Remote Resources Roundup
With schools being closed across the country, one of the biggest questions both parents and educators are asking is: “What can I do with my gifted student from home?” The short answer: there are thousands of remote resources out there! We have created a ‘Remote Resources Roundup’ to help you find some things that could work to keep your gifted learner engaged and thinking while they are out of school!
In an effort to help our parents and students find worthwhile resources, we put together this post with some of our favorites. We hope you’ll find it helpful as you navigate this time out of school! As we find more resources, we will keep this page updated.
General Resources
This spring (2020), Renzulli Learning is offering its entire site worth of programming free for all students. This resource allows students to complete a profile and then suggests enrichment activities and projects that you can complete at home. They have these for a ton of strands, subjects, and modalities–too cool!
Our friend Donna over at Big Ideas 4 Little Scholars also has a great listing of resources for gifted which is organized by grade levels. We also have a guest blog post over on her site–be sure to check it out!
Fun and Games
First of all, check out our post on Games for Gifted. While we’re all stuck at home, we can get into screen time overload, and these games take you back to basics while building thinking skills. Win-win for the whole family!
One of the single best resources for games that we have found is a simple deck of cards. Check out this post we found on easy classic card games you can play with kids using traditional playing cards. Don’t be fooled by their simplicity–classic card games develop math skills, strategic thinking, social-emotional skills, and offer an opportunity for great conversation.
Math ResourcesOne free site we love with a ton of great math content on many, many math topics and grade levels is Greg Tang Math. He offers games, printable activities, and other resources, most of which are completely free. We love Kakooma–it’s a great math game to think differently about how numbers work together!
While we’re talking math, don’t forget to check out this cool math-art mashup we posted about earlier this year. Spirolaterals are fascinating, pretty, and fun to make. Add in that they cover math concepts (multiplication tables, patterns, using math tools), and you have yourself a great at-home activity!
STEM
We know it sounds crazy, but Minecraft can be a great tool for building STEM and engineer-thinking skills. In addition to STEM skills, Minecraft also allows kids to practice creativity, collaboration, and other 21st-century skills. It’s an added bonus that kids love it!
Also, we love the free programming available at Code.Org. This site lets kids develop authentic coding skills. Coding accesses thinking skills that incorporate strategic thinking, problem-solving, math skills, and technology. Plus, kids feel like they’re just playing fun games or creating computerized artwork! What a powerful punch!
Reading/Writing Resources
If you want to read a book together and need a framework of how to think about the novel (and hit the standards for reading at the same time), we highly recommend you take a look at our book studies on Teachers Pay Teachers. We have a ton to choose from, and they are geared specifically toward gifted students.
For writing templates and activities that are free, check out ReadWriteThink. This site has tons of free graphic organizers (many of which are online interactives) as well as great ideas for getting started.
Many public libraries are closed along with schools right now, but their digital collections are strong and open! We are big fans of using the Libby app to download e-reader books from our local libraries. This is an easy, free, and at-home way to keep the books coming.
Our setup for building–it’s amazing to me that they were all sitting close to one another, with every opportunity to see what others were building and yet they all came up with very different ideas.
For the Littles
Our littlest learners benefit most from hands-on activities. We can’t stress enough that littles should be engaged in sense-making play, rather than strictly focusing on rigorous academic content. Remember, our littles are building foundational learning skills! Some things that we have found to be great play activities are:
Sorting, matching, classifying. This season it’s easy (and very inexpensive) to find plastic Easter eggs; we have been using an assortment of sizes to match, count, categorize, and sort. This is an easy and fun activity that has a ton of skill-building integrated.
Puzzles. Any and all puzzles are great tools for spatial learning!
Building. Use what you’ve got! Legos, Magnetic Blocks, K’Nex, loose found parts! Building is a great activity for collaboration, fine motor skills, strategic thinking, and problem-solving.
Imaginary play. Use your imagination to role play, create ‘shows’, create oral stories, and play games. Research shows that imaginary play has huge payoffs in later reading comprehension skills.
Make some patterns. Create patterns together, and look for them in nature. Patterns are present in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. Being able to see patterns in various formats helps students develop a foundation for finding them later in academic content, enabling advanced understanding.
Read together. There are few things more powerful than sharing stories read aloud.
Wrapping Up
One of the biggest things we have learned already this spring is to give ourselves a little grace. Trying to keep school going from home is no easy task! With our own kids, we try to do just a few academic activities each day. The rest of their learning comes incidentally through other activities we do together. Things like cooking, gardening, journaling, and even cleaning and organizing are all powerful opportunities for learning. Find what works for your family and your child and go from there. Our very best suggestions for at-home learning are simple: play and read!
We will work to keep this page updated as we find more great resources. Do you have an idea we should add? Please shoot us an email to tell us about it! Did you try something on our list? Comment below or email us to let us know how it went. We love hearing from you.
Happy home learning!
-Emily and Anna
