How can elementary students use Google Slides to enhance their math problem-solving skills and creativity? Usable Math offers slideshows that pose a problem, provide hints, and ultimately reveal a solution. The intent of these slideshows is to provide extended opportunities to understand and practice mathematics skills. In this fourth-grade…

The purpose of this article is to explore integrating nontraditional classroom art materials and allowing students to make art for nonart spaces. Art programs must stimulate creativity, innovation, and imagination; provide tools the students can use; identify a context the students can experiment within (Chang, 2015; Gude, 2010); and offer the…

In this article, a series of activities on explicit teaching of specific aspects of the 'nature of science' are presented. The authors explore teaching the nature of science through inquiry-based activities on electric circuits. The activities concern classification of objects as conductors or insulators and took place in three classes of 4th…

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) topics into K-12 school curricula is a relatively new but crucial challenge faced by education systems worldwide. Attempts to address this challenge are hindered by a serious lack of curriculum materials and tools to aid teachers in teaching AI. This article introduces the theoretical foundations and…

This article describes how a federally funded afterschool program serving an elementary-age population in a rural southern community used the creative affordances of Minecraft and a creative youth development (CYD) framework to support the local school district's character education program, The Leader in Me (LiM). On receipt of a 21st Century…

Project-based learning presents an opportunity to engage both struggling students and high-achieving students. A special education teacher and a principal describe how this worked in one school by sharing the stories of two very different elementary school students. The high-achieving student learned to be more creative and take risks; the…

A class activity has been designed to help fourth grade students to identify basic insect features as a means of promoting student creativity while making an imaginary insect model. The 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend [or Elaborate], and Evaluate) learning cycle teaching model is used. The 5Es approach allows students to work in small…

Implementation of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) into the Camelot Intermediate School curriculum in Brookings, South Dakota, has fostered the development of creative and critical thinking skills in 4th- and 5th-grade students. Making meaning together by observing carefully, deciphering patterns, speculating, clarifying, supporting opinions, and…

Pop-up boxes and folder constructions support student inquiry while integrating art, craft, spatial, and creativity skills. Step-by-step illustrated directions for constructing pop-up boxes are provided with example images of pop-up boxes focused on ecological issues. Teachers used these pop-up constructions to assist fourth- and fifth-grade…

One challenge of teaching science is getting students to communicate as scientists do. Scientists employ many different forms of communication as they develop and pass on information to others. Unfortunately, in many classrooms, student communication about science concepts is limited to filling in information on worksheets, finishing…

Creativity--where does it come from? When nurturing creativity, it is necessary to have an open mind. By nurturing a creative mind, one finds that artists' ideas flow freely, so students need to look deeper into the artworks, the artists' lives, and what was behind the inspiration for the work. Imagining themselves as one of the artists they have…

School counselors (SCs) have a wide range of responsibilities in schools, such as administrative, disciplinary, and counseling duties (Dahir & Stone, 2009). Due to the large number of responsibilities, SCs sometime struggle with developing programs to meet relational needs of at-risk students. The purpose of this article was to provide SCs with a…

Build It Up! is an engaging activity that integrates science with mathematics through a process that encourages problem-solving, principles of design, creativity, and developing a sense of one's community. This activity, aimed at third- and fourth-grade students, allows students to use manipulatives to design, construct, and test buildings they…

What happens in the first week of school could very well set the stage for the rest of the school year. Setting high standards for science activities based in inquiry can start on the first day of science class and develop as the year unfolds. With the use of simple, readily available, inexpensive materials, an efficient mystery box lesson can be…

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) has forged alliances with key national organizations representing the core academic subjects, including Social Studies, English, Math, Science, Geography, World Languages and the Arts. These collaborations have resulted in the development of 21st Century Skills Maps that illustrate the essential…