Keeping Gifted Kids Engaged: Projects and Real World Application

 

Welcome to my newest blog series on Keeping Gifted Students Engaged at the End of the Year!!

 

How often do we find that some of our brightest students begin to become our biggest behavior problems at the end of the year? Students you never had to email home about are starting to get on your last nerves…Whats the problem?

 

The problem: Review.

 

Lets think about this. At the end of the year, what do we do a lot of as teachers? REVIEW. We are reviewing for end of the year testing, reviewing all of the material taught this year, and reviewing behaviors. All of this review becomes quite monotonous for our gifted learners. They got it the first time you said it, and they sure do not want to hear it again.

 

In this series, I hope to provide ideas for moving beyond review for our students that do not need it.

Instead: Provide Application

For many of our gifted students, they have absorbed all the information you taught them throughout the year. AND, they remember it all. The end of the year, as others review, is the perfect time to provide opportunities for deeper application and analysis. Below are a few ideas on how to provide opportunities for application.

 

1. Passion Projects

A great way to allow gifted students to thrive at the end of the year is through open ended exploration of passions. Allowing your gifted students to explore a topic in the direction of their choosing can not only motivate them, but also keep them engaged for long periods of time.

A few suggestions with the passions projects:

• Give students options, but also make sure there are guidelines. Wether that is a standard you want them to address their knowledge on, a topic you want them to cover, or a form of media you want them to explore – make sure your guidelines are clear.

 

• Have frequent check ins. Gifted students love to take their learning in many directions (and it is so cool to see where they go with the freedom!), but they also need to be checked in on, supported, guided, and not forgotten about.

 

• Check out Andi McNair’s resources for Genius Hour! She is the guru of all things based around passion learning and will give you incredible ideas on how to launch this with your students. Her blog is: A Meaningful Mess . She also has an amazing podcast, instagram, and books on Amazon! Check them ALL out!

 

2. Real World Projects

Let me start this section by saying, I really don’t like the phrase “Real World”. When I hear this phrase, it makes me feel like what we do in school is not a part of the world – when in reality, school is a fourth of our students’ days! I have worked hard in the last year moving away from the phrase “real world” and saying “outside of school”. But, as we know, many teachers and schools use the phrase “real world”. So for all of us to be on the same page, I will use it in this post.

 

For gifted students, the WHY behind everything is so important. They want to understand why they are learning what they are learning and how they will use it in the future. If they do not understand the why, there is very little buy in.

 

Here are some ways to incorporate real world projects:

 

1. Find projects that “mirror” the real world

Think about any topic you are learning in math and ask yourself “where do I do this outside of school?” For example – perimeter – this could relate to building a garden, designing a house, exploring sports fields. Recently, I have been creating math projects for 2nd and 3rd grade standards and I have had so much fun choosing real world topics that SEEM to have nothing to do with the topic. Finding topics kids love and then relating it to the real world has been a great creative challenge for me – and bonus – the kids love it!

There are so many math projects on TPT that relate to the real world. My only WARNING is that you really take the time to preview the product. Does it require critical thinking or just plugging in numbers and drawing? Does it allow students to be creative, or is there a one size fits all answer? For our gifted kids, we need to make sure the products we purchase off TPT require critical thinking and creativity.

 

Check out my 2nd and 3rd grade math bundles here if you are interested in seeing some examples: Second Grade or Third Grade

 

Here is one of my favorite real world math projects book for 4th and 5th grade: Real World Math Projects for Gifted Learners

 

2. Incorporate Research

In our world today, we rarely know the answers to things we are curious about, but we readily have many places to go for the answers. When I think about the differences between generations, this is a big (mostly) advantage that kids today have. If we provide students with answers and telling them how to learn, they are much less curious and motivated to learn. Instead, if we give students a question (or allow them to follow their own questions) to find the answer to, they are motivated, intrigued, and exploratory. Allowing students the opportunity to research helps them not only learn how to find their own answers, but explore real world skills they will use the rest of their life.

 

Here is a great example:

My fourth grade students were working on a project that had to do with marathons. Sure, marathons are not a standard, but converting between units, adding, and subtracting are! Therefore, I was asking my students questions regarding marathons to engage them in challenging math exercises. One of my groups of students came running up to me while they were finding different countries around the world on a map to examine the elevation. A boy said “Mrs. Minno! They use km, not miles! How many km are in a mile?”

 

Rather than quickly giving him the answer for him to be able to do the math, I told his group to get a computer and research it! Sure this was an extra step, sure they are VERY slow at researching, sure they needed support on where to go, BUT they were much more invested in the answer, and I guarantee many of them now know the conversion fact better than if I had just told them.

 

Purposely providing opportunities for students to learn information on their own can be incredibly impactful!

 

3. Action Projects

Action projects have been one of my recent favorite projects to implement. As noted through the name, the end result of the project has to be some sort of “action”. This can range from reaching out to local government, creating a parent email, reading a poem to kindergarteners, starting a new initiative at the school, or even creating a presentation to send out to teachers.

 

What I find impactful about action projects for gifted students is that it gives them an “end goal” as well as the feeling of making a difference. Our gifted students are driven by social action and making changes. Teaching students different ways they can make a difference – no matter how big or small can provide outlets for empowerment and advocacy.

 

Action projects start much like passion projects, but the end goal is thought through BEFORE the project is begun. Additionally, action projects are typically centered around social action or social justice. These projects can be great extensions for reading units, book clubs, social studies/science topics, and more!

 

 

Click here for the Action Project Choice Board I created (option for K-2 and 3-5) for my students!

 

**If you are an email subscriber, this was the freebie attached to today’s blog post!**

 

 

 

How have projects worked in your classroom for gifted students before?

 

Thank you for joining me on this series: Keeping Gifted Kids Engaged at the end of the Year! I have loved hearing your thoughts and comments – continue to join the conversation! If you ever have questions, do not hesitate to find me on instagram @giftedwithgoldens or email me at [email protected] 

 

 

Interested in other series? Check out my Back to School Planning Series!

• Blog 1: Depth of Knowledge
• Blog 2: Critical Thinking
• Blog 3: The 4 C’s 
• Blog 4: Low Prep, High Thinking Strategies
• Blog 5: 3 Reading Strategies