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Don't leave your child's education to chance.
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October 2010
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Greetings!
Greetings from the Team at TalentIgniter! Our newsletter this month is filled with articles and products from the Internet that we hope you will find useful and interesting. Please remember that we would love to hear from you at any time with comments or suggestions. In the meantime, please follow us on our Facebook fan page and on Twitter!
Sincerely, Kathy Hara, Editor
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Acceleration for the Gifted
Does it make sense to send children to college who are
as young as 12, 13, 14 or 15? In some cases we believe it may actually be cruel
not to send them to college. When children are profoundly gifted, they
often seek academic challenges that cannot be met in the regular classroom; and
they all need to find "soul mates" who are on an intellectual par, true friends who get
their jokes. Here's an article from the Daily Herald that follows a 15-year-old girl from
Illinois who is thriving as a sophomore at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia. |
Classical Music for Kids
Are
you concerned that your kids don't seem to have any interest in classical
music? They have probably been exposed to Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev
through their school programs, but what about the music of Mozart, Beethoven,
or Vivaldi? Or even operas of Rossini, Verdi or Puccini? Classical Kids has produced a series that may develop more music appreciation for the
entire family, in which dramatizations about the lives of composers are
performed by adult and child actors. Done through the eyes of children, each
title uses pieces by the composer to illustrate the story. The stories are
fictional, but listeners gain insights into the life of the portrayed composer,
as well as the time period through events, places and people who are real.
Recordings are about 45 minutes each. In
addition to cassettes and CDs, teacher's notes and corresponding CDs are also
available. The notes are 36-43 pages long and include additional background
information, discussion topics, activity ideas and suggestions for exploring
the music.
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Resources and Opportunities
Rita Ostrager needed to find more resources for her
child, who she says is a profoundly gifted math whiz. In the process, she
founded the organization Higher Education Resources and Opportunities for Exceptional Scholars (HEROES). The purpose of HEROES is as follows: Identification of exceptionally gifted students Creation of educational resources for the exceptionally
gifted Informing parents, educators and exceptionally gifted
students about appropriately challenging educational opportunities Reducing barriers that prevent exceptionally gifted
students from accessing educational opportunities that can meet their
needs Creating opportunities for exceptionally gifted
students to interact socially
Membership is required in order to take
advantage of HEROES, and students must qualify to become members. But resources
and opportunities offered include conferences, writing talent search, math
talent search, courses, study groups, and more. |
Math Circles
Mathematical Circles are a form of education enrichment
and outreach that bring mathematicians and mathematical scientists into direct
contact with pre-college students. These students, and sometimes their
teachers, meet with mathematical professionals in an informal setting, after
school or on weekends, to work on interesting problems or topics in mathematics.
The goal is to get the students excited about the mathematics, giving them a
setting that encourages them to become passionate about mathematics.
Learn more about joining or setting up a Math Circle near you.
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Handwriting and the Brain
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, researchers
are finding that writing by hand actually is a building block to learning. Using
advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, they are seeing that the
practice of handwriting helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve
idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development. Read the article, How Handwriting Boosts the Brain, to learn more.
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Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Sir
Ken Robinson, author, creativity expert, speaker and international adviser on
education in the arts, who was knighted
in 2003 for services to education, challenges the way we're educating our
children. In a 20-minute video speech, Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity, he makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating
an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. If you don't
want to take the time to watch the video, you may prefer to read his recent blog, Transform Education? Yes, We Must. Here is an excerpt: "I said that the premise of the act [No Child Left Behind]
is flawed. Actually there are three flawed premises. First, NCLB promotes a
catastrophically narrow idea of intelligence and ability. The result is a
terrible waste of talent and motivation in countless students. Second, it
confuses standards with standardizing. The result is that schools across the
country are becoming dreary and homogenized. And third, it assumes that
education can be improved without the professional creativity and personal
passion of teachers. The result is that too many good teachers are streaming
out of the very schools that urgently need them to stay. All of this is holding
America back in a world that's moving faster than ever."
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Keys to Successfully Raising the Gifted Child
You know your child is gifted. But how does that impact
day-to-day life and your role as a parent?
Written by Deborah L. Ruf, Ph.D., and Larry A. Kuusisto, Ph.D., this ebook is for
parents who are new to the idea that their children might be intellectually
advanced or gifted. The book addresses important parenting issues, including
what to actually tell your child about his or her giftedness, how schools
approach learning differences, best ways to provide emotional support, sibling
rivalry, and more.
The book is available for purchase at www.TalentIgniter.com/products.
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5 Levels of Gifted
5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005) (formerly titled Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind). 5 Levels of Gifted, published by Great Potential Press,
combines four years of data gathering from 50 families with nearly 30
years of research and experience in the field of giftedness, individual
differences, and high intelligence. The book is aimed primarily at
parents and vividly describes the upper 10 to 15 percent of the
intellectual continuum in human beings from birth to adulthood as
manifested in their behaviors, thoughts, accomplishments, and test
scores. She introduces the concept of Levels of Giftedness and makes it
very clear how many factors contribute to a person's intellectual levels
and achievement.
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