giftedness and pacing

Julianna got a pogo stick for her 8th birthday and it took her all of about 30 minutes to master it.  She quickly went from a record 3 jumps in a row, to 28 and then 42.

In our county, the schools test for academic giftedness in the second grade. They test all students unless the parents opt out. Then if the child meets the qualifications they are later tested again for the Highly Academically Gifted program. Neither option would necessarily change her school or class unless we wanted it to (we could put her in a highly gifted self-contained program) and we love her school so it's unlikely that much will change for next year despite her scores but of course we will carefully evaluate and prayerfully make that decision if we come to it.

Julianna has been reading since she was an older four year old. She has always made excellent marks at school. She loves math but reads so well and enjoys it enough that she reads an entire series of books quicker than we can get all of the copies in her hands.

In second grade her class has obviously started practicing composing paragraphs with multiple detailed sentences, main ideas, and supporting details. In the past few months in her writings at school she has mentioned she wanted to be a computer teacher like her mom and make water valves like her dad.  I know she's just trying to fill the requirement as directed by the teacher but the assignment results make us proud.

Not long ago I posted her definition of "pace" on Instagram and her mere mention of me as a runner was one of the best things I could have ever read.  My husband commented that he was surprised the word "pace" didn't make her think of me and my love of salsa (click the link to read his comment).

Then last week, this came home:

She started out as an itty bitty with a strong kick and now she's full of understanding, spunk, brains, and perception.

I adore my beautiful girl.