It's Parenting The Gifted Week!

Congratulations, all you wonderful folks raising gifted children, this is Your Week!  Jen, from Laughing at Chaos, is looking for suggestions on what kinds of things parents need - swing by and let her know what would make your life easier.  As for me, I have my own take on these things. What would make life easier? Recognition of the gifted poor.

I'm not allowed to watch TV anymore...

So, I learned something about myself while we were visiting Hammie and Buppa for the 4th of July. I, apparently, am no longer allowed to watch network television. Of all the things! Here at our Mooselandia home, we only have Netflix and YouTube for television viewing - and, of course, DVDs/Blu-Rays - so I've long since fallen out of touch on what is present in standard media anymore.

Movie Night!

Once a week, on Tuesdays, our Mooselandia home is turned into Gaming Central. We have between three and five guests, plus at least one person Skyping in. However, the game tends to run well into the night, which leaves Mad Natter out from playing. And so, in an effort to make sure he doesn't feel unwelcome or left out, I instituted Movie Night.  Every Tuesday night, we retire to The Big Bedroom, turn on a movie, eat popcorn in the bed, and hang out together.

It just keeps turning up.

Oh, the "All kids are gifted" meme. It's like a bad penny. It just keeps coming back. I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea, or when it became appropriate to co-opt medical diagnoses for feel-good purposes, but there it is. This week has been worse for it than most. This week, I got an emailed notification of a new comment on a blog. I'd been back-of-mind dealing with the "all kids are gifted" trope to begin with, and one specific comment threw me for a loop.

Resource Review: All About Spelling!

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Something I realize I haven't talked much about has been Spelling.  We all talk about language arts, but somehow spelling gets forgotten in that.  At our house, that's less because spelling is a non-starter, but because it, like science, is one of the few subjects that gets done with very little fuss.  And for that?  I completely credit All About Spelling. Mad Natter, who absolutely hates review, will ask me if we can do spelling work. Mad Natter, whose handwriting is years behind his mind, will ask me to do spelling.  This is astounding to me.

Inside Out!

So, I'm late to jump on the Inside Out train. However, Mad Natter and I went to see the movie with Hammie this week, and it honestly deserves a post of its own.  You see, it's a Pixar film, which means it's going to be amazing, that's just because it's Pixar. But, it was more than that.  Even though the Vat O' Fruit Punch Mad Natter got before the movie meant we had to leave to pee three times between the middle and the end, the film was still so astounding as to absolutely merit talking about it. And honestly, the number one reason is because of Mad Natter's first comment after it was over: "You know, Mama, I think I have all those characters from the movie inside ME!"  SOLD.

No, it really *is* what you do with it.

I've had a bit of a thought recently, and I haven't really had time to follow it all the way to its conclusion. However, I've been guilty of skimming the comments of Facebook posts. What do you want, I've been stuck in the house trying to heal. Anyway, I learned something new, which is completely astonishing to anyone who has EVER read any comment section anywhere: being gifted?  It doesn't mean you're actually smart.

A Review of Khan Academy: Math

Alright. As we all know, I've been off my game recently. As a result, many things slid, and the homeschool year ended abruptly on my surgery date. I'd spent a good amount of time looking for something for Mad Natter to do to keep his math from atrophying over the summer, and it seemed like The Time to start it up, especially since I had a recommendation from our next door neighbor as well.

Makin' It Work!

In the course of talking about gifted education, we often criticize pull-out programs, because you know, gifted children aren't only gifted one hour per day, or one day per week. But the thing that gets less attention is a continuation of that same fact – gifted people aren't only gifted when they're children, and they aren't only gifted when they're in an academic setting.  So, how do three gifted people with varying overexcitabilities, needs, and degrees of introversion manage to live in a house together – without killing each other?