Do you work tirelessly to make your math lessons meaningful, challenging, accessible, and engaging? Do you spend hours you don't have searching for, adapting, and creating tasks to provide rich experiences for your students that supplement your mathematics curriculum? Help has arrived! "Classroom Ready-Rich Math Tasks for Grades 2-3"…

This article describes a lesson rooted in "tinkering," an approach to learning that encourages the use of authentic, hands-on experience to develop an understanding of content and physical materials. There were several desired outcomes for this lesson. First, the authors felt that tinkering was an appropriate approach to investigating…

The "Connecting With Others" curriculum for grades 3 through 5 will help students learn to be sensitive to differences, resolve conflicts without resorting to violence, and learn tolerance and acceptance of others. Includes 30 lessons divided into five skill areas: Concept of Self and Others, Socialization, Problem Solving and Conflict…

Using data for school improvement is a key goal of Race to the Top, and now is the time to make data-driven school improvement a priority. However, many educators are drowning in data. Boost your professional learning community's ability to translate data into action with this new book from Pam Robbins and Robert T. Hess. "The Data Toolkit"…

Describes an elementary school project--a "leprechaun trap"--that included elements of technology, science, language arts, and problem solving. Discusses how technology education is helping the Taos Pueblo community build bridges between its past and modern technologies. (JOW)

Problems were developed by third graders involving holiday customs in one of the countries of their ancestors. Eight sample problems are included. (MNS)

The logical mysteries in this book are designed to develop critical thinking and deductive reasoning skills, motivate children to read carefully, and develop memory skills. The mystery solutions are explained at the end of the book. The first nine mysteries are intended for third grade students to work on with their teacher or parents. The second…

Shares observations made by a third-grade teacher who experimented with a variety of strategies to improve her students' abilities to write about mathematics. Notes that this gave the teacher a greater understanding of how students approached solving math problems and helped students practice writing in a meaningful way. (SR)

Describes an action-research study conducted in a third-grade classroom that integrates mathematical problem solving with the writing process through the use of the Mathematician's Chair. Contains 14 references. (ASK)

Presents a problem for grades 3-6 on number concepts and computation. Also provides guidelines for teachers to improve problem-solving practices in their classrooms. (ASK)

There is plenty of "math on the menu" in the series of activities featured in this book. Students help the Rosada family start a Mexican restaurant featuring a variety of tostadas. Over the course of the unit, students apply different problem-solving strategies as they plan and expand the menu, determine different combinations of ingredients,…

Describes an art activity for third-grade students in which they learned about African animals in one class period and spent time in another class period creating a picture of a giraffe. Explains that the students learned about watercolor wash and the wet-on-wet technique. (CMK)

Third graders decided to collect 10,000 objects, first determining how many each child would bring. Grouping and other activities were involved, and each child wrote about the experience. (MNS)

The curriculum guide for gifted and talented third and fourth grade students was developed in a 1-week teacher workshop. Introductory sections specify tasks and timelines, review characteristics of gifted and talented students, and describe the district's screening and identification process. The curriculum is based on a combination of…

In this companion to the "NASA SCI Files[TM]" episode "The Case of the Physical Fitness Challenge," the tree house detectives learn about anatomy, fitness and nutrition in preparation for the President's Challenge. The guide is divided into four segments aimed at grades 3-5, each of which includes an overview, a set of objectives, vocabulary to be…