1st Grade

Well, in first grade Andrew was tested and his IQ confirmed what I was already suspecting. He qualified as "highly gifted" in our school system. So he was allowed a mentor. It was right before Christmas, I didn't have time to think about it and said yes. When I ask his regular classroom teacher what he would be missing and she told me it would be during his center time, something didn't sit right with me.

Andrew is smart in everything, but math is his main interest and talent. His mentor was going to teach him Spanish. After about 3 weeks with his mentor it was Christmas break and I had a chance to think about it. I didn't like Andrew missing center time (the time of the day in which I feel is the social part of the day) and I really wanted him to be learning math. I decided to pull him out of his mentoring program when early in January I asked Andrew if he wanted to participate in the Spanish club after school again and he said no. He told me he didn't want to learn Spanish. That's when I knew that the mentor he had wasn't the right one.

Andrew was devastated and I felt awful as a parent. I had no idea if I was making the right choice or not. We "weaned" Andrew away from his mentor and then all seemed fine. My biggest problem however is that Andrew only does the first grade math. He is not challenged at all in his math in 1st grade.

I just spoke with the gifted facilitator at his school and we are planning on finding a math mentor for Andrew right away in the fall. I can't wait!

Kindergarten

Andrew had a great kindergarten teacher. She was super at differentiating his math curriculum. At the very beginning of kindergarten, Andrew knew all of his addition and subtraction facts. He could tell time and count money. Besides being able to count by 2's, 5's and 10's, Andrew could count by 3's, 4's, 6's and 7's to 100 without much thought. I did not teach him any of this!

We're not really sure where Andrew learned about math. We think he just absorbed it. Andrew also has a great love of sports. At a very young age he would watch his father play sports games on the xbox and Andrew would watch the score. He also enjoyed watching basketball and football games on the television (always choosing to cheer for the winning team).

We Should Have Known

I had always said, that I didn't need my children to be greatly intelligent. What I cared most was that they were good people. I think that we've done a good job at raising children of good character. The only reason I can believe this is that there isn't a week that goes by when people we know, or even complete strangers comment on what great kids we have.

I never expected to have a child considered highly gifted. I personally am probably at a below average intelligence. My husband is more intelligent, but I wouldn't call him a "rocket scientist"! However, at a very young age, Andrew started asking questions. It was probably at age 3 or 4 that he knew our ages and the ages of all his grandparents, aunts and uncles. He then would make statements about our differences in ages in relationship to each other and in relationship to himself. I honestly didn't suspect his great intelligence until the end of preschool. I was checking to see if he was ready for kindergarten, so I got out the alphabet flash cards and he know almost all of them. I then got out the number flash cards and he could identify (and soon I found out could write) all of his numbers to 100. I honestly had not idea he knew all this info. I felt bad that I hadn't sat down and worked with him on anything academic. I was astonished at his knowledge. It was an eye opener for what laid ahead.

In first grade he was tested and they found his IQ to be 150. We should have known!