Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What are you doing this summer?

The rising 7th grader took an accelerated five week class over the summer which was one year of high school Algebra. He got an A! He will take algebra I in the fall at his junior high, in its mutated common core form.
Rising fifth grader took five one week classes for gifted kids at the community college. Both kept up weekly viola lessons and swim team practice every day.

That's awesome Pemberley!

My DD10 was also in heaven at her 2-week musical theater camp. I'm sure she'd also love your daughter's program! (Not sure that I'd survive - but she would love it). It always impresses me that my anxious kid with all her worries can get up on stage and sing and act her heart out.

Also DS7 has been doing VT when we can fit it in - I don't know how you keep up the home exercises with the schedule you described - but that's great! Even with the gaps in appointments I think DS is making progress - last night he read to me out loud for the first time in months. And did much better - less word and line skipping. So, feeling hopeful that it's working!

Swimming, yoga, photography, graded classes, MOOCs in areas of particular interest, library trips, local travel including musical festivals, food festivals, paddling outings (kayak/canoe).

I love this recent blog post about group work and gifted kids:

http://giftedexchange.blogspot.com/2015/08/collaboration-agony-and-ecstasy.html

Unfortunately, I think that in the average classroom, the gifted kiddos are often split up among groups, and are forced into what becomes a very frustrating experience. Teachers need to have a better understanding of how this impacts a gifted student, their "group experience," and their behavior within the group (I have received little sense that they do, or that they consider this, although I distinctly recall HATING group projects in elementary, for the very same reasons listed in the blog post). Some kiddos are more willing to, um, hide their true feelings and/or frustrations about the group experience than others (my DD has NOT always hidden her frustration)...

It's been a low-key summer here. DS8 had baseball for the first bit, and has been in weeklong day camps about half of the summer. Soccer, local museum's camps (one a hit, one lost its luster by the end), parks/rec camp. He's able to be home with a parent the rest of the time, which has had the usual mix of advantages/disadvantages. Overall, though, it's been good for him to be at home more than usual. We took one short family vacation. He's worked on keyboarding (Brown Bear typing site) some and we had a math tutor come over for lessons about 4-5 times. Other than that, library books galore. I think he earned the summer reading program completion prize in less than a week's time.

Sully, I'd love to hear more about your child's experience with Epsilon (how nice to also have one child at Delta!). Our child should qualify, but for that bit about loving math. He likes it, excels at it, but I don't know that we can claim he loves it at the moment. We have wondered if Epsilon camp might change that for him.

In my experience group work only works if there are seperate skill sets and a manager who actually has authority. Ds8 hates group work. Unfortunately if he gets into the extension class at intermediate it is nearly all group work. If he doesn't get into it he will just get instruction at the middle of the bottom 85%.