Gifted Resources

Parent Resources and Organizations

Parent Resource Materials: The Office of Advanced Academics and Talent Development provides a mini-library of resources to the families through the Parent Resource Center (PRC). The PRC is located at the Syphax Education Center, 2110 Washington Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22204. Please call before visiting as hours fluctuate, 703-228-7239. Your school’s Advanced Academics Coach may also have resources to share with parents.
National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) NAGC is a non-profit organization of parents, teachers, educators, other professionals, and community members who unite to address the unique needs of gifted children and youth. NAGC publishes a quarterly journal, a parenting magazine, and holds an annual conference.
- National Association for Gifted (NAGC) Parent TIP Sheets: The Timely Information for Parents (TIP) Sheets are for parents and caregivers of gifted children to download, read, and share as needed. Please keep in mind these are developed for a national audience and each school district will varying in implementation.
Virginia Department of Education Web Site This web site contains information about gifted education, links to the state regulations and state and national organizations related to advanced learners.
Virginia Association for the Gifted VA Gifted advocates for gifted children and services at the state level, publishes a quarterly newsletter, and holds bi-annual conferences.
William & Mary Focusing on the Future: An annual career and academic planning event sponsored annually in January by The Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary and held in Williamsburg, VA.
Virginia (VDOE) Gifted Education page and Summer Residential Governor’s Schools: Offers a variety of information from the Virginia Department of Education Web site. The Commonwealth of Virginia provides services to identified students, K-12.
Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG) SENG is dedicated to fostering environments in which gifted adults and children understand and accept themselves and brings attention to the unique emotional needs of gifted children.
Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) CEC is the largest international professional organization dedicated to improving educational outcomes for individuals with exceptionalities. CEC includes a TAG (Talented and Gifted) division.
Davidson Institute Formed in 1999, the Davidson Institute is a 501(c)3 private operating foundation funded by Bob and Jan Davidson to recognize, nurture and support profoundly gifted students and to provide opportunities for them to develop their talents. A variety of free brochures that can guide parents in the support of their children. The Foundation also provides a variety of scholarship opportunities.
University of Connecticut Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development offers excellent online webinars targeted toward parents of gifted students.
Jack Kent Cooke Foundation The Jack Kent Cooke Scholarships are designed to encourage and support outstanding students from 7th grade through graduate school who have a breadth of interests, work hard, demonstrate a strong will to succeed, and have financial need.
Emerging Scholars Program The Emerging Scholars Program (ESP) is designed to encourage and support outstanding students with financial need in grades four through six. ESP was established in late 2002 by a consortium of seven independent schools serving the Washington, DC area. Emerging Scholars Program Graduates undergo 14 months of rigorous academic and leadership training. Graduates have been accepted into grade six at independent schools where they will receive need-based financial aid or graduates go on to greater success at their home public schools.
Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page This Web site is an “all-things-gifted” resource for parents, educators, and gifted teens.
Early Entrance College Programs in the USA Early entrance programs, often referred to as radical acceleration, provide an opportunity for groups of students who have yet to complete high school to become a part of a supportive peer environment within a collegiate setting. Various college early entrance programs allow these students to work toward either a full college degree or a high school diploma plus transferable college credit.
PEG, the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted, at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, offers an opportunity for bright and accomplished young women to complete college during their high school years.

Podcasts & Webinars

Podcasts

Bright Now Podcast This podcast focuses on multiple topics about parenting and educating bright and curious kids from the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth.
Mind Matters This podcast features discussions with leaders in the fields of psychology, education, and beyond, with an emphasis on gifted/talented and 2e (twice-exceptional) children and adults. Mind Matters explores parenting, counseling techniques, and best practices for enriching the lives of high-ability people.
Celebrate Calm This podcast is for parents of strong willed children.
Tilt Parenting This podcast aims at helping parents raising “differently-wired” kids do so from a place of confidence, connection, and joy.

