teaching

Why Gifted Kids Test Quickly and Why That is Okay

Gifted kids often finish first, even on high stakes tests, and that gets on people’s nerves, especially concerned teachers. I’m going to explore some of the reasons why gifted kids test quickly and why that is okay. (This applies to gifted adults as well, actually.) Test taking is complex, isn’t

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The Truth About Teachers

I’m going to tell you the truth about teachers. But first, let me go backwards a little bit. A few weeks ago, someone posted a comment to a post on my blog. I didn’t let it go through because I would have had to go all cray-zay on the person,

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My 5 Favorite Office Supplies

I became a teacher because I like office supplies. I love kids, and I love learning, but let’s face it: I’m also in it for the colored pens. I think it began with these guys. If I ever meet Mr. Sketch in person, I’m going to plant a big smooch

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6 Insider Tips for Work/Life Balance for Educators

Finding work/life balance is so difficult and such a common problem that it’s almost silly to even attempt to add to the discussion. Yet I’m going to try because I care deeply about so many educators, both classroom teachers and homeschooling parents, who struggle with it. Several of my former

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picture of poster and title differentiation classroom poster freebie

Differentiation Class Poster – Free Download

Differentiated instruction is the key to appropriately serving all students, and it’s essential to explain the ways that will manifest itself in the classroom. We need share with parents and students that this class will be different in the way that students work. This sets the expectation from the beginning,

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Adaptive Giftedness & the Power of Connection

Want to try something really daunting? Raise a bunch of kids who are smarter than you are. Been there… Is your child’s magical power an atypical mind? This is great, but it comes with its own set of issues and fears. We don’t have every answer to the question, “How

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Life as an Art Teacher: Positive Deviancy in Action

I’m a big believer in positive deviancy. This is the idea that you can be different from others in a positive way, as described by Atul Gawande in his book  Better. Recently, I was facilitating some training and the teachers had “homework” to incorporate the ideas of positive deviancy in

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Tiering and Compacting: You CAN do it!

Tiering and compacting as differentiation strategies are underused because they’re intimidating. They needn’t be! This is an introduction to them that I think may help teachers understand them and (most importantly) be willing to try them! The two mistakes teachers make that prevents them from effective tiering and compacting are:

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3 Reasons I Loathe Accelerated Reader

Confession: I loathe Accelerated Reader. Perhaps the title of this post was a spoiler. My friend Jen Marten wrote this terrific article about what’s wrong with Accelerated Reader. I would like to add a few points to her wonderful list. Much has been written about the problems with Accelerated Reader,

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Wheel of Choice Free Download

This simple yet cool one-slide PowerPoint lets you “spin” a wheel, and it even includes a satisfying “spinny” sound. Uses, you ask? choose teams choose assignments select number of seconds or minutes or times something will be done anything requiring an element of randomness take the place of dice in

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The Geek Olympics: Resources for Teachers

When watching the Olympics, are you more interested in the physics behind the jumps than the sequins on the ice skaters’ costumes? If so, have we got some ideas and resources for you. Over on our @MensaGT Twitter account, we got a request for Olympic-themed activities for bright kids, so

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