So, we started this series by exploring the adage of nature versus nurture when it comes to giftedness. Then, we took a detailed walk through the various components of a strong gifted identification process, one which is designed to learn as much about a child and his or her potential as possible. As I mentioned in that first post in this series, I firmly believe that giftedness is a factor of both nature (above-average ability, high-ability, or potential ability) and nurture (purposeful instruction to help students grow in their strength areas and purposeful exposure to enrichment in the world around us). During my doctoral program at The College of William and Mary, my dissertation chair, Dr. Tracy Cross, told our class one semester that, “School is a talent development process.” This is so true! We are all talent scouts, and we all must nurture the talents we find in our students, whether they went through a formal gifted identification process or not. Giftedness cannot happen in a vacuum; it’s up to teachers to nurture that nature in ALL students as well as parents to nurture their children at home, too! It’s not easy, but I’m here to help you! Please share your thoughts on my Gifted Identification Series and/or the nature vs. nurture topic in the comments.
It goes without saying that schools must keep meticulous records for students who go through the gifted identification process, just as they would for students who are connected to other specialized programs such as special education or English Learner programs (though, admittedly, those two programs are federally mandated, whereas gifted programs are only state mandated). Each state has different regulations of the types of records that must be kept in students’ cumulative files (whether paper-based or electronic), and for how long those records must be kept. In addition to state regulation, each school division in the state might include additional requirements that are important to the division. Finally, in addition to division requirements, gifted programs might have even further record-keeping protocols that they require. Accurate student records ensure that schools have the correct chronology of student events, and that if a student ever moves, their new school will be able to know a lot about the student right away and provide the appropriate services for the student in a timely manner.
In my school division, all parts of the gifted identification process must be documented on an official Student Profile Sheet, and that original sheet with committee member signatures, a signed Determination Letter, Parent Permission Forms, and any Appeals letters must all be kept in the student’s cumulative school file in the school’s front office records vault. The cumulative file follows the student through graduation, ensuring that his or her gifted records remain accessible if ever needed by the school or the parents. Does your school division require similar gifted program records to be kept? If so, please let us know in the comments!
Imagine this: you open up your monthly water bill and see that your bill is inexplicably $555.93 when normally it’s around $30 a month. (By the way, I didn’t just make up this amount. This ACTUALLY happened to me when I opened my mother’s water bill one month last year- ugh!) What is the first thing you do?
Call the water company and appeal the bill!
I know, duh, right? Nobody is going to accept a $555.93 monthly water bill without checking out what happened and appealing for a lower bill. Well, often, the same is true for parents opening that gifted determination letter and seeing that their child was found not eligible for gifted services. They want to know why their child did not qualify for the gifted program, and then they want you to re-evaluate the determination.
Any gifted program worth its salt will have an appeals process in place for parents to utilize when they think an incorrect determination was made. In fact, most state legislature regarding gifted education requires that school divisions create an appeals process for families. A typical appeals process requires that parents meet with the school’s Gifted Resource Teacher first to go over the determination results. Then, if the parent would still like, they may request an appeals review in writing, after which the school division will convene an appeals committee to hear the appeal, make an appeals determination, and notify the parents of the appeals determination. Parents are a part of the appeals process, unlike in the eligibility process where only parent input is typically used.
Though an appeals meeting may feel uncomfortable, gifted staff should realize that the parents are just being strong advocates for their child. Schools can help make appeals less likely by conducting a transparent gifted identification process and keeping parents informed of the types of testing done, when it will be done, the results of the testing, and the criteria for gifted identification and placement in gifted services.
It’s important to note that parents will often share information about their child during the appeals meeting that the Identification/Placement Committee did not know. These things can tip the scales toward a favorable appeals determination. Thus, an appeals meeting could possibly have been avoided if the school had used a thorough Parent Input Form so that the Identification/Placement Committee would have had the most complete information possible about the referred student when making its determination.
Have you participated in the appeals process before? What tips do you have for Gifted Resource Teachers and/or for parents? Let us know in the comments!
Last time, we talked about who sits on the committee that makes the determination of a student’s gifted eligibility. But, what do they do? The Identification/Placement Committee has two main functions (I bet you can guess what they are from the title of this committee 😊):
to determine gifted program eligibility (also called “identification”), and
to determine placement in gifted services that match the student’s academic needs (or arts needs, or creativity needs, or whatever gifted programs are offered in the division).