Webinars

Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education and Talent Development (UConn) Webinars on Helping Your 2E Child, Talking with Children About Their Giftedness, Perfectionism and Productive Struggle, and more
Self-Regulation for Learning: Essential Skills for Success (*this webinar is streamed on Facebook) Parents will learn about self-regulation for learning and be offered useful strategies to help their children be better prepared for the complexities of life on-line and beyond the K-12 setting.
Supporting Your Child’s Writing When You are Not Their Teacher (*this webinar is streamed on Facebook) The writing process is frequently stressful for students and may become an additional source of frustration for families during quarantine. Join Cori Paulet to discuss simple strategies you can use to reduce tensions and support your child’s writing without needing to be the expert.
Perfectionism – What It Is, and How to Help How do we encourage kids to “be all they can be,” without creating perfectionists? Pursuing excellence, while leaving behind perfectionism’s destructive anxiety, begins with an understanding of the psychology of perfectionism. Learn how to use this understanding to create perfectionism’s antidote.
Home-Based Learning: 3 Tips to Get Ready! Schedules, Spaces, & Organizers Let’s talk about getting ready for home-based learning! Students and parents both benefit from developing temporary home-based learning structures because they provide consistency and reduce stress on everyone. In this live chat Melissa will talk about how to “do school” from home by setting a consistent daily schedule, creating learner workspaces, and organizing information.

