Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary Strategies for teaching vocabulary are a critical part of every teacher’s toolkit, yet searching for them is a little bit of an Alice in Wonderland experience – down the rabbit hole you go. Responding to a question I got in an email (shout out to blog post
One of the most difficult things for teachers working with high ability students is to get them to pay attention to the work they’re doing. Many extremely able students get lower grades than they otherwise would because they fail to pay attention to the little details. You know what I
Students who are early finishers can struggle with boredom, frustration, and staying, you know, nice. This is because they sit and wait. Lather, rinse, repeat. Last week I wrote about best practices for teachers with regard to early finishers, and today I’m focusing on the students (just in case their
A Guild is Born What would happen if Ian Byrd of Byrdseed and Lisa Van Gemert of GiftedGuru got a crazy idea to make the world a better place for gifted kids by making it a better place for educators of the gifted and then…made it happen? World, meet the Gifted
Best Practices for Early Finishers Early finishers can challenge even the best and most experienced teachers. Many of us have had the experience of barely getting the work passed out to everyone before the first Fast Finisher is waving her completed assignment in the air. Really? You’re done already? In addition
Homework Help is a Checklist Away Homework causes stress in homes across the country. Probably the world, really. I wrote some tips for avoiding the homework battle recently, and one of tips I suggested was to use a homework checklist. I looked around and couldn’t find any that I loved,
Why a reading challenge? Reading challenges are so much fun! I love participating in them because they so often introduce me to new books I would not otherwise have read. I’ve gathered a list of some reading challenges you may like to try out in your classrooms or families
Ending The Homework Battle What do you do when your child won’t do schoolwork without an epic battle every.single.day? What happens if you throw gifted in the mix, just for fun? Motivation is a tricky thing, and every child is different, but here are 11 ideas for how to get kids
I’m sharing a set of free printable Christmas bookmarks I made with all of you because if you’re like me, you’re giving some books as gifts this holiday season. I’m sharing some book recommendations, too! About the Bookmarks I designed these Christmas bookmarks in color and in black and white
The Boys in the Boat have a lot to teach gifted kids My book club recently read The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, and I absolutely loved it. It’s that magical kind of non-fiction that enfold you in the story and doesn’t let go until far after you reluctantly
The key to excellent lesson plans is deceptively simple. It is a single question every teacher must ask when planning. The question is this: What will happen in the life of the learner as a result of this lesson? The role of objectives. Do you see that this is bigger
You should label kids as gifted if the label fits. This is a shockingly controversial statement, and I think it is because of three reasons: Bias against giftedness. The ambiguity of identification. Misunderstanding of or bias against the idea of “labels.” I don’t find these reasons compelling, and I will
