2.5 year old gifted in maths - any similar experience?

[ArtfulPlumSloth]

My 2.5 year old son is incredibly advanced at maths and is generally obsessed with numbers.

To explain this a bit - he learnt to count to 100 around 18 months (numbers were some of his first words) and could “count” i.e. tell you how many of something there were and “read” numbers 1 - 10 before he turned 2. Now at 2.5 he can do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (to give a couple of examples - if he asks for 8 blueberries and I give him only 5, he can tell me he needs 3 more. If I give him 10 toys and ask him to share them equally with me he will tell me we each need 5 without counting them out. If I ask him what 5 lots of 5 are in the abstract or 2 lots of 9, he will tell me 25 and 18). He has begun to learn his times tables - I’m not 100% sure from where (yesterday he recited his 7 times table perfectly and only got stuck on 12 7s - which sort of blew my mind!).

I think a lot of things he has picked up from number blocks and he also is exposed to a maths obsessed big brother (who is also very advanced but his little brother is a whole other level).

I’m in no way concerned about him. He is very sociable and empathetic and has good fine and gross motor skills. He also loves letters and knows all his single letter phonic sounds.

I don’t think we need to do anything special with him and think he will probably be best served by us making sure he is well developed in other areas - learning independence, playing sport, making friends.

However, when your child is doing something extraordinary you can’t help feeling as a parent you should be “doing” something. So I just wanted to throw it out there to see if anyone else has experienced something similar and ask if anyone has any additional advice.

Sorry for the long post - comments/advice/own experiences would be much appreciated!

My DS was like that and is still obsessed with maths at 26. We didn’t do anything. By the age. 5 he had surpassed anything I could understand. He now has a first class master’s in mathematics and a diagnosis of Asperger’s .

It might be worth joining Coram Potential Plus. It's nice to meet other gifted kids and receive support from their parents as not many people understand being gifted is both a blessing and a curse.

What are your plans for school?

If you're planning the state school route buckle up for a really bumpy ride because a lot of highly advanced kids get marginalised in large classes and can really struggle in mainstream education.

My son was exactly he same and had an awful experience at state primary. His teacher struggled to understand him or support him and was definitely looking to pull him down rather than lift him up. Which is very sad really. We took him out and home schooled him before sending him to a private school. He's absolutely flying now and is aiming for Cambridge!

With gifted kids you need to protect their talents as much as nurture them because not everyone will be as supportive as you hope.

The only problem we had was that DS was completely bored in maths lessons at school, especially in the early years. He was so disinterested that he didn't complete the work, which gave the impression that he couldn't do it. They took a lot of convincing before they gave him more challenging tasks, but he ended up on the school maths team for various national competitions.

At this age there's not much for you to do except to keep encouraging his interest.
There are quite a lot of Numberblocks workbooks and merch that might make nice Christmas and Birthday presents for him.

I also quite like Numicons as a toy for mathsy kids. I got my kids a set in the form this "Ten Frame Tower" game. But they are also great for open ended play.
Or, if your child likes bigger numbers a Base Ten Set.

As he gets older, you might like to think about finding him a peer group, where he can share his interests without being made to feel like a weirdo. You can probably find some maths clubs with a quick google as it's a fairly common interest for gifted kids.

My DS was really into history and I could find absolutely nothing! I had to set up my own primary school history club. But it was one of the best things I ever did for him, because it allowed him to share his interests with others and make friends.

https://gdaymath.com/courses/exploding-dots/
You might want to check out these lessons here, watch the videos with him, and play along with a whiteboard. It's a great way to introduce place value.
Experience 6 is a huge jump up in abstractness, so keep that in mind.

Similar. Both maths and ASD (the diagnosis is now ASD, the books recommended are all about Asperger's).

She's an all rounder though really. Her English is as good as her maths but it's predominantly memory. She can play Grade 7 Cello and Grade 6 Piano pieces from memory (at 11).

Music and chess I would say. Some kind of team sport. Ours are at state schools, the privates near us aren't particularly academic. We have stretched outside of school - tutors in things that interest them etc. School hasn't been an academic learning home for them, it's been about social development.

See if your kids can learn games like SET

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbRavc-qerkEyGo-gkM9uOrg-BoNeRDU
Also look at games like Prime Climb
https://beastacademy.com/playground
https://atm.org.uk/maths-teaching-resources/book-reviews/you-can-count-on-monsters-the-first-100-numbers-and-their-characters
https://educationunboxed.com/about-education-unboxed/
https://naturalmath.com/start-here/
https://naturalmath.com/multiplication-explorers-faq/

Check out the "math facts that stick" series from Mate Snow. It has math games you can play together that help kids memorize their maths facts.

When he's a bit older, check out Beast Academy

Thank you everyone for sharing resources. My 3yo DS is exactly the same and I could have written your post OP. DS adores maths and gets such enjoyment out of it. I really just want to keep him interested and enthusiastic. I'm not interested in him going to Oxford at 10, but I love seeing how much he enjoys chatting about numbers and solving difficult puzzles.

I'm no teacher and I don't want to teach him anything that will be to his detriment when he starts school. He has lots of areas where he is average and below average too so I know I need to encourage balance.

There have been some great ideas here to support him in his passion. @ArtfulPlumSloth my son loves the little Maths workbooks you can get at The Works etc. I have to read and write for him but he loves doing these as a joint activity. Perhaps your older son could help him. He has really enjoyed learning to tell the time too, we have a kids clock at his eye level. You can get toy tills with working calculators and play money, which DS loves - also a good opportunity to bring in imaginative play.

Does he watch number blocks?

I'd be a little careful it isn't just a phase.

At around 3 my son went through an obsession with number blocks that began a maths craze and I remember being so amazed when he started to recite the times tables.

Then he went off it, new exciting things came, and after half a year he couldn't remember half of the times tables any more.

It was still great, his maths is still above average now he is in school - and the basic grasp of mathematical concepts that he developed young stuck with him.

Could I have "encouraged" him to keep it up, I did try, but once a child looses interest in something, it isn't exactly the same. Then you are forcing them to learn things that they don't yet need.

I'm not saying that it will be temporary, but just like a love of cars or space, for some young children it is a temporary obsession, and for others it is the start of a life-long love.

Help him, talk to him, play maths games and activities with him, but don't be disappointed if it is the former.

Making a note of these resources as this sounds like my 4yo grandson.
We suspect he has Aspergers and worry about him going to school next year.

https://www.livingmath.net/