Usually, the gifted staff member assigned to the committee facilitates the meeting. She or he presents the data on the reporting sheet to the committee and discusses any pertinent information that the committee should know. Then, the team deliberates. Sometimes, the data presents itself in such a way that the student clearly meets the identification criteria, so no deliberation is needed. Sometimes, students have data that borders the eligibility criteria, so a deeper dive into the student’s data or situation must be explored. Even when a student meets none of the gifted eligibility criteria, committees should still make sure that they haven’t overlooked any information pertinent to the student’s potential giftedness. Sometimes committees decide that they need to collect more data on the student, and ask the parents for permission to postpone the decision until it’s collected.
After the determination (also called “decision”) has been made for the referred student, then the committee must determine which of the offered gifted services in the school match the student’s needs. For example, if there is a gifted math class and a gifted English class offered in the school (services), and the student’s data only supports giftedness in math, then the student would be placed in the gifted math class. Just a reminder- I’m only discussing academic gifted identification in this series. There are other types of gifted programs (ex. Visual Arts, Creativity, Dance, etc.).
No matter what the determination is, the parent must be notified in writing of the determination and any services that will be provided (if applicable). The letter should be mailed home as a matter of confidentiality. For students identified as eligible for gifted services, school divisions require the parent to sign a permission slip and return it to the school. Often, the division may send home a gifted program brochure or handbook for parents, as well. What if the parent disagrees with the determination (this typically only happens when students are not found gifted eligible)? Legally, what can a parent do? In my next post, I will talk about the Appeals process.
Do Gifted Eligibility Committees in your school division run the same as I described? Share your experience with these committees with us in the comments!
It’s been a hot minute since I posted in my Gifted Identification Series (actually, it’s been more than that – it’s been since April 25th, 2025). The last post I shared discussed how to compile all of the data collected on the referred student. Now, I share who partakes in reviewing that data and making a determination…
When putting together a Gifted Identification/Placement Committee, schools must either follow the mandates of their state department of education or school division. Typically, Identification/Placement Committees have at least three members on the team, made up of gifted personnel, teachers, administrators, or other professionals who either tested the referred student or has worked with the referred student. Unlike special education, parents are not usually a part of the committee, though their input is shared with the committee through parent rating scales or parent input forms (see my prior posts about parent input, Part 1 and Part 2). As an example, The State Code of Virginia that governs gifted programs details who should be on the committee:
If the referred student happens to also be a special education student or an English Learner, it is very important for the facilitator of the Identification/Placement Committee to include the specialists who work with that student on the committee. They have unique insight into these students as learners and can share in-depth information on the student’s strengths and needs.
So, we have our data assembled and we have our committee assembled. It’s finally time to make a determination on gifted eligibility! In the next post, I’ll share about the decision-making process for determination for gifted eligibility and placement as well as parent notification of determination. Before then, who is involved in your school division’s Gifted Identification/Placement Committee?
Hello, and welcome to the sixth and final article in my bonus series of, “How to keep your Gifted Kid Thinking all Summer.” I’m so glad you dropped in on this article! Let’s dive in!
What do the following items have in common: crocheting, baseball card collecting, rock collecting, playing guitar, or baking? Do you give up? They are all potential hobbies that gifted kids could take up over the summer!
No time is better than the summer for kids- gifted or not- to try something new or explore an interest area more deeply. Sometimes, hobbies that kids develop in elementary and middle school grow into careers, businesses, or just regular hobbies when they become adults. My grandfather was an avid collector of international stamps, a hobby he started in his youth. I have fond memories of spending part of my summer vacation each year living with my grandparents in New York City. I would watch him pull out his stamp collection books each night to mount a new stamp or two that he got that day. He would tell me stories about the stamp or about the country from which it came. Collecting those stamps gave him hours of entertainment and joy!
Hobbies aren’t just fun, though; they are truly intellectual pursuits. Learning new things always helps synapses in our brains grow. In addition, each hobby- whether it’s collecting something or doing something- has its own set of built-in skills for kids to tackle, which keeps their brains sharp over the summer break.
So, what might be a good hobby for your gifted child to pursue? According to Google AI, here are some possible hobbies that are popular with kids in grades K-12 (Please note: This article contains a few links to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.).
Drawing – Drawing is a great way for gifted kids to exercise creativity. There are so many different styles of drawing, media for drawing, and subjects for drawing. For example, your child might love animals and decide that she wants to learn to draw cute, cartoon-like animals using pencil. She can do that! The possibilities are endless!
Baseball card collecting – According to Wikipedia, baseball cards have been around since 1860, and collecting these little pieces of history has never gone out of style. Whether it is baseball cards, Pokémon cards, hockey cards, etc., gifted kids thrive on sorting and organizing their card collections, as well as memorizing facts and reading about the players or fictional characters depicted on the cards. Don’t know where to begin? There’s a book for that!
