As the weather warms up, things open up, and summer vacation quickly approaches, I thought I would check in with a teacher to find out her summer tips for parents of 2E children. These recommendations are designed to help make returning to school in the fall smoother, make good use of your children鈥檚 time, and relax and enjoy your child.

1. Maintain the same routines and structures around their day as they would during the school year. Wake up, go to bed, and eat meals at regular times that are the same or close to what they do during the school year.
2. Just because school is out doesn鈥檛 mean learning has to stop. Check-in with your local library and join their summer reading program. 优蜜视频鈥檚 Academy is still taking applications for summer 2022! Join us online or in-person with advanced enrichment classes. 优蜜视频 Academy 鈥� Summer 2022
3. Schedule time for outdoor activities, as well as regular, structured indoor and outdoor time.
4. Volunteer! Many organizations are looking for student volunteers. Check-in with your local nonprofits to see how you and your child can get involved. 优蜜视频 is always looking for parent volunteers. If interested, click here.
5. Have fun 鈥� play, visit family and friends, and allow for downtime.

Have tips of your own that work? We would love to hear from you! Share your recommendations in the comments.

Have a fantastic summer!

1. Write a poem or story about science.

Get writing! Tell a story about your favorite scientist as dramatically as you can, write poetry about a cool science fact, or describe a feat of engineering using your most vivid vocabulary.

2. Teach your family about something you love.

The best way to learn something deeply is to teach it. Turn your family members into your students and tell them all about something you鈥檝e learned recently whether it鈥檚 how to build the best paper airplane or how a chemical reaction works.

3. Create nature art.

Make a leaf rubbing, stick sculpture, or tower of balanced pebbles to integrate both sides of your brain.

4. Invent something to solve a problem.

What鈥檚 something you wish were easier? Design something to meet a need, starting with a blueprint and working toward a prototype.

5. Test your brain with riddles.

Find challenging riddles on or elsewhere, then attempt to solve them with your family.

6. Head to the library.

Ask a librarian to help you find books about STEAM at your reading level. Reading is a wonderful way to find a new interest!

7. Ask questions.

STEAM is all about asking creative questions and trying to find answers. Observe the world around you and keep a list of questions you come up with throughout the day: How do stoplights work? Why do some trees lose their leaves and not others? Then work with an adult to find the answers.

8. Build something using recycled materials.

Gather items you normally would have thrown away 鈥� packaging, receipts, dried-out pen, etc. 鈥� and see what you can build out of the items!

9. Interview a scientist.

If you were a scientist, what kind of scientist would you be? Research to find someone who has your dream job, then write them a letter or email asking them about their work and how they got to be where they are.

10. See what 优蜜视频 offerings are coming up!

If you鈥檙e local to the Pasadena area, check out our upcoming workshops (7^th-10^th grade), check back for the Spring schedule of classes (K-8^th grade) in a couple of weeks or mark your calendars for when the (10^th-12^th grade) externship program application goes live!

Celebrating a different way? Comment below!

I started my volunteer work as a teenager, when my local group needed participants to join their choir to perform at nursing facilities.聽 In addition, our high school highly encouraged students to volunteer their time, either at school or within the community, way before schools required students do a minimum of volunteer time during the school year.

Subsequently, my first important job was as an assistant at a Head Start program in the San Fernando Valley.聽 Project Head Start was a great proponent of parents volunteering and becoming engaged within the educational and neighborhood community, whether the volunteer work took place in one鈥檚 home cutting crafting paper; or being a part of a committee that made important decisions for the program or the community.

Ever since, I have been a volunteer at my children鈥檚 schools and my community for several years, whether it was getting our neighbors together to start a Neighborhood Watch, or organizing and running the school Book Fair.聽 I wanted to instill on my children that part of being a productive community member is giving your time, and sharing your knowledge, expertise or special skill; that volunteering is one way of giving back to the community, whether it鈥檚 the school community, your neighborhood community, a community struck by disaster or a community that may be distressed or hurting.

It is not surprising that the findings on research about volunteering result in a .

Social Impact:聽 Volunteering encourages you to make friends and connect with others.聽 It can help increase your social network and strengthen your ties within your community. You may meet others that share the same interests, hobbies and have the same neighborhood resources.

Physical and Mental Health:聽 Volunteering has many physical and mental health benefits, including becoming more physically active, feeling less isolated and raising your self-confidence and self-reliance.聽 It helps counteract the effects of stress, anger and anxiety. This is especially true for volunteers that work with animals.

Job Skills:聽 You can increase your job skills or advance your career by volunteering at places that will help you acquire those skills or enhance skills you already have. For example, volunteering your time to help fundraise may help improve your skills in communication, marketing and outreach. In addition, some organizations provide workshops or pay for their volunteers to attend seminars or workshops to help improve their knowledge base or particular skills.

There are so many ways to volunteer, some more time-consuming than others, but no matter how much time you volunteer, the benefits are valuable, both to you and the organization. Here are some suggested places that need volunteers:聽 your local community organization such as your neighborhood council or community art center, hospitals, non-profit organizations, libraries, parent/teacher organizations, schools, churches, animal shelters, crisis centers, to name a few. in various roles, from office help to attending outreach events.

Also, there are organizations that specifically focus on matching volunteers with organizations.聽 Two of them are Giving Tuesday and Big Sunday:

(today!) is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social collaboration. Giving Tuesday has to help you find organizations, charities, events and more in your own community.

is an organization that connects people through helping by offering 2,000 ways for people to help out every year.

