Donna Lasher by the GATEway Gals Many teachers who work with advanced and gifted students create their own lessons and units, and some make them available for purchase. The GATEWay GALS are the first to write a guest blog post for BIG IDEAS for LITTLE SCHOLARS. In it, they share a little about their products and how … Read more
Teachers, if you cannot access the puzzles or tutorials, please contact your district about approving this website or access through a personal Gmail account. Even if you “request access,” some of the school servers block access. MESSAGE if you have a question! It’s been a couple of decades since Sudoku first appeared in newspapers in … Read more
If you have animal lovers in your class, especially dinosaur fanatics, you may have some students who find it intriguing and fun to learn the scientific names of animals. Beginning in early grades, students are introduced to the classification of living things. However, lessons in the lower grades usually focus on the main classes of … Read more
Here are some games to present to your students in a new way. Rather than teaching the game or activity, challenge students to figure out what’s happening. Let them determine the rules or guidelines being followed. The game Dotty Six would be easy to teach students, and it’s appropriate for players of all ages. However, … Read more
The game of Mastermind has been around for decades and it reinforces not only logical thinking but also a number of math concepts (e.g. combinations, permutations, probability). My students, from third grade up, have always enjoyed it. I wanted to adapt it for younger students, so I created a beginner version that requires only these … Read more
Here’s a construction activity that a group of students can complete in less than an hour using just newspapers and tape. It’s a great activity to integrate into a study of STRUCTURES or SYSTEMS, through lessons such as the ones found on the PBS site, Building Big. Before building these domes, you might want to … Read more
Our third grade GT studies revolved around the universal theme of SYSTEMS. A great way to introduce the concept of a system is through activities involving electric circuits. We had some wonderful STEM kits, including Little Bits, which provide everything needed to build working items such as doorbells and buzzers. However, before pulling out these … Read more
One way to engage students in math problem solving is to “perform” some math magic, then have students try to figure out the number patterns that make the tricks possible. Many books, videos, and lesson plans incorporate “mathemagic,” and there are many university studies promoting its effectiveness in the classroom. It’s the presentation that makes … Read more
Have you ever played a trick on your students? I mean a benign prank- an activity or lesson that ended with you saying, “Gotcha!” Here’s a lesson I’ve used for years with students from 5th to 8th grade and I’ve never had a student catch on to the “trick” until I began giving hints toward … Read more
This is one way you can shake up the routine in a gifted class! Logic problems, such as Perplexors and Math Perplexors, promote deductive reasoning. Students use information and resources to reach a conclusion, the “correct answer.” In a previous post, I described how I set up a logic center that allowed my students to … Read more
