Tips to keep students interested during the final weeks of school include: work outside (studying bubbles and writing poetry about nature); put on a show about one subject; play social studies Jeopardy; devote entire days to one subject area; have a teach-the-teacher day, where students and teachers trade roles; and create a video keepsake…

Offers several activities for celebrating Winnie-the-Pooh's birthday, including: reading Pooh stories and inventing a Pooh trivia game; creating a spot for thinking and reflecting; writing poems; using Pooh's expedition to the North Pole as inspiration for an imaginary class trip; dividing into groups and describing individual Pooh characters; and…

Presents five suggestions for using sunflowers to teach elementary students. The ideas include: setting up an exploration table and keeping journals about the plant; taking sunflower measurements and making predictions; reading "Camille and the Sunflowers"; creating sunflower still-lifes; and doing sunflower seed math. A list of…

Using a soccer cyberhunt, elementary school students can learn all about the game of soccer while practicing computer skills. The cyberhunt teaches about: the history of soccer; soccer's name in other countries; number of players on the field; women's World Cup soccer; soccer rules; soccer legend, Pele; soccer moves; and the soccer ball. A…

Presents five cross-curricular activities involving student snapshots that are designed to keep students motivated. Activities include creating a class book with teacher and student photographs, making photo magnets using frozen juice can tops, developing a first-week word wall with students' names and photographs, and creating a post office with…

Describes how to grow a pineapple in a classroom and at the same time use the process for the teaching of history, social studies, and a little chemistry. (RB)

Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated September 15th through October 15th, is a great opportunity to kick off a whole year of cultural discovery. This article presents 25 great ideas for Hispanic heritage. These 25 fresh ideas--from Aztec math to Carnaval masks--are easy to put together, and they offer students the chance to celebrate their own…

Presents a listing of historical books for elementary school students by author Jean Fritz; includes a poster and a calendar with daily class activities to teach students about famous historical figures. (SM)

Scavenger hunts, collecting bottle caps, observing shadows, and other outdoor activities can be developed into a mathematics unit that motivates students to acquire basic mathematical skills. A variety of natural ways to collect data are offered to help foster learning. (DF)

Describes a project that helps children to realize the potential use of fractions and therefore have an incentive to learn them. (RB)

Nine elementary teachers explain how they design their classrooms to match and support their instructional styles. The teachers focus on whole language programs, student portfolios, science activity set-ups, technology transformation, learning center strategies, and space utilization. (SM)

Presents suggestions for bringing reading and writing to life in the classroom and helping students develop a lifelong love of both. Includes creating a refrigerator door for displaying student work, using digital notebooks, establishing a publishing center, holding lunch-bunch meetings, binding students' writing into class collections, reading…

Describes how to use authentic documents and artifacts to make history and literature come to life, describing a fourth grade study of the Pilgrims that involves using an excerpt from a 1622 journal, "Mourt's Relation," published 2 years after the Mayflower sailed. Students translate the excerpt into modern English, then illustrate a…

Describes how teachers can make the most of authors' presentations to elementary students by taking necessary steps before, during, and after the visit and planning the day. The article also provides an eight-step presenter's guide for authors that can be photocopied and sent to authors before the school visit. (SM)