Your Green Pages February 2007
By Elizabeth Swartz

For a downloadable version of the Green Pages click here. PDF 348KB

Primary Grades
1. Teacher Says
   Math Build knowledge of basic shapes as well as dexterity by playing "Teacher Says." Ask the students to stand. Call out, "Teacher says...make a circle." All the students will draw a circle in the air. Repeat with various shapes, then play the game with students taking turns calling out the shapes.

2. Who's the Tooth Fairy?
   Reading/Art February 28 is National Tooth Fairy Day. Have students write or dictate their own experiences with the tooth fairy. Ask them to illustrate what they think the tooth fairy might look like. Visit www.edhelper.com/DailyThemes_786.html for printable coloring sheets, reading comprehension sections, tooth fairy-themed story starters and more. Also go to www.dltk-teach.com/books/mtoothcertificate.html which features printable Tooth Fairy Certificates.
3. Sorting Fun
   Reading/Math Get three empty cans to cover with paper and label them, using either words or pictures, Animals, Food and Games. On craft sticks, write words or use stickers to illustrate each: Cat, Horse, Pizza, Checkers, etc. Ask your students to sort the craft sticks into the correct cans.

4. Big Hearts
   Art/Math Introduce the symbols for greater than and less than inside hearts. Have students draw hearts with the greater than sign inside. Then practice putting one numeral on each side of the heart, always keeping the larger number on the appropriate side. Repeat this activity using the less than symbol.
5. Beginning Sounds
   Reading Have students come up with words that begin with the same letter as their first and/or last name. Find words that describe things that they like to do – for example, Robby reads, Carol colors, etc.
6. Counting Hearts
   Math Place a set of numbers around the room, either in numerical order or scattered about. Provide your students with small paper hearts and encourage them to use a dot of tacky putty to attach the correct number of hearts to each numeral.
7. Clay Play
   Music/Art Sing the following poem to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" while students work with a handful of clay.


Clay Play

by Jacqueline Schiff

Roll, roll, roll the clay,
Mold it into shape.
Round it, pound it,
Pinch it, squinch it –
Knead it to create.

Roll, roll, roll the clay,
Pull it, pat it, too.
Tear it, share it,
(But never wear it!)
Make a critter zoo.

8. Memory Games
   Reading Read aloud Young Cam Jansen and the Spotted Cat Mystery by David A. Adler (Viking, 2006) and discuss the importance of memory. Play the memory game in the book to help your students pay closer attention to their surroundings.
9. Hurrah for Hibernation
   Science Put pictures of a groundhog and a burrow on the bulletin board. As Groundhog Day (February 2) approaches, talk about various animals that hibernate. Hang pictures of other burrows and caves and of the creatures that use these dwellings. Ask your students to try to match each animal with its appropriate dwelling.
10. Alphabetizing Practice
    Reading Collect some empty cereal boxes and cover them with plain colored paper. Label each box with a different word. Use student names, spelling and vocabulary words or words from a science or social studies unit. Begin with five boxes; gradually add more boxes and more complexities in alphabetizing.
11. Seeing Is Believing
    Health/Science Provide four hard-boiled eggs and four clear glass jars. Fill two jars 2/3 full with cola and two 2/3 full with fruit juice. Place one egg in each jar. After 24 hours, remove one egg from the cola and brush it with a toothbrush and toothpaste. Record the results. Do the same with one juice-soaked egg. Repeat daily for one week, resubmerging the same eggs in their corresponding liquids. Leave two of the eggs (one in cola, one in juice) untouched for one week, then brush them at the end of the week. Record the results. What connections can students make between the experimental eggs and their own teeth?
12. Lost Penny Day
    Social Studies/Math Pennies often get lost or go unnoticed. Lost Penny Day is February 12, the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, who is featured on the penny. Challenge your students to find and collect pennies. Coordinate this with International Friendship Week (February 19-25) and arrange to donate your penny collection to a national or international nonprofit organization.
13. Heroes in the Making
    Social Studies February is a good month during which to talk about heroes when discussing famous presidents and African American leaders. Discuss with your class what it is that makes someone a hero. Are there heroes alive today? Are there heroes in your town or school? My Hero is a search engine to find information about heroes and for students to create profiles of their personal heroes. Visit www.myhero.com/myhero and be sure to click on the Teachers section.

