Providing a suitable classroom environment

1
Providing a suitable classroom environment

• is the first step towards both effective
  identification and provision for gifted young
  children

2
Displays

• Interactive
• Clearly labelled
• Posing questions
• Words within words
• Problem solving corner
• Puzzle of the week

3
Interest Centres and Targeted Activities

• Create opportunities for children to respond to
• Independent and teacher directed activities
• Imaginative play and creative activities
• Consider
• The Seven Intelligences (Gardner)
• Early Years Foundation Stage document
• Renewed Frameworks

4
Organising for physical activities

• Bodily kinaesthetic intelligence (Gardner)
• Drama, dance, games and PE,
• Dexterityfine motor control
• Imaginative use of materials
• Resources needed for this

5
Developing interpersonal intelligence

• Group problem solving
• Leading discussions and debates
• Organising presentations and displays
• Taking on the role of representing a group
• Planning a project
• Organising speeches
• Brainstorming

6
Developing intrapersonal skills

• metacognition-the ability to reflect on ones
  strengths and weaknesses
• Encouraging children to keep personal journals
• Working in a quiet area
• The opportunity to work on special projects and
  exhibit products

7
The role of play

• Through exploration and experimentation
• Balance of child initiated and teacher directed
• Making up games with their own rules
• Constructing a house or planning a party
• Providing opportunities and observing children at
  play

8
During play

• Give a range of opportunities
• Access to materials
• Ask questions to move children forward
• Adult scaffolding
• Balance of free imaginative play and structured
  activities
• Childrens zone of proximal development
  (Vygotsky)

9
Identification of mathematically able children

• Early and keen awareness, curiosity and
  understanding about quantitative information
• Ability to perceive, visualise and generalise
  patterns and relationships
• Ability to reason analytically, deductively and
  inductively
• Ability to reverse a reasoning process and to
  switch methods easily but not impulsively

10
Identification of mathematically able children (2)

• Ability to work with mathematical concepts in
  fluent, flexible and creative ways
• Energy and persistence in solving difficult
  problems
• Ability to transfer learning to novel situations
• Tendency to formulate mathematical questions, not
  just answer them
• Ability to organise and work with data in a
  variety of ways and to disregard irrelevant data
• (Sheffield 1994)

11
Organising mathematics lessons flexibly

• Whole class mixed ability teaching
• Working in pairs, groups or sets of similar
  ability
• Working with a class of older children
• Working independently

12
Providing enrichment activities

• Using activities with differentiated outcomes
• Working on puzzles
• Using activities with potential for
  generalisation
• Letting children reflect on their work
• Encouraging investigative work
• Moving away from the traditional format
• Using ICT