PCE Gifted Education News
December 5, 2024
Overexcitabilities and Asynchrony
Fall/Winter activities and holidays are often a source of great joy and excitement for our gifted students. We also know that the intensity of their emotions can sometimes result in difficult reactions and behaviors. Gifted students are unique in a variety of ways. Two of the hallmarks of gifted students are the different ways in which they experience and react to the world around them and their asynchronous development as they grow and mature. To learn more about two of the superpowers of gifted and talented kids, please read these two articles:
- Byrdseed: 5 Unexpected Traits of Gifted Students
- Psychology Today article: Many Ages at Once
Myth #4: Gifted children don’t have disabilities.
A child’s giftedness does not make them immune to disabilities. In fact, this very assumption can be dangerous when trying to identify gifted children who are disabled. Twice exceptionality or 2e is a term coined by the gifted and talented community used to describe gifted children who also have disabilities such as ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety or depressive disorders. Commonly, the gifts children display can mask their disabilities and vice versa. The 2e community brings attention to the fact that many disabilities are invisible, and we must take great care in recognizing their existence amongst gifted children.
Colorado Dept. of Education 2e page
The Kids Should See This - A collection of video for curious minds of all ages. What I love:
School appropriate, safe videos without ads
Searchable and tagged videos with topics of interest
Get kids excited about new topics!
- Creative Puzzling
- engaging puzzles, activities, and games
- for all ages (even adults)
- aims to instill a positive attitude towards challenges, fostering resilience, and critical thinking skills in solvers
Across Content Areas
- TED Connections TED talks that might interest youth with high-level thinking questions related to them. They also have a list of extension activities related to the talk. I highly recommend these. They’re designed to be done by students alone, so they’re perfect for home learning. They cover many content areas, so no matter what you’re hoping to share, there’s probably something there for you.
- The Mensa Foundation offers free lesson plans. Lisa van Gemert designed most of these lesson plans to be done by a student without a teacher, so they’re perfect for home learning. They cover multiple content areas and grade levels, but don’t be limited by the grade level bands. Look at the different activities to see if they’re a good fit.
- While you’re at MensaforKids, you can also find lots of educational online practice games. Most kids struggle with ratios, so take the opportunity to have even older students practice that, if nothing else.
- The BBC has a whole learning center that is amazing. It’s using UK standards, but shockingly, we all teach pretty much the same stuff.
- Fall in love with the Smithsonian’s Learning Lab. Learners need to set up a free account, but once they’ve done that, oh, friends, it’s fabulous. It describes itself as a “free, interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources, creating content with online tools, and sharing in the Smithsonian’s expansive community of knowledge and learning.” Your tax dollars at work, friends.
