If you have a gifted or 2e child that maybe you’re homeschooling or you’re considering homeschooling, you may already know about my guest for this episode, Colleen Kessler. Colleen is a mom, teacher, author, speaker and founder of the website Raising Lifelong Learners. She taught elementary gifted kids for more than a decade, and has homeschooled her own gifted children. Colleen has written a number of books for homeschooling families, and hosts the Raising Lifelong Learners Podcast. She also has some virtual courses for parents, including a new one that she’ll tell us a bit about called A Crash Course for Homeschooling That Kid.
In our conversation, Colleen shares with us why she decided to homeschool her children, what it looks like in the day-to-day, common challenges parents face when homeschooling gifted and/or 2e children and how to handle them, best practices for getting started, and much more.
About Colleen: Colleen Kessler is an explorer, tinkerer, educator, writer, creator, and a passionate advocate for the needs of gifted and twice-exceptional children.She has a B.S. in elementary education, a M.Ed. in gifted studies, and is the founder of the popular podcast and blog Raising Lifelong Learners as well as Raising Poppies, a community of support for parents of gifted children. The author of more than a dozen books for teachers, parents, and kids, Colleen left teaching after more than a decade to write and speak about parenting, education, giftedness, and hands-on, self-directed learning and play. Homeschooling is an adventure she hadn’t planned on, but she has embraced the opportunity to learn alongside her kids every day, and is inspiring other moms and dads to do the same. Her recent book titles include Hands-On Ecology (Prufrock Press) and 100 Backyard Activities That are the Dirtiest, Coolest, Creepy-Crawliest Ever! (Page Street Press/Macmillan).
THINGS YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Why homeschooling can work so well for gifted and 2e children
- Strategies for managing multiple siblings working at different levels on different things
- How and why to “de-school” after pulling a child out of a traditional school environment
- Where to start / how to begin
- What it means to be profoundly gifted
- What asynchronous development can look like in in gifted children
- The most common challenges homeschooling parents of gifted kids face and what to do about them
- Colleen’s best practices for homeschooling gifted and 2e children
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Raising Lifelong Learners (Colleen’s website)
- A Crash Course for Homeschooling That Kid (use code “TILT” for 20% off)
- Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students: Helping Kids Cope with Explosive Feelings by Christine Fonseca
- Royal Firework Press (resource for curriculum ideas)
- Living with Intensity: Understanding the Intensity, Excitability, and the Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults by Susan Daniels
- Off the Charts: Asynchrony and the Gifted Child by Stephanie Tolan
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