One of the "good old" standard activities middle school students seem to enjoy is paper chromatography. The procedures and materials needed are relatively simple and the results can be colorful. All too often, the activity ends just after these colorful results are obtained, cutting short the potential it holds for some further inquiry. With some…

The term "science fiction" has become synonymous, in the media at least, for any discovery in science too incredible or unexpected for the nonscientist to imagine. One of the most common classroom uses of science fiction is for students to pick out flaws in science fiction movies or television shows. Unfortunately, this approach can result in…

This article discusses how paper folding can be used in the classroom to introduce the standard results of school geometry, such as the transversal and parallel lines results, along with results concerning angles in convex polygons and centres of triangles, for example. Angle bisectors, midpoints, perpendiculars are all straightforward…

This article focuses on how young children build math skills in everyday play and activities. Children focus on six categories of mathematical content including classifying, exploring magnitude, enumerating, investigating dynamics, studying patterns, and exploring spatial relations. The article gives advice to both teachers and parents on how they…

Babies' interest in the outer world develops very slowly. During the first half year or so, babies are strongly tuned in to themselves. They feel hunger pangs when they need to be fed. Their skin is fragile, and they need help maintaining their body temperature in cold weather. This article discusses outside interests, safe exploration, animal…

We developed a computerized game designed around principles shown to improve classroom performance and experience: multimedia, practice testing, vivid instructional techniques, and in-class participation. Students compete as 2 teams, and the game plays like Jeopardy meets Hollywood Squares with learning outcomes. Our evaluation indicated that the…

When Candee Fick's daughter was in the first grade, her self-contained special education class planted some crocus bulbs in September. The crocus bulbs were going to be Christmas presents for the children's families. However, the plants were not watered once as the teacher became busy. When Christmas came, the teacher decided that there was a good…

Claudia Klein Felske, a high school English teacher, has created a vital dramatic experience in the classroom with the help of a guest workshop leader. The three activities, such as how to read William Shakespeare, Metaphor Theater and character cacophony, which helped students to experience the intensity of language and discover ramifications of…

Students in the classroom should be provided with engaging activities for improving their computational fluency, making effective use of time, and as a medium of self-motivation. Games such as Contig, the 24 Game, and Number Jumbler are useful for practicing basic facts and computational fluency of mathematics.

Because of the importance of diplomacy, it is a valuable subject for the social studies classroom. In a crowded curriculum, however, the art of international diplomacy can easily get less attention than it deserves. One way of teaching it is to focus on the diplomacy associated with a major event that is part of the typical history curriculum. The…

Dolphins, manatees, and sea lions are all aquatic mammals but are not closely related taxonomically. All three species are marine mammals, meaning they spend part or all of their lives in the sea and contiguous bodies of water. Dolphins belong to the taxonomic order Cetacea, which includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Manatees (sea cows),…

The areas of reading comprehension theory that provide insights for writers are examined and the way in which a basic knowledge of reading theory provides a backdrop for explicating certain conventions and responding to certain problem area in student writing are explored. With the examples of successful classroom activities, it is shown how a…

Auditory perceptual learning has been proposed as effective for remediating impaired language and for enhancing normal language development. We examined the effect of phonemic contrast discrimination training on the discrimination of whole words and on phonological awareness in 8- to 10-year-old mainstream school children. Eleven phonemic contrast…

One topic that is frequently taught at any and all grade levels is elections, particularly during presidential election years. There are numerous organizations that produce materials and maintain websites to help students at all grade levels learn about and even participate in mock election activities. There is, however, one aspect of elections…

A cognitive approach that views stereotypes as mental tools that function in information processing has dominated recent work on stereotyping. But regardless of their cognitive utility, an association between stereotypes and social injustice (i.e., prejudice, discrimination) has earned stereotypes the label "bad" and consequently something to be…