In early November 2013, the authors started talking about visiting the Hurley School, a dual-language school in Boston, Massachusetts. The Hurley School had spent considerable time transitioning to the Common Core State Standards on literacy, but little time addressing the shifts in math. They worried that math classes were no longer rigorous…

This book helps general and special education teachers empower students in grades K-4 to independently solve problems by teaching them how characters in children's literature books solved similar problems. Students are also taught a problem solving strategy that they can apply to solve problems in any situation. The book contains ready-to-use…

Presents a six-step problem-solving process which the author has used to present creative science investigations to fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. (Author/SJL)

This booklet contains mathematics unit plans for Algebra 1, Geometry, Math for Technology, Mathematical Problem Solving, and Pre-Algebra developed by PACE (Promoting Academic Excellence In Mathematics, Science & Technology for Workers of the 21st Century). Each unit plan contains suggested timing, objectives, skills to be acquired, workplace…

Contains five lesson plans designed to help students understand the causes of violent behavior and vandalism and to give them experience in solving problems of real-life situations. Students examine the causes and implications of violence in schools and among adolescents and effect of mass media on violent behavior. (AM)

This companion book to Beyond the Bean Seed: Gardening Activities for Grades K-6 uses children's literature related to gardening, gardeners, designing gardens, multicultural literature, ecology, the environment, and the impact of plants on world economies and politics, to connect gardening in all its aspects to creativity, problem solving,…

This article details an approach to teaching one step in a mathematics word-problem-solving strategy, that of organizing the facts. A lesson plan is offered which involves directed instruction and supervised practice in five strategies for organizing facts. (DB)

This document is a collection of activity-based mathematics lessons for grades K-4 from the "Ideas" department in "Arithmetic Teacher: Mathematics Education through the Middle Grades." Each lesson includes background information, objectives, directions, extensions, and student worksheets. A matrix is included which correlates…

This guidebook contains materials from "NOTES Plus," the National Council of Teachers of English's (NCTE's) journal for the exchange of ideas by teachers and other English professionals. The suggestions presented here are meant for use by substitute teachers. The activities are divided into five categories: "Thinking and Writing with…

Maintains that good thinking skills do not just happen; but rather they must be taught and practiced. Provides a lesson on creative problem solving in which students identify a problem, find facts, develop ideas, and create solutions. Discusses the application of the lesson to other areas of the social studies curriculum. (RW)

Educators need to develop teaching strategies that allow children to explore creative musical processes that will nurture musical skills, self-awareness, and imagination. A sequence of five lessons encompassing language arts and music demonstrates how students can develop creativity by writing haiku and then composing music to accompany the poems.…

Teaching ideas related to the instruction of decimal division as the opposite of multiplication, an approach to approximating logarithms that help reveal their properties, and the simple creation of algebraic equations with radical expressions for use as exercises and test questions are presented. (MP)

Describes data analysis activities for grades three through six using unshelled peanuts. Includes two reproducible student worksheets. (MKR)

This excerpt from "A New View: Economics and the Zoo," by Diane J. Coleman and Joyce R. Monger, gives teaching suggestions for teaching economic concepts using the zoo as a case study. It gives texts of three readings for students on the purposes of zoos, evaluating a zoo's accomplishments, and economic decision making through analysis of typical…

This document describes a teacher-developed, elementary school level program that teaches conflict resolution through children's literature. This is a whole language/peace education program in which children learn creative ways to solve conflicts by reading and writing stories about conflicts. The document opens with a reproduction of the program…