STEM for little and big kids at GSU Saturday School 2013
Georgia State has opened registration for its Saturday School summer camp, to be held on the GSU campus from May 28 to June 1, 2013.
This day camp is one of the few academic camps that accepts very young children, as young as rising kindergarteners.
Rising K-1 students will learn about jobs that incorporate STEM. Rising second and third graders will become junior detectives, using STEM to solve mysteries. And the older kids, rising fourth through eighth graders, will use STEM concepts to explore the Chattahoochee River and its watershed.
Saturday School day camp and classes are open to students who have been gifted identified by their school, or who have qualifying scores on standardized tests such as the CogAT, ITBS, CRCT, etc. Students who don’t have the supporting documentation can enroll in Saturday school on a provisional basis for one year.
How will Georgia’s new teacher evaluations affect your gifted child?
The state is changing the way it evaluates teachers’ effectiveness, and the changes hold promise for gifted and high-achieving students.
The Teacher Keys Effectiveness System (TKES) is currently in pilot studies and is expected to be rolled out statewide for the 2014-15 school year. The system places new emphasis on academic growth for all children, and utilizes tools that can help you advocate for your child.
I’ve been researching TKES since fall, and I will present what I’ve learned in three upcoming lectures:
- Tuesday, March 19 at 6 p.m. at Westlake High School in southwest Atlanta
- Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m. at Independence High School in Alpharetta
- Saturday, March 30 at 9:15 a.m. at Saturday School at Georgia State University
The March 19 and March 21 lectures will be hosted by Fulton County Supporters of the Gifted. These sessions are free and open to the public. FCSG requests that if you plan to attend, you register at their web site.
The March 30 session is open only to parents with students enrolled in the GSU Saturday School program.
Bio@Tech: Life sciences camp at Georgia Tech
Registration is now open for the 2013 sessions of Bio@Tech, a three-week camp at Georgia Tech. The camp gives high-school students an intensive experience in biology topics. The 2013 sessions will cover ecology, genetics and microbes.
Bio@Tech is taught by Georgia Tech faculty and instructors, with help from an award-winning local high-school teacher. This non-residential camp is open to rising 11th and 12th graders, although highly exceptional rising 10th graders will be considered. The application process is competitive, and requires a portfolio including teacher recommendations. The deadline to apply is April 19, 2013.
Atlanta History Center summer camps for preschool and up
The Atlanta History Center offers kids ages 6 to 11 a trip back in time with its 2013 summer camps.
This year, the day camp themes are:
- Gardening
- Survival skills used by Americans in the pre-Civil War era (weaving cloth, distilling water, identifying poisonous plants)
- The history of Atlanta
- U.S. presidents
- The Civil War
- “Weird History”
- The Cold War
- Animal Husbandry
The History Center also offers a single week of camp for children who are 4 or 5 years old.
Big kids who love history but are too old for these camps can apply for the junior counselor program.
Registration open now for GSU Saturday School
You have one week left to register for this school year’s final session of Saturday School at Georgia State University.
The 2013 Spring B session begins March 30. Classes are held on Saturdays in the mornings and afternoons on the GSU campus. Classes will be offered in a variety of topics, including claymation, bridge building, minerals, sharks and business.
Saturday School is open to children in kindergarten through 8th grade. The program is geared toward students who have been identified as gifted by their school, but kids who haven’t been formally identified can be granted provisional enrollment for one year.
The registration deadline is March 13.
Ben Carson Academy summer program at Morehouse School of Medicine
The summer program at Ben Carson Academy is accepting applications through March 15.
Held at Morehouse School of Medicine, the academy exposes kids to science and math, and careers in healthcare. The Academy also has a socio-cultural aspect that’s designed to engage the Black student and encourage their pursuit of careers in which minorities are typically under-represented. However, the program is not limited to minority students.
One advantage of enrolling your child at Ben Carson Academy is that it may put them on a path to someday be selected for the Vivien Thomas Summer Program, in which high-school students can work as apprentices in biomedical research labs at Morehouse.
Register online. Spaces are filled on a first come, first served basis.
QuestBridge scholarship helps low-income students prepare for top tier colleges
Of all the scholarships out there, the QuestBridge College Prep Scholarship is one of my favorites.
QuestBridge recognizes that giftedness knows no racial, ethnic or socio-economic barriers. Its College Prep Scholarship program reaches out to high-school juniors who have amazing academic potential, but whose gifts are at risk of being squandered because their families cannot afford to send them to a top-tier college.
The College Prep Scholarship provides full scholarships to summer programs on elite college campuses, helps students navigate the admissions and financial aid application processes required by the best schools, and even provides all-expenses-paid visits to QuestBridge partner schools — colleges including Brown, Columbia, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and their peers.
Finally, the College Prep Scholarship prepares students to apply during their senior year for the QuestBridge National College Match program, which pairs exceptional high-school seniors with prestigious colleges that will provide them full scholarships.
Current juniors can fill out the free application now through March 27, 2013. The application is long and involved, so leave time to gather the requested information and documentation.
Teachers, if you know a student who deserves to be considered for this scholarship, won’t you encourage them to apply?
Summer writing camp at Margaret Mitchell House
The Margaret Mitchell House has opened registration for its 2013 summer writing camp.
These week-long day camps are for kids ages 10-14. The campers work in small groups to ensure they get individual attention.
This year’s camp themes include mystery, journalism, writing essentials (e.g., grammar, style, mechanics), science fiction, and persuasive writing.
If you have a teen who’s too old to attend the camp but who loves to be immersed in writing, they may apply to the junior counselor program.
Residential science and technology camp at Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech will host a two-week, residential camp for middle-school students this summer, where kids will learn about aerospace engineering, robotics, bioscience and computing.
The WizKidz camp includes field trips to the Georgia Aquarium, Fernbank Museum, the Coca-Cola Space and Science Center in Columbus, and Tuskegee University.
Scholarships may be available.
Please note that while this camp is housed at the Georgia Tech campus, it is not operated by the university, but by an outside group.
Summer camp for young musicians
So many gifted programs are geared towards science and technology, it’s always nice to find something in the performing arts realm for kids whose talents lie in that direction.
School of Rock is a day camp in Buckhead for kids ages 7 to 18 who sing or play guitar, bass, drums or keyboards. Students work in small groups through the week, leading up to a live performance with their ad hoc rock bands at a local venue.
Gifted Atlanta 