Dear Education Leaders,

Welcome! This free weekly Lesson Planning newsletter features summaries of lesson plans recently published on Education World^®, the largest free, independent resource on the Web for educators. If you enjoy this newsletter, please feel free to forward it to others. If this newsletter has been forwarded to you, you may sign up at http://www.educationworld.com/maillist.shtml. To unsubscribe, see instructions at the bottom of this newsletter. Education World remains a free resource thanks to the support of our advertisers -- so please click on ads of interest and visit our advertisers' sites. Thank you.

==============================================================================

This week's newsletter is sponsored by Target.

Target invites educators to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with free lesson plan downloads created by the Smithsonian Institution. Learn more at Scholastic.com/dreamincolor. This is just one of the ways Target supports education. It’s part of our commitment to give 5% of our income to communities. That’s over $3 million a week.

==============================================================================

Volume 11, Issue 39
September 30, 2009

Explore the Explorers
Land ho! From Columbus to Cousteau... Education World has "discovered" great sites, lesson plans, and new ways to help you and your students as you explore the world of the explorers. From the New World to new worlds in space, travel with us as we share a boatload of teaching ideas. Included: Dissecting Columbus, celebrating Lewis and Clark, exploring America's westward expansion, much more.

Fall Lessons
Looking for fall lessons? We've g'autumn!

Fire Prevention Week
"Stay Fire Smart: Don't Get Burned" -- that's the message of Fire Prevention Week 2009 (October 4-10). Testing the water before putting a child in the bath may sound like common sense. Wearing short or close-fitting sleeves when cooking on the stovetop may show foresight. Those and other simple actions may be all it takes to prevent devastating burns. Included: A firehouse full of cross-curriculum activities and fire-related Web sites for Fire Prevention Week.

Hispanic Heritage Month
Ideas, resources for teaching about Hispanic culture.

Bullying Prevention Week: October 4-10
Education World offers ten lessons designed to teach students to respect diversity and resolve ideological differences peacefully. Included: Ten activities – teaching about empathy, anger management, and effective conflict resolution. For more bullying resources, be sure to see our Bullying Archive.

Popcorn
Add a little pop to your week -- popcorn, that is. These lesson plans are sure to engage students as they create popcorn timelines, maps, and graphs; do popcorn science and math; explore popcorn history and nutrition; and munch leftover popcorn snacks too.

Lesson Plan of the Day Click the link above to see dozens of recent Lesson Plans of the Day, including the lessons below that were posted last week.
The Great Chicago Fire - Investigate its causes. (Grades 6-12)
Create a Globe - Use a balloon and paper-paste mixture. (3-5)
Fire Safety Songs & Poems - For Fire Safety Week, October 4-10. (PreK-2)
Catchy Captions - Write captions for news photos. (K-5)
Million $ Mission - Calculate the quickest way. (3-12)
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/archives/dailylp.shtml

Education World's Work Sheet Library includes hundred of free printables for use across the grades and across the curriculum. You will find a sampling of our printables below. Be sure to visit our Work Sheet Library for a complete selection. Math Fact Practice Fact Practice Work Sheets Use these printables for addition and subtraction math fact practice. Coming soon: multiplication, division. Free Work Sheets From TLS Books Pyramid Math Add the adjacent numbers together and write their sum in the block above them. Every-Day Edits Primary Edits Animals A to Z: Eagle. Ele-Middle Edits Jimmy Carter, "Peanuts," Mount Rushmore... Writing Bug Story Starter Imagine that you are the oldest person in the world. What kind of life have you lived? Coloring Calendar October Calendar Plus 25 ideas for using the learning calendar. Build a Fab Vocab Vocab-u-lous! Activity Words that begin with G. Hunt the Fact Monster Primary Hunt October hunt #1 Ele-Middle Hunt Hunt #5 Math Cross Puzzle Solve a Puzzle A puzzle a week, all school year long. Geography A to Z Places That Begin With the Letter C Can you name all seven places? More Printables Work Sheets from Teacher Created Materials 100+ printables for all subjects, grades. Phonics Word Search Puzzles A puzzle a week all school year long. Sudoku Puzzles Challenge students with number fun. Work Sheet Library See our entire library of free printables.

Learning Game of the Week
"Math Madness," a small-group, computation game.

