Your Green Pages October 2005
By Elizabeth Swartz

Primary Grades
1. In, Out and All Around
   Directionality/Movement Make a large circle out of yarn or tape on the floor. Call out a student's name, then say, "hop inside," "skip to the right" or "jump out." For children who have some reading skills, hold up cards on which the cues are written.

2. Sun Magic
   Science Place a piece of colored construction paper in the sun with a building block in the center. Return later and remove the block. Leave several other pieces of paper out in the sun on which are various objects – a cut-out of a hand, a flower, a pen. What happens to the paper? How does this occur? Is the object on the paper altered?

3. Drawing Day
   Art Take your students to the interactive art site www.youdraw.com Here they can create pictures on the Draw Pad, and even submit these drawings to be posted on the website.

4. Listening Rebus
   Reading Tell a story about animals, assigning each child a particular animal. Whenever his or her animal is mentioned, the child makes their animal's sound. Next, tell the story with the kids holding up signs depicting their animals. When their animals are mentioned, the children will raise their signs and growl, honk or meow.
   

5. Spooky Stories
   Art/Writing Crumple a piece of aluminum foil into a three-inch ball. Set the ball on the top of a one-gallon milk or detergent bottle. Cut an 18-inch square of gauze. Dip the gauze into a bowl of liquid starch. Soak it well, wring it out and drape it over the jug, centering it on the foil. To shape shoulders and arms, stuff pieces of crumpled aluminum foil underneath the gauze. Straighten and flare out the bottom. Allow your ghostly sculpture to dry overnight. Use markers to make eyes and a mouth. The finished ghost can stand alone or be hung with a string. Have each student write or tell a story about the ghost who got loose in the classroom.

6. Rescue Helpers
   Reading/Social Studies Fire Prevention Week is October 9-15. After discussing fire safety with your students, read aloud a book such as Firefighters to the Rescue by Kersten Hamilton (Viking, 2005). Create a mural about rescue workers, using different art mediums and your students' descriptive words.

7. Up Is Down, High Is Low
   Music Introduce the concept of musical tone by having students stand up when you play a high note and sit down when you play a low note. Then, ask students to use raised and lowered hands to indicate the differences in tone. Use as many different instruments as possible.
   

   Rosh Hashanah Custom

   by Jacqueline Schiff

   Dip the apple pieces,
   Dip the braided bread.
   Dip them in some honey,
   For a sweet new year ahead.

8. Happy Jewish New Year!
   Reading/Social Studies After reading Happy New Year, Beni by Jane Breskin Zalben (Henry Holt, 1993), discuss the ways Beni celebrated the holiday. Then share the following poem and enjoy the mentioned treats. Discuss what each food symbolizes. Ask students about their own holiday customs.

9. Propeller Play
   Physical Education Have your students stand with their arms straight out to their sides. Give verbal directions, such as "Propellers on! Slow, small circles forward," "High, large circles backward," and "Propellers off!"

10. Bounce That Ball
    Math Position the children in a circle. Stand in the center with a ball. Pass the ball to a child while calling out a number. After that child bounces the ball the correct number of times, he or she will call out a number and pass the ball to another student. To simplify, the children can pass the ball while you continue to call out the numbers.
    

11. Homemade Clouds
    Science Pour a couple of inches of hot water into the bottom of a narrow-mouthed bottle. Turn off the lights and work as far away from the window as possible. Place an ice cube atop the bottle's opening and set up a small lamp beside it. Watch as a cloud forms. Why does it form? When does it stop, and why? What does this teach us about clouds?

12. Secret Sounds
    Perception Place an object in a box. Shake the box. What can the children decipher about the object? Is it hard or soft? What shape is it? Put other objects in the box and repeat. Encourage students to bring an object from home to put in the box. Do some objects make sounds of their own? Use bells, coins, stones, feathers, etc. Is it possible to tell the exact number? How can identifying objects by their sounds be helpful?

13. Everyday Estimate
    Math Sharpen students' ability to estimate by practicing with them daily. Start with large objects in a small container. Put several peanuts in the shell into a clear container. Place in your students' view. Have students each write an estimate and his or her name on a card. At the end of the day, name the winner, taking time to discuss the size of the container and the objects within. Allow daily winners to keep the contents. Move on to marbles, sunflower seeds, pencils, etc.

