Big Little Big

This week Zoe has Musical Theatre camp for three hours in the morning and a math lab camp for one and a half hours in the afternoon. Yesterday she also had her first gymnastics lessons at a new facility.

She loved all of it.

The musical camp is supposed to be for kids age 5 - 12. Ends up half the kids look younger than Zoe. I think this is the first time she has ever taken a class where she is one of the "big kids." When she got out of class she happily related that she enjoyed the class and even made two friends.

After lunch she had her first math lab at Notre Dame. The coordinator (director?) of the class and I had emailed back and forth a little about which class to put Zoe in. She ended up in the "advanced middle school" group. She was definitely the smallest one there. The picture above shows her in the middle with the two boys on her team working out a math problem on the board.

I sat in a corner of the room for the first class. At first it looked like her group was going to be all boys but it ended up being 11 boys and 4 girls (including Zoe.) The other three girls were clearly upper middle school and they all sat together at a table with another older boy.

Zoe totally held her own. She raised her hand for every question, (most of the kids there did) answered confidently when she was called on and seemed to feel she had a right to lead her team.

She was really excited when it was time to go. As we were leaving she said the cutest thing, "I feel like a real math person."

I think this is the first time she has done math with other kids. I am REALLY glad we tried this class, and I am going to be on the look out for more activities by this group because I think feeling like a "real math person" is excellent.

At the end of a rather full day of activities Zoe tried out a new gymnastics class. She hasn't taken any P.E. type classes since December.

This new place has a great gym, like what we were used to in Los Angeles. Zoe was in a class with three other girls. Two were smaller and one was a little bigger. I think they were all beginners. I was watching from the viewing area and could see that Zoe was the most advanced in the class. The teacher asked where Zoe did gymnastics before.

This class is only 3 more weeks and then a break before classes start up again for the Fall. I am thinking Zoe should move up to be in a higher level then. But then again she might be the littlest one again.

I wonder... how does it affect her to always be the littlest one? Does she think of herself that way? She didn't seem to at the math class. Does being one of the bigger kids or the advanced/lead kid give her important leadership opportunities?

I remember back when I was stuck with my age mates that being the advanced/lead kid was not really worth it. I would have much rather been in a challenging situation than one that is too easy, YKWIM? But, because we homeschool and I am good at advocating, Zoe often gets to work at her level, so maybe it is the other thing that she needs.