<p>My son is taking a rigorous proof based math course called Vector Calculus and Linear Alegebra at a university whose math department is ranked in the top ten. Off and on during the semester a 10 year old boy had been attending the class. At a review class in preparation for the final exam, the professor was struggling on a proof. The 10 year old boy then proceeded to point out the error the professor was making and demonstrate the correct approach. Several minutes later the boy got up and left the class. My son says that the professor was visibly rattled by the whole event.</p>
<p>Wish I had been there to see this in person!</p>
<p>njdad...
believe my son is in that class, too. only he says the lil' guy is actually 11 ....guess he had a birthday, recently :) </p>
<p>i can only imagine what the prof is going thru...it's humbling for the regular students, too, many of whom i suspect have thought of themselves as being quite advanced over the years.</p>
<p>i now this isn't even near that level, but my five year old cousin lives with me (she's in kindergarten), and the other week we were driving out to the mall. first she counted from one to 100, then she counted by 2's, then by 3's, etc.. up till 10's and I was like where did you learn your times tables, and shes like in a book i found at home.. and i thought that was amusing, because i don't think we did that stuff till like second grade or so.</p>
<p>I now see another reason why colleges don't like to admit VERY young students. It's because they don't have the maturity to refrain from publicly showing up the profs! :)</p>
<p>fendergirl...
though parents on this site are probably full of such stories, your cousin is indeed advanced for her age. what she did demonstrates both interest and ability...and it should be encouraged.</p>
<p>that's easier said than done, however. few schools are equipped to help young kids with their math talent. many elementary school teachers (at least the ones we encountered) are intimidated by kids with math talent. for that matter, njdad's story would seem to indicate it doesn't stop at elementary school.</p>
<p>if you have any interest in this, i'd encourage you to respond here. i'm sure many parents, myself included, would be happy to make some suggestions.</p>
<p>and to nycdad - a lot of stuff has been going on lately (which explains why she lives at my house), but we know she's a smart kid. she didn't actually go all the way up to 100 with her times tables, just like 2 4 6 8 10.. 3 6 9 12.. stuff like that. the only ones she went to 100 were was counting by 1's and by 10's. right now she's on a whole writing kick. i came home tuesday and i had all of these very funny misspelled notes waiting for me on my desk. i have one that says i love you, and a few other goofy notes with pictures. one of them i'm not entirely sure what it says, i'm going to have to ask her about it. she was telling me yesterday that she wants to dye her hair black and get two tattoos.. i got a kick out of that. she says that right now shes too young, but that maybe when she's 6 she'll be allowed (lol).</p>
<p>fendergirl, you've reminded me of the off-hand comment my then-4-year-old S made 13 years ago at the dinner table with a friend, to let us know that one-half was one and a half thirds. We all pretty much stopped eating and looked at him with our forks poised in mid-air. The friend who was with us that night told me last week that he was not at all surprised to hear that S was accepted EA to MIT this month. :-)</p>
<p>Your cousin IS bright. I suggest that you look at Hoagiesgifted.org for suggestions on how to nurture her love of learning. Make use of the children's section of the public library as much as you can.</p>
<p>My story is a recount of one I made earlier on another thread. I hope I don't bore those that read it already. My 3 yr old S in nursery school told me moms sent in brownies on their child's birthday for the class to have a party. So devotedly I whipped up a batch of brownies in a square pan and dutifully cut them up in perfect little squares so he could bring them to class that morning. He proceeded to look into the pan without counting and shout, "Oh MOM! There are 17 kids in the class and you have made only 16 brownies!" He was able to recognize the matrix 4x4 and derive the correct count. He did manage to be accepted to MIT but chose HArvard instead.</p>
<p>Mine bred mutated cornsnakes at 6. In fact, it was all she wanted for her 6th birthday. We bought the snakes when they were 9 inches long - they are now well over four feet. "The white one is amelanistic, anerthristic," she'd say with a lisp, with the snake curling through her hair, "While the red one is simply amelanistic." Then she'd construct the Mendelian chart in order to figure out what she was likely to get.</p>
<p>Most adults, having had their innoculation against biology in 9th grade or so, hated being lectured by a 6-year-old. She purchased her first violin by selling 6 of the offspring.</p>
<p>NJDad, does this school happen to be Yale? My friend who goes there was telling me about a kid that age whos in a really advanced math class with one of his friends, and is acing it.</p>
<p>nycdad..
Thanks for confirming that my son is not fabricating stories. Hope you son is enjoying school. My son is a sophomore. I didn't think it possible, but he is even happier this year than last.</p>
<p>My son, when he was 5 years old, was driving with a friend and his mom. Friend's birthday was on the 10th and my son's on the 30th. Mom said to boys about their birthdays being 3 weeks apart and my son piped up with: no, they're not, they're 20 days. He knew the "easy" part of 30 to 10 being 20 days but he also knew that 3 weeks was 21 days. My son is now flunking honors pre-calc. <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>But cornsnakes...oh, mini, you're a better mom than me!!!!</p>
<p>njdad....my son is a freshman and having a wonderful time. absolutely loves everything about the school. glad to hear that it just keeps getting better.</p>
<p>Fendergirl, your niece sounds like an intriguing youngster full of excitement for learning. She is at one of my most favorite ages in terms of working with children. I find almost every kid at age 6 or so is eager to learn and eats stuff like this up. Unfortunately, for many kids later in schooling, this motivation doesn't last. But almost every kid in first grade wants to be there. It is a cool age. </p>
<p>Anyway, while your niece's counting patterns reveal great math understanding and reasoning....I am thinking that she is likely in a class that uses particular math activities....often in use during "circle time" or "calendar" where the class does counting patterns by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 10s, 100s. I have taught children this age and have taught teachers on how to teach math to children that age and these activities are part of a certain approach common in primary classrooms today. I don't know if that is the case in her classroom but the learning of these patterns and the chanting of them is a teaching approach often used. Sometimes, there is a strip in the class room, like adding machine tape and each day during morning meeting, they put up another number that counts how many days they have been in school to date. Then these numbers might be written in certain colors or circled according to counting patterns, like by 5's, by 2's, and colored even and odd and so forth. I am wondering if her teacher teaches that way. </p>
<p>Wow on the ten year old in math class at Yale.
Susan</p>