Creation Stations Empower Gifted Students to Think Outside the Box
Finding a Little Extra in the Ordinary
Labels can be really nasty! Ugly, fat, dumb, weak, slow: these are the types of negative labels students can spend a lifetime trying to overcome. But what about the positive labels like gifted, talented, smart, or funny? Those can have negative side effects as well. The “Creation Stations: Engaging the Primary G/T Learner” course will teach you strategies to help your gifted students begin to transcend both good and bad labels through newly taught creative thinking skills.
Literature based tools stimulate higher level thinking skills
“Literature engages young minds, and provides tangible examples of types of thinking and types of ideas students need to work through.” That is the basis of the Creative Stations concept developed by Nancy Bryant and Ashley Murphy. These educators developed Creation Stations to specifically engage gifted students in outside the box thinking.
Ordinary things can be unique in their own special way
A spoon is just ordinary, right? It can’t do anything exciting like a knife and it’s not exotic like chopsticks. Using the book “Spoon” (Rosenthal and Magoon, 2009), Bryant and Murphy stimulate a student’s creative thinking skills by encouraging them to come up with extraordinary uses for ordinary things. “We can use a spoon as a wind chime, or as a drum stick, or hang it on my nose, or do magic tricks,” exclaim the students as creativity lights up their eyes.
Just like the spoon, students discover they’re so much more than any label they’ve been given.
Concepts are reinforced with creative activity
After engaging a child’s mind with a new concept, Bryan and Murphy teach you how to reinforce the concept with creative activities. After reading “Spoon”, students are asked to find a unique use for an ordinary object. One student fashioned a type of grabber out of wire hangers to help him get things off shelves. That’s pretty innovative for a kindergartner; that is thinking outside the box!
Other concepts explored through literature in this course
• Individually & acceptance – “Unlovable” (Yaccarino, 2004)
• Problem solving & cooperation – “I Lost My Bear” (Feiffer, 2000)
• Visual-spatial thinking & creativity – “Perfect Square” (Hall, 2011)
• Divergent thinking & imagination – “Emma Kate” (Polacco, 2008)
• Self-actualization & problem solving – “Curious George” (H.A. Ray)
• Creativity – “The Day the Crayons Quit” (Daywalt, 2013)
These and other books covered in this training will fortify out-of-the-box thinking. Each is paired with activities and ideas that will drive concepts home for students.
How to get this course
In this course, you will hear from two dynamic teachers who are in the field every day p¬utting these principles into practice. Their excitement and enthusiasm for the Creative Station concept is both inspiring and contagious.
Click here to order, or call (915) 532-9965.
About the Trainers
Ashleigh Murphey earned a Bachelors of Science in Education specializing in English as a Second Language and Gifted & Talented education from Baylor University. She then completed a Masters of Education specializing in Gifted & Talented education. Murphey has taught internationally in Australia and Vietnam. She’s been a G/T teacher in Katy ISD for five years.
Nancy Bryant is a graduate of the University of Houston and has been teaching in gifted education for 18 years. Her experience includes AP/GT English for 11th and 12th grades, 9th grade Pre-AP/GT English, and Challenge (Gifted Pull-Out program) for grades K-5. Bryant currently holds teaching certifications in English/Language Arts, Elementary EC-4, and the TEA Gifted and Talented endorsement.