News for Kids
The latest edition of the Guinness Book of World Records went on sale last week.

Friday Fun
Challenge students to create a human number line.

From Our
Early Childhood
Activity Bank
Special Activities for Fire Prevention Week (October 4-10), More...
Why Stop, Drop, and Roll?
Let's Meet at a Safe Place
Egg Carton Fire Truck
Find the Fire Exits
Get Low and Go (Fire Safety)
Fire Dogs and Red Dots
Pumpkin Graph
Make a Mini Pumpkin

From the Learning Machine
Explore the coolest resources on the Web.
From the Science Machine
Use Air Junk to explore the topics of biology, air quality, and health. (Grades 3-8)
From the Reading Machine
Punctuation Paintball reinforces punctuation and capitalization. (Grades 1-8)
From the Math Machine
Tangram Game is a fun Web site for teaching students to recognize and manipulate shapes and for problem solving. (Grades K-6)

The Math and Science Corner

Wendy Petti's Math Cats
Connections to Math in Real Life
Discover collections of real-world math activities, online data sources, collaborative math and science projects, more.

Featured Math Article
Interest Grows in
Checkbook Math
Teachers say personal finance lessons can help with basic skills and behavior.

Go Figure!
How many squares can students create using the dots in this puzzle?

Your Place or Mine?
Identifying place value from 10,000 to .00001

Math Mnemonics
Greater than or less than?

The Science Lab
My Teacher Caused an Earthquake
An introduction to the topic of seismic waves produced by earthquakes.

Vicki Cobb's Show-Biz Science
Discover how "lite" diet drinks live up to their names.

The Writing Center

Cause and Effect Writing
Challenges Students
Teachers who emphasize cause-and-effect writing say it helps students learn to think critically and write cogently.

The Classroom Secretary
Mellanay Auman's student secretaries keep class running smoothly.

Ten Prompts for Student Writing
Ten prompts for engaging writing assignments.(Grades 3-8)

Headline News
Create simple stories using words cut from newspaper headlines. (Grades 3-12)

Writing Bugs
It's My Business
If you could open a business of your own...
Not Music to My Ears
I like all kinds of music except...

The Reading Room

Reader's Theater
The Red Dragon
A Red Dragon tells all the animals he will fly them to another world, but the trip ends in disaster.

Reading Feature
Students Meet Their Favorite Authors -- on the Internet
From the bright cheer of picture-book-writer Eric Carle's home page to the direct approach of Aaron Shepard's, authors' pages teem with biographical information, bibliographies, information about specific books, and activities geared to fun and learning.

More Lesson Ideas

Teacher-Submitted Lesson Plans
Teacher Lesson #1
Fun quiz game format fits any subject.
Teacher Lesson #2
Students shop for one of five profiled families.
Teacher Lesson #3
Literature teaches about types of bullying, how to deal with it.
Teacher Lesson #4
Aesop's fables as a backdrop for citizenship, letter-writing lessons.

Early Childhood Teaching Themes
Colors Around You
Fire Safety
Rhyme Time: Poems for Early Childhood
This week, early childhood editor Sue LaBella presents...
Cooking Fun in the Classroom

Bulletin Boards That Teach
All-Star Effort -- This best-work bulletin board changes every week or two throughout the year.

5-Minute Fillers
Volume 19.

Just for This Month!
See our October Month of Fun, October Word Search, and October Coloring Calendar. PLUS! Create your own work sheets for this month’s holidays and special days.

Best Books for Teaching About… Each week, Education World presents our Editors' Choices for the best books for teaching about popular classroom themes. Check out our choices and add your own recommendations to the Readers' Voices section of this week's themed booklists. Best Books for Teaching About...Explorers Best Books for Teaching About...Communities and Community Helpers See more great books for students and classroom teaching themes.

Fred Jones's Tools for Teaching
Teaching to the Physical Modality
"Say, See, Do Teaching" reduces many of the learning and behavior problems that teachers face every day, by attacking structural problems that underlie the "bop 'til you drop" approach.

Emma McDonald: The New Teacher Advisor
Managing the Quagmire of Disillusion
One of the best pieces of advice I got before entering the classroom for the first time was given by my favorite high school science teacher who said, "Give teaching at least two full years before you even consider quitting."

