Created by the Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth at the Johns Hopkins University, this site contains comprehensive information for teachers of gifted students in upper elementary grades through middle school. Highlights include information about summer programs for students in grades 2-12, summer employment opportunities for elementary and middle school teachers interested in becoming involved in CTY summer programs, the CTY talent search, student application information, ability and achievement testing, recommended publications and resources, and available services for interested schools and teachers.
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Here is another wonderful website created by the Woodlands Junior School. This website is basically a compilation site for teachers. There are links and activities for math, science, special needs, history, geography, health, holidays, and many other subject areas. The website also offers many lesson plans - find the lesson plans by clicking on the subject. Note: The site is British, so beware of spelling differences! Most of the activities are interactive and require FLASH, get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..
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Older students celebrating Reading Across America week and any just-plain Seuss fans will enjoy these parodies collected as a plain vanilla web site. Note that this collection of links was created a while ago, so some links may no longer be active. Be sure to check out the ever popular Freud-on-Seuss, originally published in a college humor newspaper. Your literature students will appreciate these examples of parody. Gifted students and talented writers may even want to try their own hand after reading some. As always with humor, preview to be sure you are comfortable bringing these into the classroom.
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Use this website to "clear out the cobwebs" in your students' minds. The site offers several interactive logic activities. Many require no reading. A few examples include Tetris, Rubik's Cube, Sliders, Towers and more. All activities require JAVA and FLASH. You can get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
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Build higher level thinking skills, especially flexibility in how students visualize and interpret a brief story. This challenging and interactive website has Lateral puzzles, both "active" and "solved." Registration is required if you guess an answer to one of the "active" puzzles. Registration is not necessary for reading the puzzles and clues. This site gives a lateral puzzle, and then the readers can ask questions to the original poster. Some of the "solved" puzzles could be used with younger students. However, the site is geared towards middle school and high school aged students.

Not sure what a Lateral Puzzle is? Read the FAQ section!
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This article provides information regarding gifted students. Specific topics include how to spot a gifted student, making the "gifted" label more comfortable for your child, nurturing your gifted child at home, why "advanced work" is not the whole answer, helping your child get more out of school assignments and projects and resources.
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This website was created to correspond with the Saxon mathematics books (all levels). This site provides basic enrichment and can easily be used without the Saxon textbooks. There are activities available for all grades and many topics (including algebra and calculus).
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Looking for an online project-based interactive website that encourages literacy and cross-cultural communication? Looking for an alternative culminating project or process writing project for your secondary classes? Trying to help your high school juniors and seniors create an interesting college "essay" or portfolio piece? Join other adults and children from around the world by adding your essay, artwork or video about a hero on this non-profit, ad-free web site. You and your students can use this site with basic word processing knowledge -- or take it further if you are more technically capable.Site registration is required. Site is available in Spanish. Flash, Acrobat Reader and Quicktime are required. Get them from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.
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Mr. Natural (yes, that is his real name) offers a Keyboard Intervalometer, or numbered scale, to download and place on the keys of a piano. Use this numbered version and the corresponding numbered music (think Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) to learn to play the piano the "Natural" way. He also provides scales for other instruments. This would be great fun for young children but could also be very interesting as well as entertaining for older students!
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The Girls Scouts of America have created this unique and educational website. There are four themes provided (Cryptic Codes, Mandala Maker, Mixed Messages and Composing Digital Music). Each topic provides information, unique facts and has a creative game or interactive activity. FLASH is required for some of the activities.
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This attractive children’s online magazine focuses on becoming more environmentally aware, enjoying nature, and learning to conserve and regenerate natural resources. Besides gardening and farming, the magazine offers articles on world cultures, fitness and health, arts and crafts, and food and nutrition, all focused on using the earth’s resources wisely. Links after each story of interest connect the reader to the magazine’s archives for other articles on similar subjects. An online glossary assists kids with those science words that might be difficult and makes this site easily accessible to second language learners and learning support students.
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This logic game asks students to move six frogs (3-blue and 3-green). This is a lot more difficult than it may appear. The rules include: each color frog may only move in one direction and frogs may move one space or jump over one frog. The students are asked to investigate the game by answering a few specific questions. Younger children will need teacher direction. This game requires Flash.
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A delightfully creative, collaborative site where people share (and comment on) directions for "how to" make just about anything. Language Arts, Art, or Gifted classes can "explore" the various topics to see how step-by-step directions are written, then have students write their own sequence of instructions. Even add a digital picture. Topics are "filtered" by topic (on the left side of the "explore" page) and also searchable by keyword. Art teachers will appreciate illustrated explanations of techniques from artists all over the world. This is a collaborative site, so you can read comments made by others on the different sets of instructions. Always preview such a site for appropriate content. Some include Acrobat files of patterns.
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Trying to incorporate writing into your math class? Looking for prompts to use in class or on a gated blog? Use this site to generate the RAFTS prompt for you. If you do not know or recall what a RAFTS is, the site explains that, too. Here is a hint: Role, Audience, Format, Topic, Strong verb. You could even share this RAFTS generator with your students to create their own!
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Learn the basics of many languages, including may less-common ones. This could be very helpful for working with ESL/ELL students or for your English-speaking students who are curious about other languages. Gifted students might enjoy comparing languages using these tools.
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Learn the basics of Portuguese. This could be very helpful for teachers working with Portuguese-speaking ESL/ELL students or for your English-speaking students who are curious about other languages. Gifted students might enjoy comparing languages using this site and other tools.
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Learn the basics of Polish. This could be very helpful for teachers working with Polish-speaking ESL/ELL students or for your English-speaking students who are curious about other languages. Gifted students might enjoy comparing languages using this site and other tools.
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Learn the basics of Arabic. This could be very helpful for teachers working with Arabic-speaking ESL/ELL students or for your English-speaking students who are curious about other languages. Gifted students might enjoy comparing languages using this site and other tools.Requires Quicktime to hear pronunciations.
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This very simple site, created by an anonymous puzzle-lover, is a treasury for logic problems and lateral thinking puzzles to use in your classroom or beyond. Click on the puzzle type you want. Use them as brain warm-ups in a math or science class before venturing into problem-solving or inquiry process or simply to engage the brains before starting any activity. There are different levels of logic and different types of lateral thinking puzzles, each with a hint before revealing the complete answer. These puzzles would also be useful for gifted enrichment.
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For teachers or students who have not had the opportunity to learn technology skills from a real person, these video tutorials can be very helpful. They can also fill in gaps in basic computer knowledge. Topics range from Internet safety and Netiquette to more advanced video production, digital imaging, and web page creation. For your students doing independent projects, for basics before you launch into a full-class technology production, or even for teaching yourself as a teacher, these tutorials are approachable and fairly up-to-date. Make sure you choose the right level(s) for your students, since they may have better skills than you think. You can differentiate easily with the multiple skill levels available. This one takes a longer time to open, so be patient.
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