Coding – Coding for kids has been a trend for a while now, especially since more and more schools are embedding national or state computer science and technology standards into their curricula (see Virginia’s for an example). My Google Search for researching coding for kids produced a terrific article with lots of great resources for introducing your child to coding at home:
For kids to learn coding at home, platforms like Scratch, Code.org, and Tynker offer engaging, visual, and block-based coding environments. These platforms allow kids to build games, animations, and stories, fostering creativity and problem-solving skills. Other options include CodeMonkey, which teaches real programming languages like Python, and Kodable, which provides a more structured curriculum for younger learners. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
Platforms for Different Age Groups and Skill Levels:
Scratch (MIT): A free, visual, block-based coding language ideal for beginners aged 8-16, allowing kids to create interactive projects. [4, 8]
ScratchJr: A simplified version of Scratch designed for younger children (ages 5-7), using a visual programming interface to create interactive stories and games. [9, 10]
Code.org: Offers a variety of coding courses, including Hour-of-Code lessons, and is suitable for kids aged 4 and older, according to Coder Kids. [2]
Tynker: A comprehensive platform with courses for various age groups and skill levels, including self-paced online courses for learning at home. [1, 3]
CodeMonkey: A game-based learning platform where kids learn real programming languages like CoffeeScript and Python. [6, 11]
Kodable: Offers a more structured curriculum with robust parental controls, making it suitable for both home and school use. [7, 12]
CodeCombat: A text-based coding game that teaches Python and JavaScript. [13, 14]
Swift Playgrounds (Apple): An app for iPad that uses a more sophisticated-looking interface and interactive puzzles to teach coding concepts. [8]
Khan Academy: Offers basic programming tutorials, including a partnership with Pixar. [8]
Bitsbox: Kids learn to code by modifying pre-made apps and can then use and share them on any device, according to Bitsbox – Coding for Kids. [15]
Tips for Learning at Home:
Start with low-code or no-code options: Platforms like Scratch and Code.org use visual blocks, making it easier for beginners to grasp coding concepts. [16, 16]
Make it fun and engaging: Use games, puzzles, and projects to keep kids interested and motivated. [2, 2, 16, 16]
Encourage creativity: Let kids design their own games, stories, and animations. [5, 5, 10, 10]
Provide a structured learning path: Consider platforms like Tynker or Kodable that offer organized courses. [1, 1, 12, 12]
Consider live online classes: For personalized guidance and support, explore platforms that offer live online coding classes for kids. [17, 17, 18, 18]
Utilize free resources: Many platforms offer free introductory lessons and tutorials to get started. [8, 8, 19, 19]
Practice regularly: Consistent coding practice is key to developing skills and building confidence. [7, 20, 20, 21, 22]
Join online communities: Connect with other young coders for support, inspiration, and to share projects. [20, 20, 23]
References (AI responses may include mistakes, but all links worked as of publishing time.)
Playing a musical instrument – The brain research behind playing a musical instrument is robust (here is a short TED-Ed Talk about the benefits to the brain from playing a musical instrument). Just like with drawing, there are endless possibilities of musical instruments that your gifted child could play. Here is a fun little instrument for anyone to play: the musical spoons!
Gardening – Nothing gets kids connected to the earth more deeply than gardening. Whether it’s a tiny window garden or a large, raised garden bed, many kids love getting their hands in the dirt and nurturing flowers or vegetables to grow. It goes without saying that there are tons of science lessons inherent to gardening, as well. Why not have your child try a little gardening this summer with a windowsill grow kit?
Reading – Reading was my absolute favorite hobby all throughout my childhood and teen years, and honestly, it still is (I once read the first 25 books in the Nancy Drew series when I was home for 2 weeks after tonsil surgery in the 2nd grade!). Reading can be a completely free hobby with a library card, and it allows gifted kids to transport themselves into other worlds, places, and experiences (vicariously, of course).
So, which of these hobbies might be good for your child to keep him or her thinking all summer long? What other hobby ideas do you have? Please post them here!
I have enjoyed sharing my six bonus ideas with you to help you keep your gifted child thinking all summer long. I wish you and your family the happiest of summers, and please feel free to reach out with any thoughts, ideas, or questions. Happy summer!! ~Ann
Swimming, baseball games, snow cones… volunteering? We don’t normally associate volunteering as a summer activity unless your child is in high school earning volunteer hours for school honor societies or to record for future college applications. However, volunteering is a great summer pursuit for gifted kids- and all kids- of any age.