14. Drum with Me
    Music Borrow a small drum from the music teacher to play with your hands. Lead the children in a follow-the-leader game of rhythms. Pass out instruments, if available, to the children. If not, have the kids improvise by tapping pencils together, shaking a film canister that contains a couple of coins. etc. Start with simple rhythms, then increase the complexity. Next, play a recording of music and improvise rhythms that go with it.

15. Our Town, Their Town
    Social Studies When studying communities this year, equip your students with cameras. When the pictures come back, arrange them in PowerPoint or on a bulletin board by section – residential, business, recreational, etc. Contact a classroom in a different part of the country and ask the students to send photos from their town. Compare the communities. What are the biggest differences? Use the comparisons for a writing activity.

16. Tree Varieties
    Art/Reading Have each student fold a large piece of white drawing paper into quarters. In each quadrant, illustrate a different kind of tree: deciduous, broadleaf evergreen, coniferous evergreen and palm. Use a different medium for each – chalk, charcoal, paint, markers. This format of comparative art can be used in various curricular areas, such as four operations of math, stages of an insect's life and so on.
    

    ABC Autumn

    by Jacqueline Schiff

    A, B, C, D, E, F, G
    (Tap each alphabet block.)
    Lots of leaves for you and me.
    (Point to classmates, then self.)
    Ash leaves, beech leaves, cherry, too
    (Tap A block, B block, C block.)
    Dogwood, elm, for me and you.
    (Tap D, tap E, point to self, then others.)
    A, B, C, D, E, fall leaves,
    (Tap blocks A-E, hold up F.)
    G from autumn's ginkgo trees.
    (Hold up G block and put it down.)

17. ABC Autumn
    Language/Music Photocopy pictures of different kinds of fall leaves (or the actual leaves). Label each leaf with its name and hang as part of an autumn bulletin board. Give each child alphabet blocks, letters A through G. Teach the following song, sung to the tune of "The ABC song."

18. Parent Activity
    Reading Spread out the eve-ning paper or a magazine that you are finished reading. Have your child find words that he or she knows and mark them with a highlighter. Next, he or she can find words from the spelling list. For added fun, provide a piece of construction paper and scissors for your child to create a collage of words titled, "Words I Know." For older children, give them different colored highlighters and ask for the nouns to be one color, the verbs another. Look through advertising mailers and catalogs to show them that once they know a word, they will understand it in many different places.

19. Wacky Words
    Language Make a spot on the wall for "wacky" words – words that are fun to say, hear or spell. Are they nonsense or "real" words? Can they be found in the dictionary and integrated into one's vocabulary? What neat words have students come across in science, social studies or music?

20. Eggcellent Pumpkins
    Sequencing/Art Cut the cups off of a cardboard egg carton. Instruct students to glue two cups together to form a mini pumpkin. Paint it orange and let dry. Poke a small hole in the top of each with a pencil and insert green chenille sticks for stems. Use black markers to draw features. Have the students write the instructions for this activity in a flow chart.
    

    Hauling

    by Marie Cecchini

    Trucks long and shiny,
    Moving down the road,
    Eighteen wheelers,
    Carry a heavy load.

    What is it that they carry,
    As they move so swiftly by?

    Are they filled with milk or horses,
    Furniture or cars?
    Do they carry gasoline,
    Or mail that travels far?

    Trucks long and shiny,
    Moving down the road,
    Eighteen wheelers,
    Carry a heavy load.

21. Ten-Four, Good Buddy
    Writing For a unique pen pal opportunity for your students, consider Trucker Buddy International, a nonprofit organization that teams up long-haul drivers and classrooms. Visit www.truckerbuddy.org – be sure to go to the Driver of the Month section.

    Bring in pictures of several different kinds of trucks. How many wheels does each have? What purpose does having more or fewer wheels serve? Have students write stories about what the trucks might be carrying, what their destinations are and how many miles they will travel. Read the following poem together to inspire these stories.

