Experiences of gifted students towards philosophy for children activities applied in the resource room

The study was aimed to examine the opinions and experiences of gifted students about the philosophy for children activities carried out in the resource room. The research was conducted with the case study design, one of the qualitative research method designs. The participants of the study consisted of three gifted students at the 4th grade level, studying in a public primary school in Yenimahalle district of Ankara province. Philosophy for children activities were applied to the participants for a total of 16 lesson hours, for eight weeks. Research data were collected by observation, interview and document analysis techniques and data analyzed by content analysis technique. Research findings showed that gifted students found challenging to think and express their thoughts in philosophy for children activities. This study reveals that philosophy for children activities lead gifted students to express their thoughts, make changes in their thoughts, learn from different perspectives and high level thinking. In addition, it has been observed that when gifted students participate in resource room studies, they feel distress because of missing the lessons and activities they like in the general education class. In the research, it was also revealed that philosophy for children activities contributed to students' reading comprehension, mathematical problem-solving skills and increasing their vocabulary.