Eric Baylin's Songs to Brighten a Teacher's Day
Oh, Lunch Duty
This song was inspired by my opportunity to perform weekly lunch duty. I can manage my classroom well enough, but amid the lunchtime fries and frenetic conversations, I hold little sway.

Mr. Ivan:
The Principal Poet
Education World's resident poet, Mr. Ivan, presents a poem that is sure to bring grins to school leaders everywhere. This week's poem is...
"Hall Lockers"
Education World's resident poet, Mr. Ivan, presents a poem that is sure to bring grins to school leaders everywhere. This week's poem is "Hall Lockers."
My locker's stuck! I can't get in!
My books are locked in tight,
So I've been kicking and banging
On the door to make things right...
Read more...

Alma Rowe's Gadget of the Week
Convert Tube
Save your favorite online videos to your PC, iPod, PSP, or mobile.

Wire Side Chat
Dealing With Difficult Parents
In Dealing With Difficult Parents, Doug Fiore and Todd Whitaker offer strategies and techniques that make it easier to deal with seemingly difficult parents and with the difficult situations in which they find themselves. Included: Doug Fiore answers our questions.

Five-Minute Tech Fillers
For those occasional moments when you find yourself with "just a little" extra time.

Strategy of the Week
Teaching Manners
Character education is a hot topic, but what about manners education? Teachers who "teach" manners say they notice a real difference in students' attitudes and academics.

Virtual D.C.
Sue Bailey's virtual travelers use tools of technology to tour the Capital.

Grammar Slammer
The goal of Grammar Slammer is to allow students to master grammar at their own pace.

Wire Side Chat
The Book Whisperer
A chat with Donalyn Miller about strategies designed to get kids to read -- including allowing children to choose their own books, and providing reading role models and time to read.

Classroom Management Article of the Week
Token Economies Yield Promising Results
When classroom management is a struggle, the answer might be as simple as a "Five and Dime." See how systems based on "token economies" can work with even the toughest classes.

Enlisting the Community to Promote Achievement
Concerned that many urban students, especially African-American ones, were underachieving in school, Hugh B. Price made community involvement in local schools a focus of his tenure at the National Urban League as well as the subject of a book. Included: Suggestions for rallying the community around student achievement.

A Blog for School Leaders
Have you seen these latest blog entry?
The Flu in School: Tools You Can Use
The news is full of dire predictions about the current flu season. But with a little prevention education you can help fend off its impact in your school. Included: A Sneezing 101 video, handwashing stickers, flu flyers to send home, more.
Video PD Spurs Engagement Through Humor

Ballentine Elementary Goes to "Work" in Many Ways
The staff at one South Carolina elementary school noted that many of their students' parents worked 30 minutes or more away. Those parents were not able to drop by to visit classrooms -- so the staff sought other ways to bring them into the loop.

Education World Introduces RSS! Want to be alerted whenever Education World updates one of your favorite Channels or adds content related to a subject of interest? Subscribe today to our RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to get new content delivered directly to your desktop! Learn about the latest new content posted to our Lesson Planning, Professional Development, Administrator's Desk, or Technology Integration Channels. Be notified when we add new content related to the teaching of Reading, Math, Writing, or Science. Be the first to see new Classroom Management resources. Sign up for a special RSS feed especially created for New Teachers. See new content related to Parent Involvement. Let us inform you when we add new resources to our Tools & Templates area. Sign up today for one or more of Education World's RSS alerts Learn more about RSS

Each week, we ask readers to cast their votes in The Weekly Survey. Cast your vote in this week's question of interest to all educators.

This Week’s Survey Question
For how many years have you been a teacher?

Last Week’s Survey Results
Which statement below best describes your school's handwriting program?

Each week, Education World spotlights books of interest to educators. This week, read a brief summary of two more of our "top 50 books for educators."

Home, School and Community Relations: A Guide to Working with Families
Said to be for students as well as teachers, administrators, and parents, this book is probably of most use to teachers and principals. Author Carol Gestwicki is revisiting this topic in this 2006 book, having published a similar title in 1996. With practical guidance on such topics as how to deal with "Troublesome Attitudes and Behaviors," the book can certainly help schools navigate the tricky waters of community relations. With research showing that community engagement is highly correlated with better school performance, this guidance can be very valuable indeed.
Click to learn more or to purchase this book.

