Going Beyond “Challenge Words” In Spelling Many students blow past grade-level spelling and vocabulary at a young age. Unfortunately, a common technique to "challenge" them is to find harder and more obscure words for their spelling list. Instead, let's take advantage of the built-in complexity of common words with multiple-meanings.
Reordering A Mixed Up Paragraph I combined my utility Paragraphy with Project Gutenberg, The Differentiator, and The Wizard Of Oz to create a differentiated lesson about how to order sentences within a paragraph for gifted students.
Exploring Morality Behind Actions No one can deny that our gifted students have great power. They may be intellectual powerhouses, grasping concepts years ahead of peers. They may be emotionally sensitive, becoming aware of issues such as mortality at an early age. They may be leaders of people, showing leadership qualities from the very beginning. How do we teach them to use this power?
Analyzing Prefixes and Suffixes Instead of just memorizing what a bunch of morphemes mean, we're looking broadly, exploring patterns, finding unexpected similarities and weird differences.
Don’t Just Paraphrase A Poem! What if, instead, we re-wrote the poem in the style of a different poet?
Universal Themes and… Punctuation!? Here's how can we move a punctuation lesson beyond mere memorization and towards actually interesting thinking.
Poe’s The Raven The Raven is a great starting point for students' to learn about Poe. Not only does the poem clearly demonstrate "tone," but it is a figurative language tour de force. Plus, there are some amazing readings available online!
Books with 700, 800, 900, & 1000 Lexile, Recommended By Teachers A reader was looking for examples of high-quality books for gifted/talented 4th and 5th graders, but she was constrained to a lexile range of 900-1000. Here are the recs I received...
