“Please Touch” Board Jennifer, Primary Grade Teacher: United Kingdom

"When you are trying to teach young children about their senses, here is an idea for the sense of touch. Create a bulletin board with the words “Please Touch” as a title. The following are some ideas of what you can put on this board: a feather, cotton ball, sandpaper, a piece of material, ribbon, a rock. The students can add things to the bulletin board as their awareness grows. They can describe the feeling of each item on the board. A vocabulary list can be developed, describing each item. Students can write descriptive sentences using the words. Make a list of other things that feel the same as each item. Talk about similarities and differences."

Math Mania Harry Longerman, 4th Grade Teacher: Brooklyn, New York

"Use your bulletin board for posting results to any survey that you can conduct with your students on any given topic. This can change each week. You can keep the results of the survey by using a frequency distribution and then calculating the results with the entire class at the end of the week. This can sharpen math skills and keep students interested on the results as they are posted. Results can be posted as charts, bar graphs, or qualitative measures. I used this with the past election and it worked great. It kept students interested and reinforced math concepts as well."