Special Newsletters  in acrobat pdf format (need acrobat reader, free here) a great place to start your collection of information (please help us translate these into other languages!

• Advocating for our Children
• Am I Gifted?  A group of teens came up with a brief explanation of being gifted for their probably gifted but formally unidentified friends.
• Deeper learners: How a Caring Adult can Help a Gifted Child
• Sharing the Passion how to tap into one of the key features of being gifted
• Written output aids    Paper samples to print and try
• Written output issues and suggestions
• Young Gifted Children

      New!      (or click on the buttons above to go to general information pages then use 
                      the hot links at the top of each page) 

Spring 2007 (my kids are now in university with all that entails, but we will keep updating the links and trying to add in information as people let us know about it)

• Writing programs and papers for Dysgraphic students There is a lot more research going into gifted dysgraphic students although real solutions or understanding are limited. Recently we found two writing systems that use a three line method to teach printing and writing, the Zaner Blaser and D' Nealian systems. Paper pads for this type of writing are available via numerous sources, here is an online source with outlines and printables or you can order Pacon  Picture Story Paper in reams or books via Dick Blick Art materials (let me know if anyone finds a canadian source!)

Fall 2005 (with apologies for our absence, but now back to updating the site!) Stay tuned, we will be adding to our special newsletters (above)  with one on acceleration (just returned from a conference with Dr. Miraca Gross)  In the meantime, make sure you have read a nation deceived (see fall 2004) for information on acceleration for gifted students.

• McMaster University Engineering Faculty will be running their succeful LEAP Enrichment Program for students from grade 10 - 12 ,  July 10th-August 4th 2006   (In Hamilton, Ontario) This is a camp for high achieving students, some of the choices include Materials, Mechatronics, Biomedical engineering, Design and Robotics.  There is a $50 discount if you apply before March 17th.
• The Nova Scotia Government have a new gifted education document on line  Challenge for excellence
• Homeschoolers may want to visit the Homeschoolers Guide website out of Calgary
• Otto Schmidt, a gifted programming consultant in Toronto has two sites, one for teens Discover Teenergy  and a second site outlining his work Accent on Skills
• Country reports is a site offering information on statistics (population, size etc.) as well as flags, maps, history and even ethnic recipes.

• Acceleration studies The Davidson Foundation in the United States has released an online version of A Nation Deceived  which is a report by Nicolas Colangelo, Miraca Gross and Susan Assouline  about how schools routinely hold back bright students.  Parents looking for information on acceleration should visit the website at www.nationdeceived.org
• Advanced Placement Classes online  are now available through distance education. South Island Distance Education school (part of the public education system in B.C.) is the only school in Canada which offers these courses online. AP courses are accepted by some university programs as pre requisites for higher level courses.  Subjects include AP English Language and Composition, AP English Literature and Composition, AP Calculus AB, AP Statistics, AP Macroeconomics 1, AP Microeconomics 1, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics B, AP Psychology, Ap French Language, AP Spanish Language.   Information on these couses is available by emailing sides AP  Coordinator  or via the SIDES  Ap website 

Summer 2004
 

• There is a list of summer camps posted on the resources page    (Summer math camps at Carleton were just posted!)   Let us know of any you find, and remember, gifted kids do tend to be the ones who seek out specialist film schools, music programs etc over the summer.  Ask about the programs suitability for gifted children but that may not be as important to the child as the skills they learn and practice.

