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)

Briefly outlines three classroom activities to (1) promote classification skills, (2) encourage cultural awareness, and (3) provide summer activities for parents and children to do together. (CI)

Describes two strategies to help students start writing poetry. The first involves underlining key subject words in poems or replacing them with other subject words. In the second, students record interesting facts about an animal and rearrange them in order of interest. (BC)

The notion of partitioning is used to help develop simple number concepts, counting skills, place value concepts, and division with two-digit divisors. Working with counters, base blocks, and other materials is carefully explicated. (MNS)

Provided are activities which will help secondary students analyze statistics, recognize valid generalizations, find cause-and-effect relationships, distinguish relevant from irrelevant information, recognize unstated assumptions, analyze points of view, and recognize inferences. (RM)

Presented are six practical teaching suggestions selected from commercially available materials and ideas submitted by readers. A personalized poster program, a hiking program, and activities in which students send the Logo turtle on an egg hunt and study pattern block programing are included. (JN)

Ways in which newspapers can be used in mathematics instruction, involving cutting numbers and shapes for a variety of purposes and collecting and analyzing information, are presented and illustrated. (MNS)

An integrated language arts/American history program developed for gifted adolescents, Jazz to Jacuzzi is based on B. Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive learning. It incorporates a multi-technique, multi-media approach to art, literature, music, and other artifacts of the era from 1920-1970. (CL)

Map skills should be a basic part of the elementary curriculum. Activities are described for teaching location, direction, scale and distance, symbols, and about globes. (RM)

A substitute teacher describes some of the impromptu lessons and activities that she has successfully used in secondary social studies classes, e.g., analyzing political cartoons; reading charts; defining, spelling, and using terms correctly in writing. Some of these activities are intended to close gaps detected in student knowledge. (RM)

Geography teachers can illustrate the patterns associated with mineral fuel production, especially coal, by using United States Geological Survey topographic maps, which are illustrated by symbols that indicate mine-related features, such as shafts and tailings. Map reading exercises are presented; an interpretative map key that can facilitate…

Intended for use in introductory college-level physical geography courses, this self-guided field exercise involves students in searching their immediate environment for examples of fourth-order landforms that are replicas of large landforms. (RM)

The article describes learning activities incorporating movement, storytelling, and music with instruction on multiplication facts and concepts for elementary special education students. The author explains that such an approach can alleviate boredom and frustration. (CL)

Woodworking experiences based on a task analysis approach can be motivating instructional experiences for preschool handicapped children. The article presents sequentially ordered hammering and sawing skills adaptations for specific disability groups. (CL)

A letter from a parent about a homework assignment involving much repetition (and time) is used as the vehicle to discuss the problem. (MNS)