OMS TAG Students Explore TVCC

Our Middle School Talented and Gifted (TAG) students participated in an educational visit to Treasure Valley Community College. During the visit, students had the opportunity to explore the campus, learn about the various certificate and degree programs available, as well as discover the athletic facilities, student resources, scholarships, and special programs offered by TVCC. Click HERE to read our March Newsletter. 

Creating Work-Play Balance

Your gifted child may often experience their emotions and social development in a way that can significantly differ from their peers. Supporting your gifted child includes looking at their emotional needs at home and helping them build social skills outside of a school setting. It this month's newsletter I'm going to focus on strategies to provide opportunities for enrichment through programs and activities outside of school. Click HERE to read our December Newsletter.

Developing Growth Mindsets

More times than not, our TAG students struggle with being flexible in how they respond to difficulties. They often believe things are unequivocally bad or good. This is a display of a fixed mindset. Versus a growth mindset, which helps students tackle challenges because they understand that learning takes a lot of effort. They don't give up when things get difficult, because they have strategies to persevere. They take risks, participate in class, and understand that mistakes are normal when people try hard things. Click HERE to read how this applies to your gifted student and what we can do to support them in developing a growth mindset. 

Tips for Parenting Your Gifted Child Over the Summer

Gifted students often have an intense need for intellectual stimulation and that need doesn't disappear when the school year ends. Help your TAG child to see summer vacation as an opportunity, to not only relax, but also to indulge in thinking, exploring, and inventing, with a focus on THEIR favorite interests. This month I've developed a newsletter filled with summer opportunities that I hope will support you in meeting the needs of your gifted child and nurture the curiosity and learning of any other kiddos as well. Enjoy! Click HERE to read our May Newsletter and start planning for summer!

As an educator for thirty-five years, parent teacher conferences have always been something I enjoyed and looked forward to. They are also a wonderful opportunity for you to gauge your child's progress and work with your child's teacher to help your student grow and develop into the the person they have the potential to be. I've focused on five tips to help guide you into having a productive parent-teacher conference this month. Click HERE to read our April Newsletter for five tips for talking to your Gifted child's teacher.

Highly curious is one of the most common characteristics of a gifted child. Such children dive into subjects of interest with a passion that is not typical of children their age.

This is why it is not unusual for such a child to learn things such as the statistics of every player on a sports team or the names of all dinosaurs at a young age.

Gifted children often exhibit a deep absorption in activities that interest them. Parents of gifted kids will often take their children to the library or online to help them look for knowledge, facts, and statistics. Click HERE to read our March Newsletter and see the adventures of our Alameda TAG kids at the Boise Discovery Center.

Design thinking refers to the set of cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems. This is the process we have structured the curriculum and learning opportunities around in our elementary TAG enrichment classes currently at Alameda and May Roberts Elementary Schools. Click HERE to read our February Newsletter and discover resources to challenge your TAG student's Design Thinking Skills at home with Legos!