There are gifted kids in every classroom in New Zealand. How are you getting behind them this Gifted Awareness Week 12 - 16 June?
Take the time to reflect and korero with the gifted kids at your school.
What do they want you to know and how can you get behind them?
Here are some resources you might find useful.
Find…
Finding our gifted learners does not need to be complicated or arduous - check out our resource: How to Spot a Gifted Kid in the Wild.
Understand…
Three top tips for diving into understanding your gifted learners that little bit more.
Passions
Ask your gifted and neurodiverse learners what they are really passionate about - not just a subject area but an interest area. Ask them for some ‘fun facts’ about their passion area… and be prepared to be wowed!
Curiosities
Something we often notice about our gifted and neurodiverse learners is their strong curiosity about the world. They can ask deep and complex questions, sometimes awkward questions too! Encourage them to keep asking, without any pressure to find answers, and enjoy taking part in those ‘what if…’ conversations.
Intensities
Our gifted and neurodiverse learners can have intense minds as well as intense emotions - ask them what keeps them awake at night (and why!) and this will give you some insights into their emotional inner life.
Play...
Gifted kids love to use those beautiful brains. Here are some free, playful resources that you might like to use with your classes and watch those minds in action.
Spot and Stripe
Short videos with really interesting philosophical dilemmas that can be used to start great discussions, pitched at different age groups. Here’s one for 8-11 year olds, broadly, about words , and another for 5-7 year olds about boredom.
Creative thinking games
Creative thinking games - a great way to engage fluent, flexible and original creative thinking is through playful thinking, like:
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Can we find 101 uses of… an old coffee cup, a broken chair, a shoe?
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What should we never do with… a paperclip, a phone charger, a chair?
Logical thinking games
There are so many free resources that target logic and reasoning, some favourites of ours include daily wordle puzzles, daily SET puzzles and for older students, A Google A Day.
"Why are you chastitsing me for tyring my best? Why are you trying to make us all average"
- Maria Walker-Kinnell
