Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so ridiculous

100%. I agree it's not fair, I agree it's not the intent, I agree there are just as qualified of children who could have taken my DC's place, and I still played the game and would again. Being in AAP has a lot of benefits that make life at home soooo much better. (not having to supplement as much to keep child engaged, better teachers, less but not eliminated intrusive behaviors, more teacher attention to students on-grade, different peer group, etc...).

Agree on all points above. I agree it is very selfish, but it does make life easier at home, and that's the actual reason I wanted to get AAP for my kid.

Anonymous wrote:This is so ridiculous

100%. I agree it's not fair, I agree it's not the intent, I agree there are just as qualified of children who could have taken my DC's place, and I still played the game and would again. Being in AAP has a lot of benefits that make life at home soooo much better. (not having to supplement as much to keep child engaged, better teachers, less but not eliminated intrusive behaviors, more teacher attention to students on-grade, different peer group, etc...).

Anonymous wrote:This is so ridiculous

This is life. A friend once told me he went to a corporate leadership training, one of the task is to play a simulation game. After the game, instructor was reviewing the game play when one person said "these rules are ridiculous", without missing a beat the instructor said, "that is the point." He went on to say in corporate life, rules are stupid, but you have to learn it to play.

You don't have to play the AAP game, but don't complain the rules are ridiculous. Your kid will spend 20 years from K to college and grad school to prove they are smart in order to get a good job and provide for their family, they will have to play a lot of stupid games. Don't let your attitude infect them.

Anonymous wrote:This is why the program is far from a ‘gifted’ program of any kind. After hearing all this, it explains why the DCs in AAP are not impressive.

Did you expect a whopping 20% of the county to all manage to be impressive? But seriously - these are kids. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses and they are real humans under the age of 14.

This is why the program is far from a ‘gifted’ program of any kind. After hearing all this, it explains why the DCs in AAP are not impressive.

Anonymous wrote:This is so ridiculous

A PP here, and it is. But one valuable lesson to teach kids is that in life there are hoops, they are often ridiculous, but unless the hoops are immoral or illegal you should just jump through them with as little fuss as possible.

This is so ridiculous

1. Writing: google writing prompt for 2nd grader, once you found them, prioritize those requires your child to shift viewpoints, such as "what if" prompts. What if I grew wings, What if cat can talk etc.

Viewpoint shifting is very important.

Also had your child draw out what they wrote to show imagination beyond words.

2. Math: find world problem test not just math skill but problem solving skills. Logic puzzles like, there are four houses, pink is not the first, white is to the left of green ... etc.

You can find a bunch of these math puzzles if you look for math kangaroo sample questions.
Show his thinking and work, don't just provide an answer.

3. Get a 8x11 letter sized paper, put your writing prompt or math question up on top, and had your child write the rest. Keep doing it for 8-10 samples, grab the best ones.

The AART will have a slideshow with options. The options our AART showed (which I think were from the central office) included heiroglyphics a 3rd grader created, art with a detailed description of the symbolism by a 5th grader, and I forget what all else. Note on the art it wasn't the well-done drawing that the AAP office liked, but the fact that there were clear symbols. Symbolic thinking is one of their traits.

For my own 3 kids who all got in to AAP I did:

- A song with lyrics composed by my child for the Reflections Art Contest, along with the artist statement for the contest explaining how the song met the theme
- A short story written for Reflections by another child, again with write-up.
- A poem written for Reflections by the third child, again with write-up.
- A complex math problem from NRICH Math that requires more than just worksheet level thinking
- A math problem my child made up and "bored-solved" in class (I like that PP).
- Pictures of how one my kids would make up entire civilizations out of toys in our house with a description by my child of the structure of the civilization and what was going on in the pictures.
- Pictures of a math game a different kid made up with the rules of play as written by my child. This kid was/is board game obsessed.
- A dictionary for a language my kids made up, as written by the one who came up with most of it, with sample sentences in their language. No, they didn't make it up for the AAP application. Yes, they still use it.
(There's more than 6 here because for my oldest you could submit 4 samples)

Reflections is great because your child does a write-up for the contest explaining in 100 words how their art meets the theme, which is exactly the kind of thing the committee wants to see. We stuck to to the more "acadmic" parts of Reflections that involved writing, but I don't know that you have to.

Our AART told us repeatedly that the most important thing was to have your child write a brief explanation of the why and thinking behind the sample.

Something unique to your child. Not worksheets. Not samples developed at school (they should be collecting the good ones). We did a writing sample describing a game DC plays. We also did a more unique math sample DC did while bored-solved problem a dozen different ways... We did encourage DC to keep coming up with different ways, but did it on own. Some people reference books made, some representation of coding works, artwork (though not being of that mind, I don't see value there - but seems to work sometimes).

What kinds of things should be submitted for an AAP application as a work sample?