Summer Activities for a Highly-Gifted Child

Summer is an excellent time for educators or parents to plan extension-learning activities for children. Highly-gifted students love to learn and become bored without extra stimulation, so taking them on field trips or arranging after-school activities is vital. If your child is profoundly gifted, then keeping them enrolled in a year-round educational program that provides individualized lesson plans can help your child to excel.

Summer Activity One: Beach Activities
Playing at the beach is a fun summertime activity, but a child can also learn by studying this ecological system. There are seashells, insects and birds on the shore and marine life in the water that a child can observe and draw. After studying the plants and animals on and near the beach, your child can learn more by looking for information on the Internet or in books found at the library.

Summer Activity Two: Historical Tours
If your gifted child loves learning about history, then arrange tours of historical buildings or landmarks. A young child might enjoy visiting a pilgrim or pioneer historical village where there are actors pretending to be the real historical characters. On some historical tours, children are able to dress in clothing that is similar to what was worn long ago.

Summer Activity Three: Math Camps
When the weather is too hot for other activities, find a daytime or residential math camp for your older gifted child. Most of these sleepaway or day camps last for two weeks to give a child plenty of time to learn new mathematical topics. A student can learn more about fractions, decimals or geometry in addition to understanding how to apply mathematical concepts to other subjects.

Summer Activity Four: Archaeological Dig
Children are obsessed with dinosaurs or Egyptian mummies, and parents can arrange an archaeological dig in the United States or overseas. A child has an opportunity to learn about mummies or dinosaurs with knowledgeable scientists. They will spend part of each day in a classroom or laboratory, but the real learning occurs outside while digging through dirt to find bones and artifacts. 

What is Highly Gifted?

If you are the parent of a highly gifted child, then it is essential to find the proper educational environment for their needs. Intelligence testing is required to determine if a child is highly gifted, and their scores on tests are at the top of the range for certain subjects. In some cases, a highly gifted child excels in one or more subjects but is in the normal intelligence range for other subjects. Your child might be a linguistic genius who can learn to speak foreign languages quickly but may struggle to maintain an average score in mathematics.

About Individual Learning Plans for Highly Gifted Students

When a student is identified as highly gifted in one or several subject areas, a public school is required to create an individual educational plan to provide additional learning experiences. However, with the large class sizes in public schools combined with the lack of funding, you might feel that a child is not getting enough attention.

Traits of the Highly Gifted

Highly gifted children have a variety of traits that parents and teachers should recognize. Some of these traits include:

• Talking at an early age
• Developing a large vocabulary
• Asking complex questions
• Learning how to read at an early age
• Teaching themselves how to play a musical instrument
• Drawing, painting or sculpting high-quality art
• Creating unusual mathematical concepts
• An early interest in a particular type of science
• Learning subjects quickly

Seek a Specialized School for a Highly Gifted Child

While parents can augment the materials used in a public school environment to keep a highly gifted child interested in learning, it is frequently a good idea to find a private educational institution instead. The teachers at a specialized school for the gifted will plan lessons that can teach an assortment of types of intelligence, including:

• Spatial
• Naturalistic
• Musical
• Mathematical
• Linguistic
• Kinesthetic
• Intrapersonal
• Interpersonal

It is important for a highly gifted student to have exposure to the types of intelligence that they excel at in addition to the ones that they might struggle with in order to have the best education.