Lessons from Homeschooling to Support Gifted Students

I’m presenting next week at the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted (WATG) Conference, and I’m excited to share my session: Take a Chance on Flexibility: Lessons from Homeschooling to Support Gifted Students.

In this presentation, I’ll share what I’ve learned from my years as a classroom teacher, virtual school educator, homeschool parent, and educational consultant. Most importantly, I’ll share insights from homeschooling my three gifted daughters for eight years, practical lessons about flexibility that came from experience, not theory.

I’ll be walking through ten key lessons from homeschooling that can be applied in both classrooms and homeschools, with practical strategies to support gifted learners. We’ll also try out interactive reflection and action planning activities that you can take back and use with your own students, colleagues, or parent communities.

I’m looking forward to connecting with educators and families, and I’ll also be sharing free resources from my session, including the ten lessons and the reflection activities, so you can explore them on your own.

Ten Lessons from Homeschooling

In my session, I’ll be walking through ten lessons I’ve learned from homeschooling that apply directly to classroom teachers and homeschool parents. Each one is practical, rooted in lived experience, and supported by research.

Here’s a preview of the ten lessons I’ll be sharing:

• Questions Are the Curriculum

  • Clarifying questions check understanding.

  • Probing questions deepen thinking.

  • The best teaching often begins with curiosity.

• Pacing Is Personal

  • Gifted kids develop asynchronously; acceleration in strengths and patience in struggles are both necessary.

  • Mastery matters more than milestones.

• Everything Is Connected

  • Learning becomes meaningful when subjects overlap.

  • Real-world projects naturally blend disciplines.

• Choice, Challenge, and Failure

  • Choice builds ownership.

  • Challenge fuels motivation.

  • Failure is feedback — essential for resilience.

• Relationships First

  • Connection fuels learning.

  • Gifted kids need to feel understood, not just evaluated.

• The Journey Matters More Than the Product

  • The “messy middle” of drafts, revisions, and mistakes is where the real growth happens.

• Busywork ≠ Learning

  • Worksheets fill time; purposeful work fills minds.

  • Gifted learners crave meaning and authenticity.

• Audience Matters

  • Motivation skyrockets when students know their work will be shared with a real audience.

• Routines Anchor Learning

  • Predictable structure creates safety, lowers anxiety, and allows risk-taking.

• The Environment Is a Silent Teacher

  • Lighting, music, seating, and space shape how students feel and how they learn.

If you’d like the practical strategies that go along with each lesson (for both teachers and homeschoolers), I’ll also be sharing a downloadable handout at the end of the session and at the bottom of this post.

Reflection and Action Planning Activities

One of my goals is to make sure this session isn’t just about listening but instead about trying out flexible practices in real time. To model this, each group will work through one of five interactive activities. Each activity will include individual reflection, small group collaboration, and whole group sharing. These aren’t just workshop exercises; these are intentional reflection and summarizing activities you can take back and use with your own students, colleagues, or parent communities.

• The Ripple Effect – Map out how one flexible action can ripple out to impact students, families, or colleagues.

• Peer Coaching Pairs – Share flexibility challenges and coach each other toward solutions.

• Flexibility Recipe – Combine strategies and routines into a “recipe” for flexible learning.

• Role Reversal Reflection – Write from the voice of a student: “I feel flexible learning when…”

• Flexibility Blueprint – Redesign a rigid practice into a flexible one.

Why Flexibility Matters

The message I hope participants leave with is simple: flexibility takes courage. It means letting go of rigid structures and leaning into relationships, curiosity, personalization, and authentic learning. But when we take that chance, our students gain the chance to soar.

Flexibility doesn’t require a complete overhaul. It begins with small shifts such as a better question, a flexible routine, a real-world project, or a classroom environment that invites creativity. Those small choices ripple out into big changes in how gifted students learn, grow, and thrive.

Final Thoughts

As both an educator and a parent, I’ve seen firsthand that when we let go of rigid expectations and lean into flexibility, gifted learners don’t just succeed — they flourish.

I hope these lessons and strategies spark ideas for your own teaching or homeschooling journey. And if you’re curious to learn more, please connect with me! This is my passion, and I’m so happy to share it with you.

Free Resources

If you’d like to explore further, I’ll be sharing the following at my session:

• Ten Lessons from Homeschooling to Support Gifted Students (with practical strategies for teachers and homeschool parents)

• Reflection & Action Plan Activities (group activities you can adapt for classrooms, professional learning, or homeschool settings)

  👉 Download the handouts here, or you can view the pages below