Colors of the rainbow and stinkin' smart kids

Friday, August 26th-

When Cleod was in Kindergarten, he got in trouble...a lot. I believed it was because he was bored. He has always been super smart and has a great memory which helps him to pick up information and retain it forever! He was reading small chapter books before he started school but he was a little awkward socially.

Cora's watercolor rainbow

One day when I was helping out in class, they were coloring a printed picture of a rainbow, just like the one below and it only had places for 6 colors. There are actually 7 main colors of a rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Cleod knew this from some PBS show and so when he realized that there wasn't enough lines for indigo AND violet, he sort of started having a fit. Luckily I was right there and calmed him down. I realized two things that day. First, Cleod's brain works differently than others...in an amazing way. I guess I sort of knew that at the time but because he was my oldest I didn't know if I was just proud of his intelligence or if he really was THAT SMART. And second, Cleod may have been getting in trouble other times for similar things. He knew A LOT and when thinks were brought down to Kindergarten level, he wasn't OK with it. That helped me be more calm with him when he would come home from school after getting in trouble AGAIN. (Seriously, it was something almost every day. He was in the office twice and I got several phone calls from his teacher.)

So fast forward SIX YEARS...Cora is starting Kindergarten. And her brain seems to work VERY similarly to Cleod's. The same stuff bugs them and they are super stubborn. They always want to be right. Cora has a crazy, good memory too.

Last week when we were meeting with her teacher for her assessment, the teacher asked her to paint the colors of the rainbow. She started with what she thought was red but it was actually orange. The paints were a little hammered by all the other kids who had been painting. She stopped and stared at it. Right away I told her that she could be silly and mix up the colors of the rainbow. She thought that was a hilarious and went with it. She continued painting while her teacher and I chatted. When she said she was done, I looked over and noticed that mixed up the colors throughout the rainbow AND had added an extra line for the 7th color.

The worries I had for color about being bored and possibly getting into trouble like Cleod have mostly dissolved. I'm sure she will still have some issues, every kid does, but I am grateful that she was flexible and figured out a way to adapt what she knew to the circumstances.

P.S. Ryan and Grant are also very smart. All of our kids are. But Ryan and Grant are more social and get there assignments done quickly so they can move on. They both know all 7 colors of the rainbow as well, but they haven't shown any concern about other kids not knowing about indigo. There personalities are such that they mentally shrug it off and move on with their day.

P.P.S. Cleod also had a hard time in 1st grade by we were blessed with an angel teacher his 2nd grade year who made sure he had time to read when he was bored and who treated him like the amazing boy he is. Since then he hasn't caused any problems for his teachers at school!