Online Programs

Online Resource	Brief Description/Additional Information
Khan Academy Resources for Parents and Mentors	Getting started with Khan Academy with a parent quick start guide.
PBS LearningMedia	Free standards-aligned videos, interactives, lessons plans and more
Smithsonian’s Learning Lab	Sign up for free account; free interactive platform for discovering millions of authenticdigital resources, creating content with online tools
Mensa for Kids	Lessons Plans, Activity Plans, TED Connections
TEDEd Parents TED: Talks to Watch with Kids TED: Talks by Brilliant Kids and Teens	Feed your child’s curiosity. Everything you need to spark and celebrate your child’s ideas.TED talks for students; TED talks by students
Scholastic Learning From Home	Day-by-day projects to keep kids reading, thinking, and growing.
Wonderopolis	Each day a new “wonder” is posted with follow up resources and guidance. Over 2000questions from many disciplines to search. It says it is for learners of all ages, youngerchildren will need reading support. Families can sign up to receive an email each dayabout the new “wonder”.
Breakout EDU	K-12 Digital games around a variety of topics
CrashCourse	YouTube: Created for high schoolers; huge library of videos across most major disciplines,including playlists of forty-eight videos on U.S. history, seventy-two on world history, andfifty on U.S. government and politics.
Renzulli Learning	An interactive online system that provides a personalized learning environment forchildren and leads to higher academic performance. Once students do the RenzulliProfiler, personalized activities and resources are shared around these major themesof Learning Style, Expression Style and Interest Areas
20 Virtual Field Trips to Take with Your Kids	20 virtual field trips plus lesson ideas, activities and book suggestions to extendthe learning for each type of destination.
How to Play Chess	This video shows the basics of how all the pieces are set up and move on the board.
Thinking Skills Activities	For grades 3 – 6, this is a compilation of logic puzzles, math bafflers, and more.
Arts
Visit 12 Famous Museums	Visit 12 famous museums virtually
Metropolitan Opera	Free Series starting Monday, March 16th – 7:30 PM (each opera will remainonline for 20 hours)
Playbill	15 Broadway Plays and Musicals You Can Watch on Stage from your Home
NGAkids Art Zone for IPADs	App contains eight interactive activities inspired by works in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, plus a sketchbook for freehand drawing and a personal exhibition space where users can save and display art created with the program.
Doodle Lessons with Mo Williams	The Kennedy Center is offering doodle lessons each day at 1:00 PM led byMo Williams.
MoMA Art Lab	MoMA Art Lab is a creative art app from Museum of Modern Art. It helps kids learn about modern art: how to create and how to appreciate the art.
Art Camera	Selection of artworks you can zoom in on and learn information about painting as it appears; there are also questions for students
Skill Share	Various classes around different art topics such as animation, illustration, design. May be designed more for high school and above.
Mathematics
Think Math	Designed to appeal to diverse learners, these resources provide real-world connections, opportunities to think more deeply about mathematics, and ways to use both logic and computation to solve problems.
NCES Kids’ Zone	Provides information to help you learn about schools; decide on a college; engage in several games, quizzes and skill building about math, probability, graphing, and mathematicians.
You Can Do the Rubik’s Cube Program	Step by Step guide and videos to master the Cube!
KenKen Puzzles	Puzzles that make you smarter.
16 Card Games that Will Turn your Students into Math Aces	Using card games to capture children’s attention and teach mathematical concepts.
Brilliant	Build quantitative skills in math, science and computer science with fun and challenging interactive explorations.
Language Arts
SEM-R Elementary bookmarks Middle School bookmarks Bookmarks in Spanish	Parents can use these questions to support deep thinking while reading around different elements of a story and around big ideas or concepts such as power, courage, integrity, growth and change and more.
Growing Book by Book	Online read alouds and literacy resources are shared on this site.
Children Read Alouds	Collection of favorite quality children’s books read aloud for kids as young as preschool and up to early elementary years.
The Big List of Children’s Authors Doing Online Read Alouds & Activities	50 Read-Alouds for Elementary School KidsAuthors are offering read-alouds of their books and books by their favorite authors.
Skill Share: Creative Writing	Various classes around different aspects of creative writing.Free trial for two months.May be more appropriate for high school and above.
Science
Doug’s Weather 101	NBC4’s Doug Kammerer hosts daily Facebook live each day at 2:00 PM focusing on a weather related topic.
STEM Free	Online events with live instructor teaching students to Code, Build, Invent and Animate
STEM@Home	K-5 STEM activities using household items; 6th – 9th grade System Alert share everyday STEM fast facts, trends and related topics
Design Thinking	10 Days of Design Thinking Challenges using Recyclables (K-5)
NASA STEM Engagement	K-12 STEM activities around multiple science topics
TRY Engineering	K-12 engineering games covering topics ranging from inventing and coding to environmental and electrical engineering
Bill Nye Science Guy	YouTube: Old school science videos
Social Studies
Library of Congress	America’s Library, Recorded Authors, Poetry 180, Everyday Mysteries -Fun Science Facts, Today in History, etc.
National Archives	Documents, Photos, Records; educator resources, America’s founding documents
Smithsonian’s History Explorer	Students can virtually curate their own museum
Ken Burns in the Classroom	Historical documentary films organized by era and by film
Liberty Kids	YouTube: Narrative account of American Revolution cartoon style
Extra Credit Extra History	YouTube: Videos on history especially military history
National Geographic Kids	Amazing facts about animals, science, history and geography
Virtual Car Trip Through the USA!	Explore the US through virtual field trips
Podcasts for Kids
History Chicks	Introduce female characters in history, factual or fictional via our podcast and show-notes. An introduction, an overview and a little push to explore and learn more on your own.
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls	Fairy tale podcasts about the extraordinary women who inspire us.
WOW in the World	NPR podcast guides curious kids and their grown-ups on a journey into the wonders of the world around them.
But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids	But Why is a Vermont Public Radio show led by you, kids! You ask the questions and we find the answers. It’s a big interesting world out there.
Grammar Girl	Well written short weekly podcast on word origins, idioms, grammar and more.
Best Robot Ever	Various podcasts around different topics for kids.
Brains On!	Podcasts about various science related topics.
Smash Boom Best	A debate show for kids and families.Every episode takes two cool things, smashes them together and lets you decide which is best.
Forever Ago	History show that explores the origin of just one thing — like sandwiches, video games, clocks and more — while teaching listeners to think critically about history.
The Show About Science	Each episode is filled with fascinating information from scientists and educators from around the globe.
The Show About Politics	Each episode is focused on improving the political discourse in this country through conversations with politicians, government officials, political scientists and historians.

Critical & Creative Thinking Choice Boards

What are choice boards?

Choice boards were designed during the pandemic to provide home activity examples that follow the APS Critical and Creative Thinking Strategies framework. Each board concentrates on a few of the strategies in order to provide enrichment and creative thinking opportunities for gifted students.

Learn more about the strategies and what they mean

Critical and creative thinking choice boards are listed below based on publication date, but can be accessed and used any time.

September 28