14. Parent Activity
    Science Tie a piece of yarn for hanging around a bagel. Spread vegetable shortening and peanut butter onto the bagel, then roll it in birdseed. Hang it outside where it can be viewed from the house. Keep a camera, a bird identification book and a notebook handy. Record visitors.
15. Texture Study
    Science/Art Begin a study of textures with crayon rubbings. Tape samples of several different textures to a counter or piece of cardboard. Have students conduct rubbings over rug samples, bubble wrap, coins, keys, clothing, sandpaper, the inside of corrugated cardboard, etc. Frame each rubbing with contrasting colored construction paper. Hang them in a wall display or put them together in booklet form and invite other classes to guess the textured objects that were rubbed.
16. Stick to Vocabulary
    Reading/Spelling When reviewing vocabulary and spelling, give each group of students a metal cookie sheet and a box of magnetic letters. Ask one person in the group to say the word, another to define the word and a third to use the word in a sentence while one student writes the word using the magnetic letters on the cookie sheet. This student can then hold the sheet up for the others to view.
17. Hidden Things
    Reading/Art Read aloud the book I Spy Shapes in Art by Lucy Micklethwait (Greenwillow, 2004). It uses 14 pictures from museums around the world to introduce young children to art. Play "What else do you see?" then encourage your students to make pictures and hide objects in them for others to find.
18. Wildlife Snacks
    Science/Nutrition The National Wildlife Federation has some wonderful, nutritious snacks that can easily be made in your classroom. Your students can then make flowchart directions and write "how to" articles to take home for their parents to see how they made these great snacks. The site also features fun games and coloring pages. Visit www.nwf.org/kidzone/kzPage.cfm?siteId=2 and click on Recipes.
19. Turning Phrases
    Language Get a box of traditional candy hearts with printed words or phrases on them. Discuss how phrases can be used to carry meaning. Can the class think of new phrases that are positive and carry meaning? Write the phrases on paper hearts and display the hearts around the classroom.
20. Valentine Cards for Family
    Writing/Art Explain and model pointillism using a cotton swab and various colors of tempera paint. Have children decorate the outside of their cards with pointillism and write their own heartfelt Valentine messages on the inside to family members.
21. Collecting Data
    Math Make math real as soon as your students come through the door. Have a tally sheet on the board so they can mark if they are wearing jeans, a dress or slacks. The first plan of action for the day will be to make a bar graph using the information from the tally chart. Have students make suggestions about what data they might collect tomorrow morning.


Middle Grades

22. Winter Profiles in 3D
    Art/Writing Begin with a heavy piece of cardboard. Attach a piece of blue construction paper to the cardboard. Ask the students to each draw a profile of his or her face on another piece of paper, then cut the profiles out and attach them to the backgrounds. Provide fabric samples with which the students can "dress" their self-portraits in winter coats, hats, scarves, etc. Ask your students to write about where they are going and what they are going to do in the picture. Display the stories alongside the self-portraits.
23. Heartfelt Symmetry
    Art/Math Make various pink, white and red hearts using paper folded in half. What other symmetrical objects could be made this way? Let students experiment and see what they come up with.
24. Tall Tales and Legends
    Reading Grades K-6 can find animated and narrated tales to read along with at www.magickeys.com. Also start with paulbunyantrail.com, which tells the story of Paul Bunyan in a medium in which the students are comfortable.
25. Heart-Healthy Exercises
    Research/Math/Health Help students research heart-healthy exercises then plan a survey of the entire grade level. Which of these heart-healthy exercises are the most popular in the grade? Which are the least popular? What might be the reasons? How could your class make heart-healthy exercises part of the school day?
26. Sandpainting
    Art/Social Studies With your class, research the Navajo art of sandpainting. Then use two-sided tape and colored sand to create sandpaintings in the classroom. Have the students select symbols of meaning to include. For more directions and more Navajo crafts, go to http://www.mce.k12tn.net/indians/crafts/southwestcrafts.htm
27. Introduction to Biographies
    Reading/History There are more and more biographies being published to which young children can read and relate. Read aloud The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon by Jacqueline Davies (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). Let it inspire all the artists in your class to bring in and display their work.
28. Winter Trees
    Poetry Read this poem aloud, then take your class outside or to the window to observe the trees. Encourage students to write poems about what trees look like in the winter where you live.