Volunteering is a form of service learning, which is when teachers combine instruction in various content areas and service. There are many benefits for gifted students who experience service learning such as leadership development, exploration of an interest area, authentic learning, and fulfillment (read this 1996 article from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development for a good overview of gifted students and service learning). Though service learning is typically a curriculum feature used in schools, why not share this opportunity with our gifted kids during the summer?
I will be honest here- we did not practice what I am suggesting. All three of our boys started their volunteering journeys in high school, like many students do. However, starting volunteer opportunities for students when they are younger is an idea I wholeheartedly promote now.
Allowing your gifted child to choose an organization or project that meets their interest areas is key. How do you help your child choose? Each community will have different opportunities for different age groups. For example, our youngest son LOVES dogs, and his volunteering in high school was at our local humane society. They have a junior volunteer program for ages 14-15, then other volunteering opportunities beginning at age 16. But what about opportunities for kids younger than 14? A quick google search found several good suggestions:
Possible volunteer opportunities include assisting at animal shelters, participating in food drives, helping with neighborhood cleanups, or creating care packages for those in need. Younger children can also engage in age-appropriate activities like writing cards for patients in hospitals or collecting items like toys and books for shelters.
I particularly like the last two suggestions because these are things you often see taking place in elementary, middle, and high schools, so kids are likely familiar with these activities. They are “low-bar” entry activities in which to participate- almost anyone can do them. For example, writing cards to nursing home patients or participating in canned food drives, book drives, sock drives, etc. are all activities that any aged child can access.
A few other examples of volunteering that come to mind for me are:
Organizing a neighborhood book drive or clean-up (organizing is a higher-level of engagement than participating),
Pulling weeds to beautify your church’s property, or
Collecting old towels and blankets for use at your local animal shelter.
Overall, volunteering or conducting any other form of service will be extremely rewarding for your gifted child and for you. Depending on your child’s age, it will take commitment on your part to help him or her; however, it will be worth it! So, have you ever embarked on a volunteer or service project at home with your child? What was it, and how did it go? Please drop a few lines or a pic in the comments so we can all get more ideas from each other. Happy helping! ~ Ann
Hello, again, and welcome back! Today, I’m writing about my 4th bonus idea to extend my article from last summer that I reposted a few days ago: My Favorite Things: Fun Summertime Activities to Challenge Gifted Kids.
When my two oldest boys were young, I was a Gifted Resource Teacher, so I had every summer off to be with them. The only bad thing was that after a week or two of unstructured summertime every day, well… boys will be boys… and the wrestling, bickering, throwing footballs around the house, etc. would start. To avoid this from happening as much, I came up with an incredibly fun solution that kept them engaged in activities each day to get their energy out (while still preserving downtime each night, too). Maybe one day I’ll write about my Summer Fun Schedule, but for this post, I am focusing on one of the things we did each week- Field Trip Friday!
I’m sure you can guess what FTF was. Every Friday I would take the boys on a field trip to somewhere around town (or even to places within a 30-minute drive of our house) so we could see and learn new things. Usually, the places we visited were museums. I had no idea how many little, obscure museums we had in our area until I started looking for them! The only rule was that we had to go to a different place each week. Here was our routine:
leave our house in time to be at the museum for opening,
stay a few hours,
come back home,
eat lunch,
read for 30 minutes, and then
hit the neighborhood pool.
It was so much fun to explore all of these places (though I always felt bad that my husband had to be at work while we were gallivanting around town)! I do miss those FTF.
Now-a-days, there is a new program related to field trips through our local public library that was not around when any of my three boys were younger: Explore Virginia. This program allows library card holders to check out passes to various museums around the state of Virginia to visit for free (or close to it)! Based on the location of the museum you want to visit, the Explore Virginia program would be phenomenal for a family field trip/long weekend. I’m sure your own state might have something similar to this Virginia program.
On an even larger scale, there are 25 states that offer a State Passport Program for either free or for a small fee. The passport programs encourage families to visit their state’s parks, explore them, and collect stamps (either physically or digitally) for each park.
If you think that’s cool, on an EVEN larger scale, there is the National Park Passport Program (also called, “Passport to Your National Parks”), which is run by a non-profit, Eastern National and affiliated with America’s National Parks (Wikipedia has a good explanation of the program). The idea is the same as the State Passport Programs- go around to the country’s various national parks and collect stamps in your purchased passport book as a souvenir of your visits. I really wish my kids were young again so we could do all of these field trips together!
