gifted strategies – #smithingifted

Every Drop Counts: Exploring New Mexico’s Water Resources in the Global Innovation Lab 💧🌵

This blog post explores New Mexico’s water resources through The Global Innovation Lab’s Every Drop Counts challenge, helping students connect science, geography, agriculture, technology, law, and systems thinking. It also explains how the Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado Rio Grande case and the 2026 Supreme Court settlement affect groundwater use, farming, communities, industry, and…

August 23, 2026

🕵️ Pattern Detectives: Building the Thinking Skills Gifted Learners Need

🕵️ Pattern Detectives transforms gifted readiness into an exciting mystery-solving adventure! Designed for K–2 students, this engaging #smithingifted Thinking Lab helps children develop pattern recognition, logical reasoning, and critical thinking through hands-on challenges instead of traditional test prep. Students become detectives as they uncover hidden rules, predict what comes next, create their own patterns, and…

July 15, 2026

Designing for Depth: Using Big Ideas to Build Complex, Challenging Curriculum

Gifted students do not need more busy work — they need deeper, more meaningful learning. In this post, we explore how using Big Ideas helps teachers design complex, challenging curriculum that pushes students to analyze, question, connect, create, and think beyond the surface.

July 4, 2026