For more information on how you can help change the life of a gifted child through the gift of volunteer time or a financial contribution, visit our and pages.

鈥淏yrdseed is all about better understanding our gifted learners. Stick around and you鈥檒l learn how to differentiate lessons, teach across the content areas, and appreciate gifted kids鈥� unique social and emotional needs.鈥�

鈥淚 am Vi Hart! I am a real person, and I make videos and virtual reality and other things. Sorry about the bright yellow. It amuses me. This is my personal website, not some 鈥榁i Hart brand Websperience鈥� created for your enjoyment or education or whatever.鈥�

鈥淏ASIC-256 is an easy to use version of BASIC designed to teach anybody (especially middle and high-school students) the basics of computer programming. It uses traditional control structures like gosub, for/next, and goto, which helps kids easily see how program flow-control works. It has a built-in graphics mode which lets them draw pictures on screen in minutes, and a set of detailed, easy-to-follow tutorials that introduce programming concepts through fun exercises.鈥�

鈥淭he Kid Should See This is a growing library of smart & super-cool, 鈥榥ot-made-for-kids, but perfect for them鈥� videos that can be watched in the classroom or together at home. Enjoy 8-12 new vids each week, and search 3,000+ videos in the archives, curated by me, Rion Nakaya, with help from my 6 & 9 year olds.鈥�

鈥淭ED-Ed is TED鈥檚 youth and education initiative. TED-Ed鈥檚 mission is to spark and celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world.鈥�

The series was specifically recommended.

鈥淚n an age where everything seems to have been explored and there is nothing new to be found, we celebrate a different way of looking at the world. If you’re searching for miniature cities, glass flowers, books bound in human skin, gigantic flaming holes in the ground, bone churches, balancing pagodas, or homes built entirely out of paper, the Atlas Obscura is where you’ll find them.鈥�

鈥淐overing the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies, Science Friday is the source for entertaining and educational stories about science, technology, and other cool stuff.鈥�

鈥淭he School of Life is a place that tries to answer the great questions of life. We believe in developing emotional intelligence. We are based online and in 12 physical hubs around the world, including London, Melbourne, Istanbul and Seoul.鈥�

鈥淢ensa for Kids offers a variety of online resources for exceptionally bright youth.鈥�

鈥淕iftedness: Everything parents, educators, administrators, counselors, psychologists, and gifted children & teens need to know, including articles and research.鈥�

What would you add to the list?

Like this post?聽聽to receive more stories, information, and resources about gifted youth straight to your inbox.

鈥淥utside of a dog, a book is man鈥檚 best friend. Inside a dog, it鈥檚 too dark to read.鈥� 鈥� Groucho Marx

Summer, Tuesday afternoon, 3pm. You find me sitting at a beautiful wooden table with the sunlight streaming in through the window panes, perfectly spotlighting my notebook and pen. I write until the sun climbs off the table and only fluorescent light illuminates my writing.

I am at the library, and I am happy. Comfortable, calm, at peace. I feel powerful: full of potential and opportunity.

When I was little, my mother would take me to the library each week to get my fill of reading materials. The children鈥檚 section was to the left of the entrance and the grown-up section was to the right. My mom allowed me to go off to the kids鈥� books on my own 鈥� giving me autonomy in a safe space. I remember reading Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Clock to my mom at bedtime, a chapter a night.

Sometimes the library would hold movie screenings in the auditorium. We would wait until the doors opened and then the kids would be allowed to sit in the front without their parents 鈥� such freedom! They showed Bambi 鈥� I didn鈥檛 like that because it was scary. They showed the Fox and the Hound and Pinocchio; I liked Jiminy Cricket and Gepetto.

I loved books by authors like Jack Prelutsky, Richard Scary, Madeline L. Engle鈥hose early reads shaped my future interest in poetry, in fantasy, and in adventure.

As a teenager, one of my favorite places was the periodicals section. Wandering through the stacks amid the smell of pulp and newsprint, I would pull a random magazine off the shelf 鈥� usually Scientific American or Popular Mechanics, sometimes the Los Angeles Yellow Pages (we didn鈥檛 live in California). I would flip to an article and learn something (anything!) new. Sometimes, I would load microfiche or microfilm just to hear the machine 鈥渨hirr鈥� or marvel at the way a tiny image in a cell can be magnified to readable print.

Now that I鈥檓 older, I still frequent my local library. I鈥檓 spoiled now; I live in a metropolitan area where I can find a library 5 miles in any direction. I still marvel at the availability of free literature, non-fiction, audiobooks, CDs, and movies. Recently, 3M and Overdrive have made audio books and Kindle editions available remotely.

I appreciate the reading rooms, the law libraries, the Friends of the Bookstore sales where books are 50 cents. Even now, years later, I return to the children鈥檚 section occasionally to borrow a new YA or JUV book by authors such as Paladini, Stroud, Riordan, Colfer, Sage and old favorites like Keene and Dicamillo.

The library is a gift to an inquisitive mind, and I am grateful that in today鈥檚 world of electronic and digital media our libraries are still places where we can feel at home, pass the time, and learn something new.

Do you and your kids enjoy the library? Please share in the comment section below.

Like this post? Please share!

Photo credit: via