A Mirror Brain Teaser
This may boggle your students’ minds for a while. If a mirror reverses an image left to right, then why doesn’t it reverse the same image top to bottom? What do you think? Here’s our unscientific opinion:
Lesson Plans
Cheap-O Electricity Unit
Old Christmas lights and a D cell battery provide all the juice you need for a cheap-o electricity lesson.
Stick it Together
Learning about adhesives is a real-world experience. Here are ideas to help the experience stick with your students.
Glop Gloop: Gooey fun in time for Fall
Yes, it’s Fall and Halloween will be here before you know it. Reader Linda Patton shares these recipes for physics-defying goop your students can make, play with and learn from.
Clingy & Colorful Crystals
Salt, sugar, borax, washing soda…. There is a long list of ingredients that can go into solutions which form crystals. T2T contributors offer advice on >>>
Make Ice Cream in a Plastic Bag
Yes, it sounds dangerous and the potential for messes seems highly likely, but you’ll be surprised at the good, “clean” fun you’ll enjoy with your >>>
Keeping Cool With Air Conditioners
Only in the past decade or so have districts begun installing air conditioners in old schools, and including them in new schools. Air conditioning is >>>
Teaching ESL with Music
Submitted by: Deborah Harvey Objective: Teaching vocabulary through music Resources: Recorded children’s music, written words for songs, pictures depicting vocabulary in song. Teacher Preparation: Collect >>>
Palindromes
Palindromes are, of course, words, verses or sentences that read backward or forward.
Idioms
Idioms are phrases with non-literal meanings. Compile a list of idioms, and have students choose five or more. They can draw pictures to represent the idiom.
Synonyms and Antonyms
Students will learn to identify synonyms and antonyms by rewriting headlines from the Sports section of the newspaper.
Adjectives, Adverbs and Advertising
The student will identify adjectives and adverbs and be able to use them correctly in a Christmas-related creative writing project.
Anagrams: Beyond Computer Solutions
Anagram solving in the classroom (along with the use of other puzzles such as acrostics, crosswords, word-searches, etc.) brings pattern recognition to the problem-solving process. In fact, algorithms have been written to port the process rather successfully over to the computer, to the point that numerous anagram generators can be found on the web. Just type in a word or phrase, hit the button, and all the work is done for you. However, solving problems without electronic intervention can have real-world value not readily apparent to your students.
Acrostics M.O.T.I.V.A.T.E. Your Students
Have your students come up with acrostics for your school mascot, school name, teacher’s name, or even individual students’ names. These are great for bulletin boards and school displays, and are equally fun (and challenging) on notebook paper.
Delivering a Persuasive Speech
In this introduction to public speaking, students will learn how to deliver an organized, persuasive speech to an audience.