22. Science in Print
    Science/Reading October is Children's Magazine Month (www.childmagmonth.org), and several of the newest and best children's magazines deal with science topics. They come in various reading levels and usually feature excellent curricular tie-in projects. This month, invite your librarian to do a presentation on the science magazines that your school receives. Acquire some back issues of these magazines and give one to each student to read and on which to report. Is the magazine topic-based? Are there activities that can be done at home? What in the magazine has the student been studying in science?

23. Another's Home
    Social Studies World Habitat Day is October 4, a good time for your students to learn how people from other countries live. Take them to www.un.org to help them reflect on the living conditions of others. Meet with your librarian to provide books that the children can read about other countries.

24. Germ-Free Zone
    Health After discussing what germs are and how they are spread, instruct your students in ways of cleaning their own work stations. Model correct cleaning of work surfaces and allow time to do so daily. Learning to care for their work stations will improve students' health as well as their organization skills.

    Middle Grades
    

25. The United Nations
    Social Studies October 24 is the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations. Make a collection of flags from around the world with which to decorate your classroom. Collect and read together newspaper and magazine articles about this celebration, and visit www.un.org/pubs/cyberschoolbus
    

26. Smashing Pumpkins
    Math/Art On a 9" x 12" piece of orange construction paper, draw a pumpkin shape. Cut it out. With black crayons, draw the ridges of the pumpkin as well as shapes of eyes, a nose and mouth. On the back, draw jigsaw puzzle lines; write a math problem in each space. Trace the pumpkin shape onto a piece of yellow paper, and write the math problem answers in the corresponding areas. Cut the original along the jigsaw lines. Give the pumpkins to students to reassemble on the yellow paper, matching correct problems and answers. Glue down the pieces, cut away excess yellow and mount them on black backgrounds. This activity can also be used for reviewing vocabulary, or in any curricular area.

27. Music to Work By
    Music Throughout history, people have sung while they worked to help pass time, boost spirits and hawk their wares. Apples For The Teacher by Jane Yolen (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2005) contains musical scores for 30 labor songs as well as the histories of the songs among workers. Some of the professions include astronaut, chimney sweep, street vendor and telephone operator. Folk-art illustrations round out this collection. This book could easily tie together your curricular studies for art, music and social studies.

28. Dream Destinations
    Social Studies Encourage each student to select one place in the world that they dream of visiting one day. Students then design and present to the class a travel package to that destination that includes: type of transportation, total cost, length of stay, map of the destination, recreation, demographics, geography and history. Seal the finished projects in envelopes to be taken home and kept until the students graduate high school.

29. Art Explosion
    Art Bring your students to the interactive art site www.nga.gov/kids/zone/zone.html which features cool art tools like Collage Machine, Mobile and PixelFace. This site will help your students develop excitement and curiosity about art's many forms.

30. Guide to Study Guides
    Social Studies Inspire your students to create their own study guides by sharing with them the book Afghanistan to Zimbabwe by Andrew Wojtanik (National Geo-graphic, 2005). He was the 2004 National Geographic Bee Winner who designed and wrote his own 400-page study guide when in eighth grade. Allow each student to design the most useful guide for himself or herself based on the current unit. Compare the guides. Discuss different learning styles.

31. Story Mural
    Reading/Writing/Art Practice the skill of retelling a story while strengthening comprehension and sequencing. www.ecsu.ctstateu.edu/depts/edu/units/murals.html features stories about murals that will also teach children a bit of art history.
    
    
32. Research Ready
    Science Guide students to www.brookgreen.org for information about plants or animals that can be used in reports. Pictures as well as data are available at this safe source.

33. Fabulous First Lines
    Reading/Writing Send students to the library to copy down the first lines in several books. Read aloud and compare. What makes a good first line? Brainstorm to create some new fabulous first lines and then let the stories continue.
    

34. Avast, Matey!
    Art/Writing Enhance character development by having students create a collage portrait of a pirate about whom they are going to write. Cut fabric into bandanna shapes.

    Use various materials for eyes, eye patches, mouths, facial hair, jewelry. Don't forget, there were women pirates, too! Name the scallywags and let the writing begin.

35. Parent Activity
    Math/Science Once you have decided that your family is ready for a pet, have your children research the best one for your family. Investigate types and breeds; costs and kinds of food and vet care; and local shelters and rescue groups. Set up a comparative care and cost chart. After choosing your animal companion, purchase supplies, prepare the animal's habitat and bring your new family member home. Create a pet scrapbook that features this research.

