Lesson plans for gifted students differ from lesson plans for regular students, because you must take into account the different ways that gifted students learn. Gifted students are more than just smart kids. They are kids who thrive on independence and challenges. When you create a lesson plan for these students, it is important to include different learning styles.

Assess your students' learning styles. Knowing the ratio of tactile learners, visual learners and audio learners helps you create useful lesson plans.

Write up a lesson plan that includes direct instruction. This helps gifted auditory learners and works well for a topic that doesn't have a lot of hands-on activities available. This type of lesson plan works well for teaching a new math concept, such as long division or algebra.

Prepare a lesson that lets the kids lead the lesson, also known as an inquiry-based lesson. Gifted students love getting their questions answered, and many times they ask questions so advanced you have to look up the answer. Science is a great subject for writing inquiry based lesson plans, and you can include a hands-on science experiment for tactile learners.

Make use of the students in your class by creating a lesson plan that groups students in cooperative groups. You can separate the groups by ability, keeping particular types of learners together. You can also mix up the groups so that all learning styles are represented. Gifted students feed off each others' intellect, so literary co-ops make a great lesson plan.