Lesson Plan Feature: Mathematics x 2

Here are two mathematics lessons from PBS LearningMedia for grades 5 – 8.  The first, Multiplying Fractions of the Form a/b of c is from Cyberchase, the PBS Kids program that shows kids that math is everywhere and everyone can be good at it!  Students study fractions and practice writing arithmetic sentences using multiplication and specific proportions.  In the Cyberchase activity, Harry gets a job in a candy store. Customers request boxes containing different types of truffles in differing proportions. This activity extends the problem into the case where there are a variety of numbers of candies in each box and students learn to multiply the fractional part times the number of candies per box to produce the number of candies of each type.

The second lesson, Percentage of Population with Diabetics, is from TV411, the Emmy Award-winning program that focuses on parenting, money matters and health, employing subjects like practical mathematics.  Students learn about percentages in relation to the study of diabetes and look at a nutrition label and apply various skills to answering questions about the label. The video clip in this activity explores how to tally the amount of carbohydrates one consumes each day. Students then learn to calculate the percentages of people who have diabetes.

Both lessons provide Quick Time videos, handouts, assessments and support materials.

 

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Program Feature: Being Elmo Inspires!

Every day, millions tune in to Sesame Street to see one of the world’s most adored and recognizable characters — a furry red three-and-a-half year-old monster named Elmo. Beloved by children of all ages, Elmo is an international icon, but few know about his creator Kevin Clash, whose childhood dream was to be a puppeteer and work with his idol, Jim Henson.

On June 6 at 8pm, WGBY will air Independent Lens’ Being Elmo, revealing the man behind the icon.  Watching Kevin Clash become Elmo is a moving, enlightening experience, especially so for educators who need to inspire themselves and  students to value creativity and do satisfying work.

You’ll see amazing archival footage and present-day material as filmmaker Constance Marks explores Kevin’s story in vivid detail and chronicles the meteoric rise of Jim Henson in the process.  Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and including interviews with those who have known Kevin, this insightful and personal documentary offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at Sesame Street and the Jim Henson legacy.  Check out the trailer for the film below:

At Sesame Street’s website you’ll find many links, including those to games such as Elmo Goes to the Doctor and Elmo’s Word Book as well as many others with beloved Sesame characters.   Sesame’s site for Educators and Parents also offers activities, including supportive tips to promote a fun and engaging learning environment at home.

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Literature Resources from PBS LearningMedia

Toni Morrison Interview Screenshot

Currently on the home page of PBS Learning Media, you’ll find a panoramic picture well of resources for literature ranging from Toni Morrison to children’s literature.  Many of these resources also include related content:

Eeyore’s Books for Children (4-7):  Understand how working in a bookstore helped Brian Selznick learn about children’s literature and launch his career as a children’s book illustrator.

Toni Morrison on Paradise (6-13+):  Discover how Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author Toni Morrison creates a sense of place in her novels and examine her typical writing rituals and processes.

The Recreation of the Globe Theater (6-13+):  Learn about the re-creation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London and consider how architecture can affect the craft of performance.

Literary Elements (9-12)  What is a literary element? Find the answer in this video segment that highlights the personal and artistic life of Walt Whitman.

Great Expectations 3:  Happily Ever After? (9-13+)  This video excerpt is the moving, final scene from the 2012 MASTERPIECE adaptation of Charles Dickens’s novel when Pip, returned to his humble origins, hears that Estella, now a widow, has returned to Satis House.

Anita Silvey (K-12)   Discover that young adult literature of today differs from the adult literature from the past 20 years, with teenagers preferring paranormal fiction to realistic fiction.

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Poems and Poets for All Times

Referenced in a recent post about GIFs (one of the web’s oldest image formats now widely used for its innovative potential),  PBS Arts is the core of an online strategy for strengthening arts awareness, appreciation and education in America.  To spark a resurgence of the visual, cultural and performing arts, this PBS Arts Online concept brings audiences directly into the creative process, fosters individual artistic expression and promotes experimentation.

