Gifted Atlanta

Georgia State University’s Saturday School for Scholars and Leaders has released its class list for the first spring session of 2012. Classes are offered to students in kindergarten through 8th grade. Choices include a variety of topics in math, science, writing and more.

Classes will meet on five consecutive Saturdays, beginning January 21. Sessions are held in the mornings and afternoons, although the morning has two advantages: 1) more choices of classes; and 2) free parent seminars, which are held while the children are in class.

To qualify for admission to Saturday School, a student must meet scoring requirements on an achievement test or IQ test and have a recommendation from the testing psychologist or the school the student attends. New students can be granted provisional admission for one year without submitting the required documentation.

Registration is open now through Jan. 10.

Today is the final day of early bird registration for the UGA-Duke TIP Scholar Weekend to be held Feb. 11-12, 2012. (Sorry I am so late letting you know.) Regular registration will remain open until Jan. 27, 2012. Courses to be offered in February include graphic novels as literature, the physics of automobiles and the Rube Goldberg challenge.

Early registration is open through March 9 for another Scholar Weekend to be held April 21-22, 2012. Courses to be offered that weekend include robotics, microbes, forensic anthropology, screenwriting, and arguing before the Supreme Court.

Scholar weekends are open to students in grades 8-11 who have taken part in a talent search conducted by Duke TIP or who have been identified as gifted by their school. This includes students taking accelerated, honors, Advanced Placement or IB classes. Students stay on campus in the Georgia Center for Continuing Education during the weekend.

Here’s another chance to expose your children to classical music while inspiring them with the abilities of their peers:

The Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony
Monday, Dec. 12 at 8 p.m.
Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts at Emory University

The Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony is the honor wind ensemble for high-school students from metro Atlanta. The musicians play college- and professional-level compositions.

For tickets, call (404) 727-5050 or send an e-mail to the box office.

My son and I spent yesterday morning at the CEISMC K.I.D.S. Club at Georgia Tech. It was a worthwhile program, with age appropriate, hands-on science activities that most of the kids seemed to really get into.

I heard the director of the program say there are still spaces open for the spring sessions, which will be held March 10 and March 24, 2012. (It’s the same content both days, so pick one or the other.)

The program is open to students in grades 2-8. All classes are held on the Georgia Tech campus and are led by university faculty, Tech students, or math and science teachers from local schools.

K.I.D.S. Club at Georgia Tech has opened registration for its LEGO Mindstorms spring classes for middle-school students.

In the sessions, students will navigate a LEGO Mindstorms NXT robot through an obstacle course, using sensors and a manipulator motor to complete a maze and other challenges.

Sessions are open to students in 6th – 8th grades, and will be held on March 10 and March 24. Both dates offer the same exact class, so sign your child up only for one or the other.

There are only 12 spaces available for each date, so jump on this quickly if you’re interested.

If you have a 5th or 6th grade student who is registered with the Duke Talent Identification Program (TIP), you can sign up now for spring semester programs at the University of Georgia.

UGA-Duke TIP Academic Adventures will be held on Jan. 21, 2012, and March 3, 2012. These one-day programs held on the UGA campus give talented kids a chance to learn topics outside the average curriculum with other talented peers.

Classes to be offered in January and March run the gamut from aircraft design and computer animation to poetry and graphic design.

Deadline to register for the January session is Jan. 6; deadline for the March session is Feb. 17. But as always, the official deadlines don’t matter if the class your kid wants to take is full.

Not registered with TIP? Learn more about how to get started so you can take advantage of opportunities like this.

There’s more to minerals than meets the (naked) eye. This weekend, you can get a glimpse of what some of the world’s smallest gems look like under a microscope.

The Tellus Museum will hold its first Micromount Gathering, a get-together for scientists and mineral enthusiasts, this Saturday from 1-5 p.m.

The event begins with a lecture by museum curator Julian Gray, who will talk about the hobby of collecting and studying these microscopic minerals. Then, from 2-5 p.m., visitors can see tiny minerals for themselves.

The event is included in the regular price of admission to the museum.

If you’re already a micromount hobbyist, contact the museum to see if you can display your collection.

As I posted last week, youth orchestra concerts are a great opportunity to expose kids to classical music and to inspire them by letting them see what young people can do. So  here’s another free concert that will be held this week:

The DeKalb Youth Symphony is the honor orchestra for students in DeKalb’s public schools.

My sincere thanks to GiftedAtlanta.com reader Laura, who alerted me to this event!

Here’s a chance to expose your child to classical music and — even better — offer them the inspiration that comes from seeing their peers performing it.

The Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra will perform at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 16, at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts on the Emory campus. The show is free and open to the public.

The orchestra is comprised of 9th-12th graders of exceptional ability in strings, wind instruments or percussion.

Space travel enthusiasts, take note: This Friday night, you can hear an astronaut, see a moon rock, and gaze at the stars at Tellus Museum in Cartersville.

The highlight of the evening will be remarks by Al Worden, pilot of the command module of Apollo 15, the first mission to put a rover on the moon. Visitors to the museum can also see a moon rock brought back from that mission and engage in hands-on activities related to space.

The observatory will be open for solar viewing until sundown, and then after dark, the telescope will be pointed either at the moon or Jupiter.

The special event is free for Tellus members and is included with regular admission for non-members. Another perk for members: They can attend a members-only reception with Worden from 5-6:30 p.m. for an additional $15 per person.

For more information, call (770) 606-5700.