Each year during conference time, parents often ask how they can help their child develop organizational skills. Not all gifted students struggle with organization, but many do. Are you all too familiar with your son or daughter’s organizational struggles at home? It may take some time and patience to unravel the problem and address it. The best way to find workable ideas on organization is by comparison. Here are some ideas to try:

• Sit down with your child and scan some of the study guides and strategies listed in the following resources to see if he or she thinks any are worthy of a try.
• Then set up an informal "scientific study" where your child selects one to implement for a few days (or a week, if older). 
• Keep a chart to rate the different options based on the success, ease of putting into effect, satisfaction, general enjoyment (or whatever other variables the two of you might dream up).
• This could also be a good opportunity for you to simultaneously try a few new strategies and also keep a public record of your ratings. Just think of the interesting discussions that could emerge.

Your child will find that there are many solution strategies. In fact, the more ideas and strategies one has in their organization "toolbox," the more successful he or she will be in handling different types of challenges. The underlying concept behind this type of real-world experimentation is the use of a child's natural curiosity to encourage self-motivation. Children who learn by searching for answers and ultimately deciding on a workable solution will be more likely to keep trying when faced with a new challenge.  If you find success using any of these strategies or have an “aha!” moment, I’d love to hear about it!

More Information

• Family Education has some ideas on Time Management for Gifted Kids as well as some suggested reading on Time and Perfectionism.
  
• Davidson Gifted has a large list of ideas that parents can do to help their children get organized. This is written with Twice Exceptional (2e) children in mind that work well for any student.
  
• Prufrock Press shared their ideas for Organizational Skills and Gifted Students.
  
• The University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota has an extensive list of study guides.
  
• Virginia Tech has a website designed for older students (but modifiable for younger children), where you'll find lots of ideas to try, including a self-quiz on "Where does time go?". 
  
• The Rhode Island Advisory Committee on Gifted and Talented Education has compiled a list of interesting Web sites that include a number of homework helpers.
  

From time to time, I come across articles and research that really dig deep into the complexities of the gifted mind.  I found a couple today that I wanted to share with you all.

Introversion: The Often Forgotten Factor Impacting the Gifted
“Such is the situation of the introvert, a minority in the regular population but a majority in the gifted population.”

Finding True Peers
“Developing and maintaining friendships is an important aspect of any child’s development. However, for many gifted kids this can be a struggle. Using the term “true peers,” the first of the friendship articles discusses the struggle gifted kids may have in forming and maintaining friendships. For gifted children, true peers are probably not the same chronological age as gifted children; gifted children often seek friendships with older children.”

Have thoughts or insight of your own you’d like to share? Feel free to let me know!

I hope you all had a fun and relaxing summer! If you’re returning for another year in Special Interest, I’m glad you’re back! If you’re just starting out, welcome!

Now that we have the first week of school under our belts, hopefully everyone is starting to get back into a routine.  During Cycle 1, I have been meeting with the students for just a few minutes to get back in the swing of things and to get to know a few new faces.

For the first few weeks, we will be working on setting our own routines, reexamining our Multiple Intelligences, and warming our brains up to set the course for the new year. The first round of fall workshops will start Cycle 6.  Look for the workshop menu to be posted during Cycle 4.

For some of you, Back to School Night/Parents’ Night is coming up very soon. This year, most of those nights are spread out across the month of September. Rather than spend just a few minutes in each building, I  have been asked to spend a full evening at Pfaff Elementary and Richland Elementary schools.  They are open to ALL parents who would like to stop by, regardless of their home school.  I won’t be making a formal presentation, but if you’d like to stop in before or after the classroom presentations, please do!

Richland Elementary Parents’ Night
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Conference Room

Pfaff Elementary Parents’ Night
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 24, 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Room 208

If those dates and/or location don’t work for you, please let me know.  I can also some time available at the other four schools before or after school in order to fit your schedule.

Also, from time to time this year, I’d like to send out some resources I come across from time to time to help you as the parent of a gifted student. Today I came across a neat blog post: http://www.giftedguru.com/7-essential-tools-for-parents-of-gt-kids/

Each of the 7 “tools” could be helpful, but I think quite a few of you can relate in particular to #2!

I hope you find it useful.  If you have an idea for a future email, are looking for help in a particular area, or just have a question about gifted education where you think other parents might also benefit from an answer, send it my way!

Here’s to a great year!

When school is closed because of inclement weather, SI is pushed back accordingly.  This week, Richland was scheduled to have SI on Monday. Therefore, when school resumes, Richland will be scheduled to have SI.  We don't cancel SI when school is cancelled! :-)

I will post a new adjusted calendar as soon as I know when we will be back in school.  Stay safe!