36. Bilingual Music
    Music/Social Studies Ask students of various cultural backgrounds to bring in cds of their music heritage. Spend a few minutes each day listening to salsa music, steel drums and Irish dances. Why do you think different cultures make different kinds of music? Can the music be characterized in any way? Connect this to your study of various countries of the world and/or to current events.

37. Spooky School
    Reading/Writing Read the book School Spirits by Michael O. Tunnel (Boyds Mills Press, 2005) or another tale of a ghost-like experience with a real explanation. Have students write a spooky story using their own school as the setting. What might cause an odd noise, strange light or disappearing lunches?

38. Skeletal Science
    Science Read the following poem near Halloween, then discuss what a skeleton is and how it functions. Show students 3-d skeletons as well as ones made of paper.
    

    The Model Skeleton

    by Heidi Bee Roemer

    Have you seen him? Please don't scream.
    Though he looks pale and deathly lean,
    He's not a gag for Halloween.

    His job description's quite complex.
    Internal organs he protects;
    He also helps us stand erect.

    You'll never hear him holler, "BOO!"
    Modeling's what he loves to do –
    He reveals what's inside YOU!

39. Set the Stage
    Writing Use books and movies that are popular with students to develop their writing skills. Select a setting like Hogwarts, where Harry Potter goes to school, but elaborate on the details. Have students begin their stories on the staircases that are constantly moving at Hogwarts. Where will their characters get off? What will happen to them if they are on a different floor? Will the moving staircases remain just a setting or become part of the plot? Then have students select a favorite setting from a book or movie to suggest to the class.
    

40. Re-Creation
    Inference Create and display a handcrafted owl, such as the one pictured below. Have students use past knowledge and observation to help them determine what art supplies were used to create the owl, and in what order. Without directions, see if the students can create ones like it on their own. Use this activity to build sequencing abilities.

41. The Shrinking Eye
    Science Provide small mirrors when teaching about the human eye so students can see the pupil, iris, etc. Turn off the lights for a period of time. Have students look into the mirror as the lights come back on to see their own eyes change. If possible, work with dimming the lights, perhaps by drawing curtains. Have students make diagrams of eyes illustrating varying amounts of light present.

42. Crime Prevention
    Social Studies/Art October is Crime Prevention Month. Center your unit on preventing crime in your school. What kind of crimes occur at school? How often? How can they be prevented? Set up a hall monitor system if necessary. Invite the principal to your classroom to hear and participate in the discussion. Design and distribute crime prevention posters dealing with theft, cheating, etc. Is there any way to measure the crime in your school? Design a study to compare crime before and after the campaign.

43. Seeds of Learning
    Math/Science Ask students to divide into groups. Give each group one pumpkin from which the seeds have been removed, and the seeds. Have students count the seeds. If the pumpkin had grown larger, would it have grown more seeds or just bigger ones? Do research in the library and online. Is there a correlation between how many seeds a pumpkin, a watermelon and an apple produces? Have each student research a different fruit and record the findings in his or her journal. Students may then combine their findings into a graph.
    

    Intermediate Grades
    

44. Poppin' Good Time
    Science October is National Popcorn Poppin' Month and a good time to examine this popular food. Visit www.popcorn.org for the history, nutritional information and recipes for popcorn. To help students practice estimation skills, pour some unpopped kernels into one glass jar. popped corn into another. How many kernels are in each? Then, make a Venn diagram comparing popcorn to regular kernel corn.

45. How Far?
    Math/Social Studies Help your students get a sense of the size of the world by making labels for various international cities and their distance from your town. Mark on the labels which cities are east, west, north or south of you. Then have students use the labels to determine how long it would take to travel to each by car, bus, train or air travel. In your library, re-search distances and speeds of various vehicles.

46. Classroom Coffeehouse
    Music Most communities have musically inclined residents who are willing to come to the school to perform and teach. Ask your students to interview neighbors and family members to discover local music resources. Perhaps barbershop quartets, bands, pianists, guitarists and harmonica enthusiasts can be recruited and scheduled to provide Friday "coffeehouse" programs to familiarize students with various musical traditions.
    

