do with him that isn’t just me pushing worksheets etc at him would be appreciated!

It’s lovely isn’t it? I have a younger DD too who is also very bright but in a different way - she makes up games, and is very creative in her play, whereas DS only ever really wanted to play with trains, or get his magnetic numbers/letters out. He also intensively loved Numberjacks which we found on YouTube one day (glad those days are over because that programme is weird AF)

I do swing from being like ‘how can I nurture this talent for maths’ and being more chilled about it - I think a big part of it is having an excellent visual memory, which is also why he learned to read so quickly. His best friend at school is also very into maths. I remember once in a supermarket when he was about 3 he saw the word ‘pizza’ on an aisle sign ans said ‘mummy that says ‘pizza!’ and I remembered we’d read a book with the word in and he just remembered it from that. DD is almost 4 and knows her alphabet, but she can’t really recognise many words beyond her own name at the moment - althougg she’s excellent at writing and drawing and much better with ‘life skills’ than DS was at that age (getting dressed/undressed, eating unaided, coat and shoes on, tidying, self care) - DS would still let us feed/dress him now if we offered, little lazy bum

I found that the younger one just assumed they could do everything the older one could, despite being three years younger! Just keep encouraging interest in everything.

He sounds very like my DS was at that age.
I would recommend art, music, sports and cooking. Music and cooking require learning that it's ok to make mistakes (DS had a serious problem with this at primary), that even if you are a talented musician you still have to practice practice (everything else came very easily), sport helps social and motor skills.
I would not worry too much about academics at this stage - DS read when he wanted, asked about Maths and virtually taught himself (and I mean more or less taught himself right up to A level). Follow his lead.

@Spanglebangle

My DD is bright 9 years old and very bored at school. We can't afford private school so she is stick where she is.

My advice having been where you are and made mistakes would be don't teach him too much, try to discourage joining in with school work - he will have to do it when he gets to school regardless of if he knows it or not.

Work on hobbies that he won't experience at school. If you are reading don't just focus on learning the words make sure he understands the story. Talk about it afterwards, ask him questions to check understanding.

Sport, art, music, dance. Follow his lead.

I'm not convinced on the "discourage joining in with school work". I don't think it's good to discourage learning.

Mine was very good on all aspects of maths, and picked up a lot from conversations at home. Long multiplication didn't tend to come up in conversation, so I thought that might be one where she could learn it with everyone else. However, she asked me what it was, and when I showed her, she completely grasped the idea from one example, to the extent of being able to see how to adapt the method from TU x HTU to HTU x HTU. At that point, I realised that she would have been bored from five minutes into learning it at school anyway, so it really didn't make a huge amount of difference her knowing already.

Following this with interest. I have an 18 month old who knows the alphabet and numbers up to 15 and speaks in sentences but also don't want to talk about it in real life.