Instructor (1990) articles from April 2000

Instructor (1990) archives from April 2000

Heady Stuff.
April 1, 2000... What phrases often come to mind when a kid can't concentrate, can't keep up, can't remember, can't sit still, can't get it right, just can't succeed? Likely it starts with d, as in behavioral disorder, learning disability, attention-deficit...

Kids Cover the 2000 Elections.
April 1, 2000... Students can't vote in this year's elections, but they can get involved. Indeed, more than 25 million school children nationwide are learning about the issues, voicing their opinions, debating, and voting through "Kids Speak Out," an ambitious...

Powerful New Reading Test.
April 1, 2000... Scholastic Reading Inventory Interactive (SRI), an informed new reading-assessment tool, provides you with detailed, immediate information to improve instruction and predict students' standardized-tests performance. Based on comprehension of...

Win a 'Buggy' CD-ROM!
April 1, 2000... Few children can resist learning about the insect world, and the weeks surrounding Earth Day (April 22) are a great time to explore the subject in your classroom. For added incentive, 10 teacher-winners of this giveaway will receive...

Model With Manipulatives.
April 1, 2000... Kids find fractions fun when they come in 3-D Research tells us that the best way for children to learn about fractions is through plenty of hands-on modeling. Teaching with these activities allows your K-3 students to experience fractions...

The Day I Was Born.
April 1, 2000... A teacher-created Web site builds on-line research skills Left to my own devices, I likely would never have introduced research on the World Wide Web to students below the seventh grade. As a tech coordinator, I knew that even older kids...

Oil Slick.
April 1, 2000... An experiment that uses an environmental-protection method Your seventh- and eighth-grade students are most likely aware of the disastrous consequences that oil spills can have for the environment. During this Keep America Beautiful Month,...

RED-EYED TREE FROG.
April 1, 2000... By Joy Cowley, photographs by Nic Bishop; 32 pages; Scholastic, 1999; $16.95. Grades Pre-K-2. Finding compelling nonfiction read-aloud books suitable for the younger grades is no easy feat for teachers. Children will be wowed by this smashing,...

THE FOLK KEEPER.
April 1, 2000... By Franny Billingsley; 162 pages; Simon & Schuster, 1999; $16. Grades 5-8. This startling original fantasy, with roots in English selkie tales (about seals transformed into humans), is compelling and lyrical. Fifteen-year-old orphan...

WESLANDIA.(Brief Article)(Review)(Children's Review)
April 1, 2000... By Paul Fleischman, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes; 36 pages; Candlewick Press, 1999; $15.99. Grades K-4. Outcast Wesley has no friends but plenty of tormentors, dislikes pizza and soda, finds professional football stupid, and refuses to shave...

CANDY CORN.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... By James Stevenson; 56 pages; Green-willow, 1999; $15. Grades 2-6. Two dozen fresh, insightful, and cheerful little poems about eating peanuts, bare feet, and rock-and-rolling garbage dumpsters create a strong feeling for small observations....

All Kinds of Minds.
April 1, 2000... What do you call a kid who Can't concentrate, can't keep up, can't remember, can't sit still, can't get it right, can't succeed? If there's a punch line that follows this barrage of can'ts, it probably contains the letter d, as in attention...

Kids Poems.
April 1, 2000... A renowned language arts teacher shares the joy of teaching young children to write--and love-poetry Of all the writing I have done with students in elementary school, teaching poetry writing has been the most exhilarating and successful....

Music to Their Ears.
April 1, 2000... That's what literature can become to youngsters where we integrate music into our lessons. Upon hearing the first powerful strains of Beetoven's Fifth Symphony, the dark-haired girl in the second row, crayon grasped tightly in hand,...

Ms. Read to the Rescue.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Advice from a seasoned educator to help you, and your students, in the classroom Dear Ms. Read, I'm a new teacher with some bored third graders. We do a lot of "round robin" reading, in which each student reads aloud in turn. The rest...

It's a Frog's Life.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... From tiny egg to tadpole to full-grown adult, the frog has a fascinating life cycle. Leap into this unit with your students to discover why frogs really are fabulous creatures FROGGY FACTS * Frogs are amphibians, a scientific...

Poems.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... A poem is a magical boat to ride in sea of words with a rhyming tide. It takes us from some hum-drum shore to places we never have been before--shimmering islands of sensation captured by imagination. New lands wait for us to sight,...

Get Carried Away!(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Perfect timing, National Poetry Month, to celebrate verse with your students--to read it, recite it, and learn something about its inner workings. "Poems," by Bobbi Katz (see the poster before page 41), is a delightful reflection on poetry...

Think Like an Egyptian.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Built more than 4,500 years ago, the mighty pyramids at Giza, in Egypt, were to house tombs for ancient Egyptian pharoahs, or rulers. The tallest of these structures, the Great Pyramid, reaches 450 feet into the sky and is formed by more than...

Nonfiction.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... While novels, poetry, and short stories stimulate the young to dream and aspire, nonfiction provides them with tools to guide and support their efforts at accomplishment. A child who wants to learn to ice-skate can read a book on technique. One...

[Clifford.sup.TM] in Class.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... STANDARDS Problem Solving * Literature Integration My second graders love this math game! When we play Clifford Celebrates 100 Days of School, the kids give our huge, stuffed classroom Clifford 100 dog "bones" as a snack. To make the...

Domino Fact Families.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... STANDARDS Whole Number Computation * Patterns and Relationships * Mathematics as Problem Solving Here's how my third graders use dominoes to practice fact families. Each student receives six dominoes and a copy of the "Domino Math"...

The Human Clock.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... STANDARDS Measurement * Mathematics as Problem Solving My first graders practice telling time by making a "human clock." I write the numbers 1-12 on 8 1/2 - x 11-inch pieces of tagboard and distribute them to students. In a large open...

Select a Poem, Share a Poem,.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... STANDARDS Participation in a Literacy Community * Exposure to a Wide Range of Texts Here's an easy way to ensure that poetry is being read and enjoyed on a daily basis, while involving students in the selection process. I choose a...

Discover The USA.
April 1, 2000... Middle schoolers take tech on the road in this wonderful cross-curricular unit Countless challenges have crossed my path over the past 30 years of teaching. Instructing seventh and eighth graders in social studies definitely ranks near the...

PRIMARY GRADES.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Two recent additions to the K-12 Blaster line take first and second graders far--and effectively--beyond basic math facts to skip counting, measurement, graphs (time and money), number patterns, place value, addition, and subtraction. In Math...

UPPER ELEMENTARY.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... We were able to find just a handful of titles for grades 4--6 that provide excellent vehicles for practicing math in a social setting. One of these is Math Arena. (Another, MindTwister Math, by Edmark, was reviewed in last month's Instructor.)...

MIDDLE SCHOOL.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... The design isn't flashy, but the content is plentiful, and the lessons are excellent in Geometry World, an all-purpose geometry program on CD-ROM for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. After a student signs in to a personal account, she or he...

I Can Twirl the Rope.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... One special child showed us the benefits of inclusion Inclusion is not for the faint of heart. As teachers know, involving a behaviorally or academically challenged child in regular classroom activities can be a source of frustration. But...