Since he was very young I knew that I was dealing with a child of unusual abilities, especially when it comes to math. I sent him off to Montessori pre-school thinking they would help me get a handle on his unusual ability to retain numbers, he was four at the time and already knew and understood the concepts of both addition and subtraction.
Then one day out of sheer frustration, because I could see he hungered for more, I started showing him the multiplication facts. Within an hour he had memorized all of the facts to 10X10. Yep, you read that right, at age 4 he learned the multiplication table.
Within a couple of weeks I was able to take those facts and show him that 4 sets of 4 crayons equaled 16, and suddenly he understood not only the facts but the usage of that information. The Montessori teacher was flabbergasted. She told me that I should home-school.
We are now in our fourth year. He is in the middle of 6th grade mathematics. Now, I kind of forgot to mention that MATH is my most dreaded subject. It is an area of life that I struggle with. When faced with a situation in life where I have to use math and don’t have a calculator handy, I literally panic. The numbers get all jumbled in my mind, and then I just freeze and think to myself, ‘I’m sure I look really dumb right now.’ So here I am responsible for the education of a child who is most assuredly gifted in the subject of MATH.
So far, I just keep him moving forward. In fact, I have learned more by having to re-learn everything I’ve needed to teach him than I ever did in school. I’m sure we all feel that way about most subjects. He generally picks up concepts from the example problems long before I figure out how to teach him. Then I just sit back and watch him work and that’s how I learn many concepts that I struggled with in the past.
Last year, I went to a convention because I was determined to find just the right curriculum for a MATH gifted child. I even took several classes, one of which made me cry. Yep, here I am with my beloved sitting beside me in a class about children who are gifted in math and I start crying with lot’s of strangers sitting around me. I realized that day that I am ill equipped to give this little guy what he needs. I think that was the first time my beloved saw my true frustration. I want the absolute best for him, that’s why I choose to home-educate. So what do I do when I realize that the best in this case is not staying home with mom? What if I have to seek outside help? What if someone from the state realizes that I’m messing him up? What if? Do you hear the fear in my voice? Yes, it’s right there.
Then, I take a deep breath and pray. Because God created this child with this brain. He brought him into my life for me to train up. God can and will supply all of my needs even in this. So whenever I start to feel fear creep in, whenever I think to myself, ‘He’s 8 and in 6th grade MATH, what ‘s next?’, whenever I take my eyes off the goal, I need to remember to go to the One who created it all, including MATH, and pray.
Below are a list of things being considered, because I’m just not sure what to do next year. Out of all Math, word problems are his biggest struggle because his reading skill level doesn’t match his math skill level. If you have opinions on these please share them with me. I also am open to suggestions.
Update: I ended up using Khan Academy, and it works very well for us.
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