We’re off and running in SI!  Now that most of you have had an opportunity to attend your Parents’ Nights, I wanted to take a minute to update you on a few things. Some of the information will be new to you, even if you stopped in to see me at Parents’ Night.

Parents’ Nights:
First, thank you to those of you who took the time to visit me at QE or Trumbauersville. I really appreciate it!  For those of you who had wanted to stop in at Parents’ Night but didn’t have a chance to, please let me know.  I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.  I also shared the following helpful resources on those nights:

• Two articles on helping your advanced learner to be successful – (Developing_your_childs_habits) (What's a Parent to Ask?)
• The Gifted Kids’ Survival Guide - A book written for children under 10 who have been identified as being gifted. (Great gift idea!)
• Digital Resources
  Hoagies’ Gifted – (They have a very useful Facebook page as well!)
  Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education (PAGE)
  Unwrapping the Gifted – a terrific blog for parents, teachers, and advocates of gifted education
  Twitter – If you are a Twitter user, you’ll find dozens of gifted-centric educators and organizations to help you (try @TheGiftedTechie – that’s me!)

I also attached a little bit of “homework” for you. I’d like to collect a bunch of “anecdotes” from you all to share with the students. I’m looking for moments from when the students were younger when they might have said or done something that might have taken you by surprise.  I’m hoping that by sharing these each week, we’ll start to have the students recognize in themselves what you as parents have noticed all along.

I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too many resources too quickly, so if you are looking for help, support, or are just looking for more information in a particular area, please let me know!

In other news:
We are currently wrapping up Cycle 3.  After briefly meeting the students during Cycle 1, we spent Cycle 2 going through typical “first day” procedures, meeting some new faces, and starting the year rolling.  During Cycle 3, we began to talk about Multiple Intelligences.  This year, we are going to focus on identifying our types of “smarts” and use those to guide our work throughout the year. Ask your son or daughter what their surveys said about them!

Here’s the plan for upcoming cycle dates:

• Cycle 4 – Multiple Intelligences (continued). Fall workshop menus go home
• Cycle 5 – Workshop menus due, topics TBD
• Cycle 6 – Fall workshops begin

Now that we have begun to develop our routine, please be on the lookout for the students’ folders. If you’re used to seeing the feedback charts come home, you’ll notice that the new “reflection charts” are quite a bit different.  Ultimately, I’m looking for more student reflection as to how SI connects to their learning overall.  You’ll notice that these are NOT due every week, though we will be journalling in them each week in class.

Finally, take a minute to reacquaint yourself with the SI homepage and Edmodo.  Once students start to receive homework (they haven’t had any yet!), I will remind them of the importance of staying in the habit of checking in our website for homework.  Also, I’ll remind them to make sure they stay in touch with me via Edmodo on the days we don’t meet.  Other than checking Edmodo to stay informed, there is no “work requirement” attached to it. However, if students do have a question, the quickest place to get an answer is to ask me on Edmodo rather than wait a few days until our next meeting time.

Note: While I am asking all Gr. 3-5 students to take on this responsibility, I will leave it up to the discretion of the first and second grade students’ parents to decide if this would work for your son or daughter.  Younger students will still use and have access to Edmodo in class, but checking in at home is up to you to.

This brings me to my last topic…

Responsibility
You may hear me speak this year about self-responsibility, challenging oneself, and becoming a self-advocate.  These are skills that are critically important for gifted learners.  Being “bored” in class should be a signal to a student that they need to communicate their needs to their parents and teachers. If they are not being challenged, they will need to use their voice and work with their teachers to find a way to challenge themselves and continue to grow.

These skills take time to develop. In SI, students who may not be used to being challenged academically may suddenly find themselves being challenged to reflect and learn from mistakes. This is completely ok! SI is a place where taking risks and making mistakes are not only ok, but encouraged and expected! As Thomas Edison once said:

“I’ve never made a mistake. I’ve only learned from experience.”

Thank you for reading!

I recently made a short instructional video to show students how to archive their Weebly sites.  Currently, students have the ability to make 10 different websites with their Weebly accounts.  If you would like to save a copy to your computer locally for safekeeping, check out the instructions.  It's really easy to do!

I recently came across a resource that is incredibly informative, especially for parents and teachers of gifted children.  There is quite a bit of information on gifted students who have been identified with other exceptionalities as well.  You'll find a wide selection of factsheets that cover many of the issues likely to face a parent or teacher with a gifted child.