Winter Trees

by Heidi Bee Roemer

October's gifts of bright confetti
Spiral through the frosty air.

Leaves are dipped like artists' brushes,
Gold and scarlet linger there.

November's breath is bleak and dreary;
Tree limbs look like old black bones.

Chilly winds chase shriveled petals,
Saplings bend and branches groan.

Cheer us, o, December cardinals,
Singing ornaments of red.

Powdered trees on moonlit evenings,
Snuggle in their snowy bed.

29. Parent Activity
    Geometry Review Get a bag of mini-marshmallows and a box of toothpicks. Review the geometric shapes by building them in 2D and 3D. Make triangles, pyramids, cubes, squares and rectangular solids. Then put various shapes together to build houses and bridges. Finished projects can be spray painted.
30. Fancy Footwork
    Physical Education By the end of third grade, students should not only be able to repeat a pattern that's clapped to them, but also be able to repeat various step patterns. As a physical break between classes, put on some music, have everyone stand and ask one student to demonstrate a few forward, backward or sideways steps for the others to imitate.
31. Staged in a Second
    Reading/Drama Lay a large, empty cardboard box on its side. Cut out the center of the bottom leaving a frame about 4" wide. Spray paint the entire box. Cut off the flaps and leave just enough of the edge to allow the box frame to stand on its own on a desk or table. You have a ready-made puppet theatre. Make sock puppets, paper puppets on crafts sticks or use purchased puppets. Have students act out the stories they are reading and writing.

32. Snowflake Printing
    Science/Art Cut a snowflake pattern from the bottom of a plastic strawberry basket (see picture to the right). Pour paint into a paint tray and spread it out in a thin layer. Press the snowflake template into the paint and then press it onto heavy paper. Let the paint dry. Cut out the snowflake, attach fishing line and hang from the ceiling.
33. Spell Checker
    Reading/Writing Words have to be close to being correct for a computer's spell-check program to be of use. Before going to the computer lab to print or publish a story, have each child in the room be a spell checker for another student.
34. Slide, Flip, Turn
    Math/Art Give each student a piece of felt or thin foam from which to cut one simple shape. Have them trace their shape onto a piece of paper. Then, slide it and trace, flip it and trace and turn it and trace. Are there any other mathematical movements they could prove with their simple shape and a pencil?
35. Meeting People
    Communication/Safety Discuss with your students the difference between meeting new people and being careful of strangers. When should children be friendly and when should they be cautious? Are there times to be polite and times to be firm? When? Where? Why? After the discussion, have students complete comic strips of a friendly encounter with a new person and an encounter that might cause alarm.
36. Winter Sports
    Reading/Poetry/Art Read the following poem and ask students to draw or paint pictures of their favorite winter sports.


Winter Sport

by Martin Shaw

I like skiing down an icy slope,
Or snowboarding for the thrill,
I like building snowmen in my yard,
Or sleigh riding down a hill.

I like skating on a frozen lake,
Or jumping through drifts of snow,
Or just standing midst the winter wind,
And enjoying winter's glow.

37. Conversations on Record
    Writing When teaching dialogue writing, ask students to get permission from siblings or parents to record a conversation. Have them write the conversations as dialogue with correct quotation marks and illustrate with sketches. Exchange tapes and transcripts for peer editing.