Paideia Proposal
First published in 1982, this book by philosopher Mortimer J. Adler is a modern classic. Taking the ancient Greek word paideia as its touchstone, this very brief book (under 100 pages) powerfully links education with democracy and proposes that society must make education the very center of its energies if it is to truly be democratic. Written before the technology revolution, the underlying argument of this book is, interestingly, even more important 25 years later.
Click to learn more or to purchase this book.

Click the icon to the right to see more books and many other products that are available in the Education World MarketPlace.

==========================================================================

The Best of LEARNING GAMES

If you enjoy Education World's weekly LEARNING GAMES feature, you'll love this book! Education World and the National Education Association (NEA) have joined forces to create a handy, pocket-size booklet of more than 30 of our most popular learning games. PLUS an extra bonus -- ten more games for classroom fun!

These classroom games span the grades and the major subject areas -- and inject a healthy dose of fun into the serious business of teaching and learning. Looking to fill the end of a hectic day with something fun and educational? Looking for a great reward for students that will make valuable use of free time? Looking to reinforce basic skills with a fun activity? These games will fill the bill!

Included in this 80-page booklet you'll find these games and more:

==========================================================================

Education World now incorporates www.SchoolNotes.com ~ "everybody on the same page!" The leading school-to-home communications platform, with FREE pages for teachers and automatic notification of parents and students when new homework is posted!

For a modest $24.95 PER YEAR, upgrade to Personal Edition, "Super SchoolNotes," with thousands of resources linked to your state's standards.

Click here for more information.

==========================================================================

MORE FEATURES OF INTEREST
Reader's Theater More than two dozen scripts, perfect for the classroom.
Best Books for Teaching About... Booklists for 30 popular teaching themes.
Sign Up for Our Newsletters Ten free newsletters full of practical ideas.
Special Education Center Tools for the special education community.
Techtorials Tutorials take the terror out of tech.

==========================================================================
LEAVE 'EM LAUGHING
==========================================================================

Wordplay

Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, "You stay here, I'll go on a head."

I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: "Keep off the Grass."

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

The height-challenged fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

A backward poet writes inverse.

In democracy, it's your vote that counts. In Feudalism it's your Count that votes.

When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

A Towel, Please (And Quickly!)

One day a child at Sunday school class told her classmates that she needed a "damp towel." Some of the other kids thought she said a naughty word and told on her.

The teacher stepped in to explain, "If your mommy asked you to bring her a damp towel, what does she want?"

A little girl blurted out, "She means she wants that towel right now!"

Telling Time

Xavier: Why did the clock get kicked out of class?
Paolo: You got me. Why?
Xavier: Because it was tocking!

Little Johnny Strikes Again

Little Johnny: I failed every subject except for algebra.
Father: How did you keep from failing that?
Little Johnny: I didn't take algebra!

==========================================================================

If you enjoy this Lesson Planning Newsletter, please feel free to forward it to other teachers! If this newsletter has been forwarded to you, you may sign up for it -- and any of the other Education World newsletters -- at http://www.educationworld.com/maillist.shtml.

SIGN UP FOR OUR OTHER NEWSLETTERS

Have you signed up to receive the...
Education World SITE REVIEWS NEWSLETTER?

Each week, Education World's Site Reviews Newsletter reviews three new Web sites of interest to PreK-12 educators. The weekly reviews spotlight some of the best resources on the Web for teachers and students. At least a couple times a month, we also shine the spotlight on a topic of wide interest to teachers; we present five or more great resources for teaching about that topic.

Would you like to see a sample of the Education World Site Reviews Newsletter? If so, simply click the link below:
http://www.educationworld.com/newsletters_images/sr_sample.shtml

If you would like to subscribe to the Education World Site Reviews Newsletter, simply click the following link:
http://www.educationworld.com/maillist.shtml#reviews

If the Site Reviews Newsletter is not of interest to you, do you know somebody else who might benefit from it? Perhaps you could pass this information along to that person.

==========================================================================

Education World®
http://www.educationworld.com/
newsletter-lessons@educationworld.com

Education World
1062 Barnes Road Suite 205
Wallingford, CT 06492

==========================================================================