Hopefully, my “Field Trip Friday” idea inspires you to take a few field trips with your kids or whole family this summer. I think it’s pretty easy to see how gifted kids’ thinking can expand by the exposure to the new information they would learn from weekly museum excursions. In gifted world, we call this “enrichment,” which is when schools (or parents) provide experiences to students that go beyond the core curriculum/basic information. Taking little field trips isn’t the only way to provide enrichment, of course. In fact, every single summertime fun idea for challenging gifted kids I’ve shared is a form of enrichment.
So, what do you say? Are you ready for an adventure to a new museum, state park, or national park? Please share your trips details with me and drop a pic, too. I’d love to see where you went and how your kids liked the trip. Safe travels! ~Ann
One evening, back in the summer of 2020, I walked downstairs to our family room, and a show I had never see before, Cake Wars, was playing on our TV. Our youngest son was streaming old episodes of this series. He was riveted to the TV, and soon, so was I, curling up on the couch to watch this fascinating display of baking prowess that played out in competition, televised long ago on the Food Network. After binging several episodes and feeling inspired to bake creatively, we briefly discussed the idea of us baking different kinds of cakes at home each week. Sadly, life got in the way as online COVID school was about to begin, and we never ended up doing that, though through the years, our boys have helped me bake many times.
Fast-forward 5 years, and he is now living away from home in his college town for the summer, binging things like Southpark when he’s not working or doing summer school classes. However, I stand by our original thought after binging Cake Wars– why not bake together at home? It doesn’t have to be cakes, of course. It could be cupcakes (Cake Wars was a spin-off of Cupcake Wars, after all), cookies (think Crumbl Cookies– there are actually copycat recipes for these types of fancy cookies online), pies- really anything your family wants to try!
Believe it or not, baking is a way for gifted kids to exercise thinking skills. When baking, they must naturally use mathematical thinking (measurement), creative thinking (designing and decorating), and problem-solving (why didn’t my cake rise?)- all in one FUN and YUMMY activity! If you really want to ramp things up, you could always put on a mini-baking war game of your own, and then your kids have to think strategically, as well!
So, what do you think? Are you ready to have your kids dabble in some baking this summer? Or, maybe you’re ready for an all-out family Bake-Off? If so, tell me how things went, and, as always, please send pictures! Now, it’s time for ME to go bake chocolate chip cookies to bring to my friend’s party this weekend! Come back again tomorrow for Idea #4… ~Ann
Two days ago, in my article “My Favorite Things: Fun Summertime Challenges for Gifted Kids,” I mentioned that I would share six new summer activity ideas to keep your gifted and high-ability kids thinking all summer. Today is Day 2 of my new ideas! Here goes…
Do you journal? When I was a teenager, I had a journal. My journal was a place for me to write down the things that were meaningful for me during the day, my dreams, quotes that I heard or read that I liked, and a place to keep magazine articles that I wanted to read again (ones that I cut out from Seventeen and Teen Beat, lol). I remember that it was something that I hid in my room between my mattresses because I didn’t want anyone to read it other than me. I actually still have one of those journals, and it’s great fun to read what teenage-me thought about back then!
Fast-forward 18ish years, to when our oldest boys were old enough to write. Journaling was one of our summer activities so the boys would have something to look back on to remember the things they did and how they felt. It also was a way to keep up their writing skills over the summer. As they got a little older, they started to gripe a bit about having to write “so much” (literally just a paragraph, but IYKYK 😊). We happened to be on vacation in Orlando, Florida during one of these gripe sessions, and that is where “Postcard Journaling” was born!
I like to think I invented postcard journaling, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t. The idea was that the boys would send postcards to their grandmas and grandpas and to themselves instead of writing in their journals. Each time we went somewhere during our vacation, the boys would each pick out a postcard, and later that night would write to whomever they chose. The next day, we’d mail it (I always bought a roll of postcard stamps to take with us on vacation; do they even sell rolls of postcard stamps anymore??).
Anyway, over the years, looking back at our postcards have brought us great joy! In fact, I started postcard journaling myself as a type of souvenir for our family. While writing this blog post, I realized that I’ve actually been collecting postcards my whole life and even have one from my dearly departed Aunt Emmy when she was visiting family in Germany back in 1978! I keep all of our postcards in a really nice basket on our bookcase shelf so that anyone can look through them whenever they want.
Our postcard basketPostcard from Aunt Emmy in 1978!
So, what do you think? Do you think that postcard journaling is something that your kids of all ages would like, or do you think they would prefer the traditional “writing in a journal” method of writing this summer? In the comments, let me know what you think and what your experiences with kid journaling has been!
P.S. If your kids prefer to use a real journal for journaling, here are three interesting ones I found on Amazon (as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases): Ages 5-7, Ages 8-12, Teenagers.
Teaching for Talent 