• Superkids TV show about gifted to air March 11th 2004 on CBC Tv's Roughcuts (10 pm eastern and pacific time  (cbc newsworld The Passionate Eye)
• Build science toys with your children (great scientific explanations as well at science toys
• Parents or students worrried about upcoming exams?  look at UVIC's learning skills resources online everything from structuring esssays to writing multiple choice exams (suitable for all ages)
• New for teachersNew Zealand has several informative and well researched articles online for teachers  Assessing for Differentiation for gifted students  by Dr Tracy Riley of Massey Univeristy  along with articles on portfolio assessment, authentic assessment and self assesment for gifted children by Professor Dan McAlpine (see the bottom of the world list)
• All links are fixed! and a bunch of new ones are added for aspiring writers and modellers in the kids section  plus a section on "canadiana"  things like combines in bottles and growing olives on the Gulf Islands which seem peculiarly Canadian (please send us your examples.) 
• what we need now is feedback.  Do you want even more links?  In what areas?  Do you want more articles?  or do you use this as a place to bounce off after Canadian information?  Do any of you have anything to contribute? Please? Sometimes it is hard to figure out who uses this site or why.  We would really like to know if opportunities for gifted children are increasing or decreasing in Canada.  Often we hear from people when they are planning to move into a new area and want to check on services.
• The Newfoundland and Labrador Gifted Association have an online forum for parent discussion.
• If you sign on as a member of the GCABC website  (website membership is free) you can join discussions on finding resources or appropriate education for your child (web members are signed on from all over the world, not just B.C..  They also have a new "all about gifted"  section to outline the FAQ's about gifted ed in Canada, and their 100 page "Beginning the Odyssey"  information for parents is posted as well in pdf format
• the links on this site are undergoing their annual update.  If you have found any new Canadian based links you would like us to post, please email us. 

• Sharing the passion  is a new newsletter in pdf format from the recent B.C. Interior Conference.  This is for adults who work with gifted children.  See the newsletters list above.
• Success  is a new summer program offered by the University of Calgary listed in our summer programs file
• Trying to find out what you might be good at?  Looking into carreers and training opportunities?  These self assessment sites might help.
• With International issues heating up explore the Free the Children organization for positive ways kids can make a difference in the world
• Road College supporting gifted learners grade 7-12 is due to open in the Ottawa region Sept. 2003

December 2002

• ABC Ontario has a new updated website!
• Gifted e learning centre is online in Ontario with info for parents teachers and children
• Ontario Ministry of Education now lists info on schools and school board websites
• Lots of information about how brains work is at the University of Washington site.  Great for parents and kids.
• Late December Additions  Everything you might want to check out about Gifted /Learning Disabled children is listed at one source, Uniquely Gifted,  here you will find information on Dysgraphia, Discalculia, Executive function and the list goes on for several pages
• Dysgraphia is discussled with lots of links by psychologist Margaret Kay at this website

October 2002

• New  Tons of current information on the teenage brain!  (including checklists to promote parent teen conversations, sleep and learning, and discussions about early brain development in preschoolers.
• Eastern Washington's Satori summer camp opens a northern branch next summer in Victoria

Spring 2002

• looking for ways to clarify information for your stressed high school student?  Study guides  based on Canadian curriculum are available from Academic edge.
• Course materials for the B.C. Open Learning agency are available without enrolling for the course if you want clear workbooks with Ministry of Education material. (no answer key for the final exercises however)  Parents  anywhere who want to see what type of course material is available by Distance Education in Saskatchewan, B.C. and the Yukon, can also order modules to examine without registering a child for the course. 
• Biology videos and cds, how to catch and raise your own planaria, and all sorts of information on marine and freshwater biology are available for viewing on the ebiomedia site from Vancouver Island.
• Portfolios as assessment tools are the focus of Dr. Bertie Kingore's work
• The National Curriculum site for the UK has good information posted for teachers and parents concerning adapting school programing for gifted learners (called able learners in the UK)
• Assessing highly gifted children.  The Davidson Institute asked a panel of professionals to discuss assessments of highly gifted children.  All parents considering assessments for their child should check out this article
• New links for information.  We have added a link to Rick West's page about bird spiders.  His passion for tarantulas which began at age 14, has evolved  to an international carreer saving and protecting the world's bird spider species.  With digital cameras becoming more common, we have also added two links under hobbies.  One for a great canadian info source and articles on digital cameras of all prices,  megapixel.net. magazine (en Français aussi), and a second to Pekka Saarinen's site in Finland with digital photos to inspire anyone (and lots of information on how the photos were made).