You can browse a broad and diverse range of  genres such as dance, theater and film, and with April being poetry month, you might especially want to explore writing, where you’ll find these videos and more:

Five Good Answers from a Shakespeare Scholar, Dr. Gail Kern Paster, director of the Shakespeare Folger Library and renowned Shakespeare scholar who collaborated with PBS Teachers to help educators bring Shakespeare into the classroom.

Patrick Stewart:  What We Learn from the Bard , an interview of Emmy- and Grammy-nominated actor of “Star Trek” and “X-Men” fame, who explains what young people can learn from Shakespeare and why Shakespeare remains relevant.

“Mother’s Day” by Daisy Zamora, one of Nicaragua’s most distinguished poets, who eloquently expresses the dilemma of being a mother today, especially one who makes unconventional choices

“One Boy Told Me” by Arab-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye, who uses her unique perspective as his mother to transform a boy’s everyday chatter into a work of art that perfectly captures the magical thinking of children.

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PBS LearningMedia Interactives in Key Curricular Topics

Wish you could tap into the allure of video gaming while communicating key curricular topics? Try PBS LearningMedia’s interactives that allow students to use their best assets!  Your students can compete in a quiz show, conduct experiments in a test kitchen, manipulate organ systems, and step into an 18th century choose-your-own adventure.

Make learning interactive by exploring these and other  resources from PBS LearningMedia:

Super Readers Challenge, Grades PreK-1
Students sharpen essential reading and spelling skills while working toward reward certificates. Challenges include practicing the alphabet, rhyming, reading, and spelling.

Mission US: For Crown or Colony? Grades 6-8
This richly immersive choose-your-own-adventure experience puts your students in the shoes of Nat Wheeler, a 14-year-old in 1770 Boston. An in-depth educator guide provides historical background and classroom activities. Create a username to save games.

Blue Ribbon Readers: The Detective’s Notebook Game, Grades K-5
Your students become deputy detectives when they infer and predict based on the clues. This interactive is perfect for reading comprehension test prep.

Acids and Bases: Kitchen Chemistry, Grades 3-8
Step into the test kitchen to conduct virtual experiments and observe the results. Will your lab journal reveal the chemistry pattern?

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Exemplary Schools and Practices from Edutopia

Film producer/director/screenwriter George Lucas believes that the audience for his award-winning website Edutopia is “Everyone with an interest in improving education.”  The site can be a valuable resource for those dedicated to furthering education, especially the classroom teacher.

Edutopia allows you to browse by grade level, core strategies, videos and more, providing information that ranges from introductory to in-depth material.  For example, for integrated studies – combining disciplines to reveal their interrelationships through student collaboration and critical thinking – you can view the 3-minute video An Introduction to Integrated Studies or a 10-minute video Common Sense: An Overview of Integrated Studies and then explore real-life examples.  One such example is an article, Reinvigorating Education in East Oakland with a video illustrating the success of expeditionary learning at the ASCEND School, where the principal says  the best education “teaches students how to ask questions — and how to discover their own answers.”

Another of the exemplary schools featured on Edutopia is Houston’s YES Prep, with the “cornerstone values of hard work, proactive thinking, honesty, and patience to life.”  Heavily invested in finding the best new teachers, the school hired consultants to identify their own teachers’ personalities to help in screening new teachers.  These seven attributes comprise the quiz Super Teacher Traits, which you might want to take.

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From Eagles to Wolfs to Dogs: Science Resources from NATURE

Tonight at 8pm, Nature presents Jungle Eagles.  Scientists know little about Harpy eagles, the most powerful birds of prey in the world.  You and students can enter their secret world with Nature’s crew as they locate a nest and struggle to document the lives of these elusive birds in Venezuela’s Orinoco River jungle.

When you go to Nature’s website and click on For Educators, you can browse by current season, title, animal, type, grade level, video segments, teachers’ guides and much more.  For example, under current season, you’ll find video-enhanced lessons such as From Wolf to Dog. Using clips from Nature’s “Dogs that Changed the World,” students learn that all dogs came from one ancestor — the wolf. (Grades 5-8) In addition to resources such as websites, National Science Education Standards and activities, this lesson offers tools such as a “Dog Breed” Student Organizer and “Dog Interview” Student Organizer.

