Can we talk about bacteria?

Z (4) surprised me by wanting to accompany J and I on our daily voyage to and from school. For months, he preferred to stay home, glued to The Electric Company or other PBS show. And when he decided to come along, my peace and quiet decided to vanish!

He just talked and talked about anything and everything. I am sure he did it before, but I wasn't used to it anymore. I'd grown accustomed to J's more in-depth questions and interests, but Z jumps from one subject to another. 

So I was quite surprised when, as he hurried to the van of his own volition (I used to practically drag him), he asked, "Mom, can we talk about bacteria?"

As we settled into our seats and pulled out of the driveway, I asked him what he wanted to know about bacteria. He got a bit irritated and said, "Mom, you just talk, and I'll just listen."  So I started talking. And he listened for a long time. And when I got to the end of my little subtopic, he said, "What else?"

He still hasn't tired of the topic of bacteria, although we've expanded to viruses. 

I used to think J and Z were polar opposites, but suddenly Z is asking the same questions, almost verbatim, that J asked 2 years ago. It's so fun to see his curiosity ignite!  

There's one thing that is still quite different about these brothers, and that is how extremely, innately social Z is. I don't really know what to do when Z walks up to strangers and says, "I'm 4. And did you know that bacteria can't live in outer space? Unless it's in a jar or something. But bacteria can live all over everything on Earth. Like that table. And there's this one kind that has a long needle and it makes your body make more of it (that was a virus), and...." Really, what do you do? I usually smile and say, "He loves to talk!" to the baffled store employee, who probably wouldn't follow this sudden onslaught of microbiological information even if they could understand his preschooler speech. 

I really don't remember this being an issue with J!

2nd Trimester Report Card

Yesterday, J had a church teacher come over and talk to him for a Tiger Cub elective. They were just supposed to get to know each other a little bit. She asked him about school, and he told her that he'd skipped a grade. Then he said that one grade wasn't enough.

He got his report card today, and I think he was right!

He is above grade level for reading and math. As in above second grade level. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised about his reading, since he's long ago passed 6th grade books in his pleasure reading. He didn't really test all that high in math, although we suspected that it was really just a lack of exposure. I'm glad to know that he's "catching up" to his potential in that subject.

He is at grade level for just about everything else, meaning social studies, creative writing, science, etc. But it seems like that is probably an exposure thing, too. If I knew what science topic his class was going to study, I could bump him past grade level easily. Gee whiz, wait until they get to immunology! He and Z are absolutely voracious in their learning about microbes and the immune response. It cracks me up to hear a 4 year old chatting to a lady in Costco about the conditions bacteria need to grow.  But I suppose they don't really learn much about immunology for several years.

Multidirectional

Z(4) just said, "Mom, did you know that an X goes in four directions?" I thought that was an interesting, clever way to put it. But he wasn't done yet. "It goes Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest." Wow.

Museum

We visited a museum a few days ago. One of the displays featured a video presentation. We weren't watching it, but could hear it, and J said, "Hey mom, isn't that the music from Nova?"

Nova and Nature are, quite possibly, J and Z's favorite tv shows.

"G" whiz!

Gee whiz, my 4 1/2 year old is a "G" whiz!  Ha ha, I'm so punny.

But no, really. He is trying to distract me from the fact that he's very disobediently still in just his underwear at 1 pm. And part of his method is spouting off some genius, because he knows I'm always pleased by displays of academic achievement. Before you go thinking I'm one of "those moms," think about it. Almost any parent (aside from Matilda's) is pleased when their child shows smarts.  Anyway, I digress.  Here's what Z said:

"Does 'scavenger hunt' have a G in it, but it's soft?"
"Um..." I thought about it for a second. "Uh, yeah, it does! Very good!"
"And 'go' has a G in it, but it's hard. And 'get going' has two hard G's!"

That's where his plan failed, because it reminded me that I'd told him to "get going" on the deplorable process of putting on clothes.

Disappointing

On the way to school this morning, J and I realized that he has only been to his gifted pull-out class three times since being accepted 2 1/2 months ago! It should be weekly. The holidays didn't help, and neither did all three kids coming down with Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. Combine that with the gifted teacher taking a long vacation and a few times when J and his classmates were inexplicably not sent to Challenge, and J's gifted enrichment has left a lot to be desired! Hopefully he will get to go to Challenge today.

My consolation is that every day in second grade, he is getting far more of a challenge than he would have had in first grade.

What was I like?

Once I asked this on my personal blog:

What do you do when your 4-year old tells you that "plankton are microscopic plants and animals that live in the sea" and your 6-year old expounds, "yeah, the animal ones are called zooplankton, and the plant ones are called phytoplankton?"

My mother replied:

"Just remember what it was like when you were a little girl!"

The thing is, I was a child, and didn't have the perspective of a parent. I didn't know that I was unusual. Just like Z doesn't know that it's unusual for a 4 year old to know, or even care what plankton are or even what "microscopic" means.

I asked my mom to share some stories about me as a child, but as of yet, she hasn't obliged. I would also be very interested in seeing my own test scores. My mom might want to protect me from getting a big head, but I think that I can handle it. My boys give be a big dose of humility every day. It's a daunting task to be their mother!