38. Multi-Step Directions
    Listening Skills/Memory Write single, simple directions, one per index card. (For example: "Get out the math book," "Put the reading book on your chair," "Turn around twice," "Salute the flag.") Challenge the class to listen to and complete two directions, then three, then four, etc. As the game continues, when a direction is missed the student sits down.
39. Community Development
    Social Studies Send students off with digital cameras to record their community. Upon their return make "Community Collages," mixing the residential, commercial and recreational sections of town together. Why are there such things as zoning laws? What difference would it make if homes were mixed in with stores and soccer fields were next to hospitals? Why does any of that matter?



40. Healthier Hearts
    Health Assist your students in researching online and in the school library what foods are best for promoting healthy hearts. Visit the American Heart Association website at www.americanheart.org and go to the "Healthy Lifestyle" section to get started. Instead of focusing on foods you shouldn't eat, make posters illustrating foods you should eat. Post them in the hallways and near the cafeteria where everyone in the school can benefit from the information.
41. Air Pressure
    Science/Math Begin with three basketballs that are inflated to different degrees. Using a tire gauge, measure the air pressure in the basketballs. Record the results. Set up an experiment to determine how high each ball will bounce when dropped from the same level, how far each ball can be pinched inward and what size mark will be left on a piece of paper by each ball that's been dipped in colored powder or a thin layer of tempera paint. What causes these differences in results? Graph all of the findings. What might this information tell students about the importance of the air pressure in bicycle or car tires?

42. Spin the Globe
    Social Studies Once a week, position two students in front of a globe. Ask one student to spin the globe and the other to close his or her eyes (or wear a blindfold) and place a sticky note bearing an arrow onto the spinning globe. Wherever the arrow is pointing is the place of interest for the week. Ask students to write opinion pieces about whether or not they would like to visit the place, even if it is the middle of an ocean. Why or why not? Conduct research into the history, climate and current events of the location as well as its wildlife, vegetation and people.
43. Traveling through Time
    Social Studies Plan and produce a timeline that will serve as both a history teaching aid and as a tool for review unit after unit. Begin with a large piece of bulletin board border paper. Hang it across a wall. Write on each end of the paper the beginning and ending dates of the time period being studied. As you study a unit, write other important dates and events on sticky notes to attach to the timeline. The notes can be removed and replaced for review, added to or deleted as the year progresses.
44. A Critical Researcher
    Research/Computer Skills Help your students conduct a Boolean search dealing with any current unit of study and print all of the recommended sites. Have students write a critical analysis about the sites stating clearly why they would or would not trust particular sites.

Intermediate Grades

45. Performance Point of View
    Writing After attending a performance as a class, ask your students to do two separate writing exercises. First, have them choose a performer and write what that person's experience might have been like. Then have each student pick one person from the audience (not him or herself) and write what they imagine that person's experience was like. Compare and contrast the experiences.
46. Love Songs
    Communication/Social Studies Collect some CDs of love songs. Listen to them with the class. Why do people put their feelings about love in a song? What purpose does this music seem to serve in a culture? Why don't people put their grocery list in a song? What does it say about the messages that are in songs?
47. Black History Month
    Social Studies During February, divide the class into three groups to research and report on three separate events in Black History. 1) For Underground Railroad information, start at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, OH, at www.freedomcenter.org 2) For Civil Rights start at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN, at www.civilrightsmuseum.org 3) For the story of the Middle Passage on slave ships, visit America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, WI, at www.blackholocaustmuseum.org

48. Snowflake Snowmen
    Art Fold three squares of brightly colored tissue paper into quarters and then into 45-degree or smaller angles. Keeping the paper folded, cut the three squares into different-sized circles. Cut around the outer area in a circular pattern, perhaps adding scallop or points. Snip small areas away from parts of the folds. Open the three pieces and arrange them vertically to create the body of a snowman. If the circles do not seem to be the right sizes, fold them again and cut more away from the outer areas. Add other features to the snowman such as arms and feet, brooms, scarves, hats or snow shovels. Glue onto dark paper and press firmly until dry.