The Teachers’ Guide provides lessons that use the miniseries’ programs as a starting point for discussions about the domestication of dogs, selective breeding, and the ways in which humans and dogs work and live together.  It also includes teacher’s pages and student activity masters that can be used with any or all programs.

It’s hard to convey the breadth and depth of these resources, so please visit yourself to explore all that Nature has to offer you and your students!

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Classroom Resources for Bullying

Believe it or not, October is almost over, as is National Bully Prevention Month.  But, it’s never too late to talk about bullying with students.  Here’s a selection of PBS LearningMedia resources to engage students on this important subject:

Cyber-Bullies are No Fun (Grades 4-6):  Cyber-bullying targets one or more children through technology to threaten, harass, or embarrass the victim, and so goes beyond just bullying because it can follow them home (e.g., through text or e-mail messages, blogs, social networking web site). With this video students learn to recognize the dangers posed by cyber-bullies and discover steps for dealing with kids who bully online.  This resource is aligned to Social Studies in the PBS LearningMedia curriculum framework

Stop Bullying…Take a Stand   (Grades 7-13+)  This solution-oriented video clip presents a comprehensive and multifaceted approach to preventing bullying. It also provides help and advice to victims, parents and bystanders. This resource is aligned to ELA, Health & Physical Education, and Professional Development in the PBS LearningMedia curriculum framework.

Jean Decety Says Bullies’ Brains Might Work Differently (Grades 6-7) Decety is a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago who studies human empathy.  In this audio he talks about his study on how children with aggressive conduct disorder – associated with bullying – process empathy.  This resource is aligned to Science (Evolution & diversity, Structure & Function, and Nature of Science) in the PBS LearningMedia curriculum framework.

How do I sign-up for PBS LearningMedia?

PBS LearningMedia is a brand-new service so you’ll need to create a  registration — it’s free and easy.  Visit www.pbslearningmedia.org.                    However, if you’re already registered as a PBS Teacher, you can activate       your PBS LearningMedia account using those credentials.

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Fall Professional Development from PBS

If you missed our post about the start of PBS TeacherLine’s fall term , the online courses start on Wednesday, October 26, and busy educators can sign up through tonight: Friday, October 28.

The following two PBS TeacherLine online professional development courses are designed to re-energize and reinvigorate teaching and learning:

PreK-6: Have fun with Engineering  – This course will get your creative juices flowing while you learn the engineering design process and the development of model eliciting activities (MEA). You will design an original MEA that aligns with curriculum and pilot it in your classroom. You’ll be able to engage your students while they develop hands-on solutions and then test the model they developed.

K-12: Engage Multiple Intelligences   – Discover the advantages of teaching methods that engage multiple intelligences and explore ways to implement them. You will learn to teach and assess students differently based on their individual intellectual styles.

Many other courses in PBS TeacherLine’s catalog include those in differentiated instruction, curriculum mapping, mathematics and science.  And, if you use promo code 2011fall, you’ll receive $10 off the course price.

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Health and the Environment: Teens Take Action

Start your next classroom conversation on health and the environment with two hot topics just published in Community Action from Massachusetts Teachers’ Domain: Digital Media for MA Educators.

Students will learn that the European Union, recognizing the potential health effects of toxic chemicals in cosmetics, has already banned 1,000+ chemicals from use while the U.S. has banned only about 10 chemicals, and that many cosmetics companies have chosen not to sell the safer versions here.  A short clip for grades 6-12, Teens for Safe Cosmetics, follows highly effective teen lobbyists as they campaign for greater safety, such as  Jessica, a leader for Teens for Safe Cosmetics, and a group of young women who educated people about a toxic chemical used in nail polish and lobbied for the California Safe Cosmetics Act of 2005.

In another Community Action video, also for grades 6-12, Food Justice is adapted from one created by urban high school students in collaboration with the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, discussing problems in food systems and what can be done about them.

These videos, with content that spans K-12, provide authentic, real-world context and are accompanied by background essays, discussion questions and standards.

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