Fall 2001 

• The 8th ECHA (European Council for High Ability)  conference will be held in Rhodes Greece in October 2002  Proposals for submissions should be in by Feb 1st 
• input wanted for documentary!  We are a documentary film company in Toronto working on a one-hour documentary film for the Life Network about gifted children. 
• Lots of people are asking for information on tests, especially ones which are going to be used on their children.  Check the testing and assessment part of our website for information. We have just added a link to the searchable datatabase on educational assessment tests kept by the CEC at their ERIC site.
• If you are looking for information or have some to share, please  email us.  We are happy to add personal experiences, stories, suggestions to the database.  We really want information from areas of Canada where it is hardest to obtain services for gifted children.(and we are happy to post stories with names changed to preserve privacy.
• Send your ideas on measures to imporve access, choice, flexibility and quality in public education  in B.C. schools to the Select Standing Committee on Education   (or read what people are proposing this time for educational reform in B.C.)
• New conference and talks in B.C. Dr Kieran Egan Engaging the Imagination  Nov 10th in Vancouver. 
• The Northern Grid for Learning in the UK is producing online resources for special needs teachers, parents and students including gifted students
• Does your Gifted Association have a brochure?  Send us a pdf copy to post
• Great site for parents and educators. TeachThinking, based in the UK offers articles and discussions on methods of teaching. Check  out the articles on Vygotskii.
• Welcome to a new Canadian site Ontario Gifted is run by Ontario parents of Gifted Children
• If nothing seems to be right with this school year, check out Stephanie Tolan's advice to parents in her article You Can't Do it Wrong 
• The  Davidson Institute assessment page has great information on almost every test used to assess a gifted child
• Parents of highly gifted children can find a lot of good information at pgcybersource (pg stands for profoundly gifted)
• There are new Eric Digests out from the Council for Exceptional Children.  Check them out, especially one on Creative strategies for teaching Language Arts to Gifted Students (k-8) Eric Digest 612

• For those of us who need to examine alternatives check out the homeschool  and homeschool association sites under parent resources
• Alan Selby has moved his math site. check out some of his sample lessons and advice for math phobes and gifted students
• Renaissance II Liberal Education Society has an interesting school option Island Pacific Odyssey
• We are gathering information on your experiences to support your children regardless of where in Canada you live.  Email us if you have great suggestions, experiences, or can tell us of incidents of bullying or discrimination towards your child.  We want to add more voices to our sharing page.

Spring 2001

• Bright Math Summer Camp organized by long time gifted advocate Hélène Gregoire at the University of Ottawa (in conjunction with the Department of Math and Statistics)
• Choice School for Gifted learners a private day school in the Greater Vancouver area has information on their philosophy and programming
• South Island Distance Ed (SIDES) is one of the most progressive Ministry of Ed linked curriculums for B.C. and Saskatchewan.  With Distance Ed and Cyberschools so much in the press recently, check out what a cyberschool looks like
• Advanced Development, the Journal of Adult Giftedness presents a long awaited volume on spirituality.

Introduction
We assume you are located in Canada and are aware of the world-wide general sites which introduce basics of gifted information.  There is wonderful information out there but it can be frustrating to search for Canadian educational materials, standards and contacts.

These pages are designed to help Canadian gifted parents become aware of resources on the premise that it is easier to use Canadian sources and programs as models in other provinces than it is to use the American experience.  It is a sad state of Canadian education that programming for gifted children is so infrequent and so product oriented, despite much excellent Canadian research into the field. Fortunately Canada has a strong framework of grassroots parent based organizations.  Parents in Canada are often considered as partners and relationships are much less parochial than in other countries.  The Teaching section has links to provincial policies, and ideas from Canadian teachers  Search for specific information sites for your child in the kids resources section  or look for information of concern to parents

Please help us share experiences by spreading information about what has worked for your child or by asking us for information on particular needs your child has (compacted math program , clubs, summer camps etc.)