49. Composting Time
    Science Whether you are planning to make a school compost pile or are just teaching your students about composting, go to the Microbe Zoo at www.commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/dlc-me/zoo/zdcmain.html This site contains enlarged images of microbes and lots of information on what happens in compost piles. Included is information about what happens to plastics in compost piles.
50. Student Volunteer Day
    Social Studies February 20 is Student Volunteer Day. Discuss with your students the importance of volunteerism in the world. What volunteer activity could they do to improve their school community or neighborhood community today?
51. Find It
    Social Studies/Map Skills Write several locations studied in a recent lesson or that have appeared recently in the news on slips of paper. Put these in a box. Divide the class into two teams. Have a member of one team choose a slip of paper from a box. The student reads the name of the place aloud and then the team has 30 seconds to locate and point it out on the map. Score one point for the team if they correctly locate the place.
52. Story Elements
    Reading/Writing Read aloud The Book of Story Beginnings by Kristin Kladstrup (Candlewick, 2006) about two children who go on travels caused by writing in a special book. While telling a magnificent story, the book clearly explains the need for strong and believable beginnings, middles and endings of stories. After hearing this tale, students will be anxious to write stories that might come true.
53. Parent Activity
    Current Events Discuss with your children the progress made by the Civil Rights Movement in your lifetime. Explain the neighborhoods of your youth in comparison with the neighborhoods of today. Discuss the importance of African American leaders today and follow the news about Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell as well as successful entertainers like Denzel Washington and sports hero Tiger Woods.
54. Wetlands in a Pan
    Science Get a long, shallow pan, at least 13" x 9", larger if possible. Put a layer of clay on the bottom of 1/2 the pan, cover it with soil and then place a strip of carpet in the center of that area. The carpet will represent wetlands. On the side of the pan with no clay, add water. On the opposite side, past the carpet, put more soil as well as some plastic flowers or trees. Add water to the whole pan using a garden sprinkler. What happens? Record results. Remove the carpet "wetlands" and add water with the sprinkler. What happens? Record results. What was the purpose of the wetlands?
55. Which Fish?
    Science/Writing Take your students to www.seaworld.org/aquademics/tetra/geography1.htm Using the lessons on this SeaWorld site, students will learn, using the fish in the Aquademics™ tank, how to name and show the geographic locations of different bodies of water around the world. Have the students write what they find in a journal as they work through this program.
56. Pancake Day
    Reading/Health International Pancake Day is February 28. Plan a pancake breakfast where students can cook for and serve school support staff as well as each other. Afterwards, ask students to write nonfiction articles about how to plan and carry out such an event including the recipe they used, the amount of ingredients necessary, the number of people fed and the time necessary to accomplish the entire task, from invitations to clean-up.
57. Heart History
    Health/Science Help students prepare a survey for members of their family that will produce a history of heart health or ailments. Have students conduct the survey on both sides of their family and then compile the results in a chart that they can keep with their own health records.
58. Letter Challenge
    English A pangram is a sentence that contains all of the letters of the alphabet. Can your students construct such a sentence that makes sense?

59. Know Your Teeth
    Health Provide a diagram of the teeth in the adult human mouth. Ask students to record on the diagram over the next 24 hours the foods they eat, next to the teeth they think mainly work to break down that food type. Is any one type of tooth – incisor, molar, bicuspid – more important than another? Why?

For a downloadable version of the Green Pages click here. PDF 348KB

ABOUT THE GREEN PAGES: Green Pages activities are for use in teaching grades PreK through 8. Activities are labeled according to basic skill areas.

THIS MONTH'S CONTRIBUTIONS:
Joan Macey, Binghamton, NY, #22; Rachel Sawyer, California, PA, #1 & #51; Jacqueline Schiff, Moline, IL, #5; Sherry Timberman, Kennebunk, ME, #14 & #32; Helen Wubbenhorst, Mesa, AZ, #48.

POETRY: "Clay Play" by Jacqueline Schiff, Moline, IL. "Winter Trees" by Heidi Bee Roemer, Orland Park, IL.. "Winter Sport" by Martin Shaw, Bronxville, NY.

Illustrations by H. Robert Loomis.

February, 2007, Vol.37, No.5