    Making Friends

    by Marie Cecchini

    The new girl in our class
    Was very sad today.
    She wanted to go home.
    She didn't want to stay.

    So I walked over to her,
    And took her hand in mine.
    I said, "Come play with me,"
    "We'll have a real good time."

    When the day was over, she said,
    "Thank you, my new friend.
    You were very kind to me.
    Tomorrow, let's play again."

47. Everyday Problems
    Reading/Writing Talk about everyday problems that we've all experienced, such as being new to a town, school or other situation. Read the following poem and discuss how one student helped another. Challenge students to write a poem about some other everyday problem that one student might help solve for another.

48. Decomposition Study
    Science Bring to class a clear plastic five-gallon bucket with holes drilled around the side and bottom. Place one or two gallons of potting soil in the bottom. Discuss with students which objects to put in the compost heap. Place objects in the center, then cover with grass clippings. Keep a record of what has been composted. Add water. After one week, record the temperature in the center, dump the contents out onto a sheet of plastic and observe the decomposition. Record findings, return objects to the bucket and add another layer, if desired. Water weekly, record temperature weekly and dump out again in a month. Make graphs of comparisons, write essays about composting and create posters encouraging this form of recycling.

49. Parent Activity
    Social Studies In a prominent spot in your home, keep a globe or atlas on which your children can tag the hot spots mentioned on the news or in the paper. Have one family member call out the name of a place currently in the news. Whoever finds and marks the locale in less than two minutes gets to call out the next place. After the place has been tagged with a pushpin or sticky note, discuss what is happening there. What does your child think about those events?

50. Punctuating the Story
    Grammar Give each student a copy of a story to be read aloud. Assign sounds for punctuation marks – clap for a period, snap for a comma, etc. Divide students into two teams. Give or subtract points to the team that remembers to signal the marks. Have students try this when editing their own written work. Does it help remind them to use the correct punctuation?

51. Unanswered Questions?
    Science Take your science students and their difficult questions to the MAD Scientist network website at www.madsci.org Submit questions directly to scientists who will send answers back via e-mail.

52. Daytime Drama
    Writing Practice writing dialogue by studying everyday situations. Have students "listen in" on public exchanges – at a fast-food counter, on public transportation or in line at the grocery store. Write mini-dramas using real dialogue. Act them out in class. Are words enough? Are emotions portrayed any other way? Can the same dialogue be acted out in ways that would show other emotions?
    

53. Dividing Line
    Social Studies Draw an arbitrary line through your classroom. Announce that all students currently on one side or the other must stay on these sides. If they've been separated from their desks, they must find one on the new side. Use portable chalkboards, etc. to build an actual wall. Students must not walk on the other side of the room or talk to anyone over there all day. At the end of the day, discuss what it felt like to be separated. Study historical and present-day dividing walls, such as the Berlin Wall (pictured above) and the wall separating the Palestinian and Israeli people.

54. In the News
    Reading Get a variety of daily newspapers and have students read, in groups, articles about the same event. Do all the papers cover the event in the same manner? What are the differences between local and national papers? What does "slant" mean, and why might different papers have different slants on a story?

55. Fraction Bust
    Math Write fraction problems on small strips of paper. Place the strips inside of balloons and blow the balloons up. Use balloons of four different colors. Make a four-color spinner out of heavy cardstock, using a brad fastener to loosely attach the arrow. Have a student spin for a color, pop the balloon and solve the problem at the board. If the solution is correct, award two points. If it is incorrect, allow other students to solve the problem on paper. A correct answer warrants one point. Play until all the balloons are popped.

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:
Sherry Timberman, Kennebunk, ME, #5, #19, #40; Joan Macey, Binghamton, NY, #18, #26, #34; Heidi Anderson, Deerfield, IL, #55

POETRY: "Rosh Hashanah Custom," and "ABC Autumn" by Jacqueline Schiff, Moline, IL. "Hauling" and "Making Friends" by Marie Cecchini, West Dundee, IL. "The Model Skeleton" by Heidi Bee Roemer, Orland Park, IL.

Illustrations by H. Robert Loomis.

October, 2005, Vol.36, No.2