Minthorne Mommy: At 6 Years Old

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

At 6 Years Old

On Monday we had Aiden's 6 year check up with the pediatrician (he doesn't have to go back for two years now!). Aiden is growing just like he should be.

Weight: 49 lbs (67th perc)

Height: 45 1/2 in (44th perc)

Vision: Normal

We had a nice long discussion about Aiden's development regarding reading and learning. I brought him some examples of things that Aiden had written totally by himself. The pediatrician's reaction? His mouth dropped open and he said, "Oh my word....I don't think I've ever seen work like this from a 6 year old!". Luckily, Aiden seems to not be too bored in kindergarten and the pediatrician thinks we can continue supplementing materials here at home. Since he doesn't seem to be having problems from boredom, he doesn't think testing for any other advanced programs is needed just yet. He did think we need to have Aiden choose at least one extra-curricular activity to do in order to keep the boredom at bay, so we'll be narrowing down what to sign him up for pretty soon. We hadn't yet decided on Chess Club or Karate, but Aiden seems to be leaning toward Karate and waiting on Chess Club until next year (Chess Club requires getting to school an hour early and I don't think he's super excited about that). All in all, the pediatrician was pleased (and amazed) with Aiden and was happy to hear that the behavior issues that we'd been dealing with have mostly disappeared since we've been following the guidelines in A Parents Guide to Gifted Children.

Then today we had Aiden's first kindergarten parent/teacher conference. I didn't know how it was going to go, but we got a great report from his teacher. All of his testing so far indicates that he is way above grade level and he is currently the top performing reader in kindergarten (not just in his class, but in all of kindergarten). We did find out that because of that, he has been placed in the special "High Flyers" reading program for the top 5 highest performing readers in kindergarten - which means that four times a week, he is sent to another classroom and takes part in a more advanced reading program. This isn't to be confused with the TAG reading program which would require further district testing and would be in addition to kindergarten class time, extending his school day.

All in all, things are great with our little Aiden! Here's some favorites at 6 years old: