"Valentine's Day Science Skills" Rebecca Mancino, 4th Grade Teacher

"This time of year is a great time to review some inquiry skills that we have learned. I bring in heart shaped boxes for my students and fill them with those little candy hearts. Once they receive the box they have to estimate how many hearts are in the box, count the hearts, and find the difference. Then have the students develop a classification key for group the hearts. They usually group them by color, words, or size. I pair 4 students together and have them estimate how many hearts it would take to reach end to end on the meter stick. We do this lengthwise and height-wise. Again, I have the students count and determine the difference (actual vs. estimated). I usually finish off by having them graph the actual and estimated outcomes. Overall, the students really enjoy it."

"Patty Cakes" Adept, Home School Teacher: Australia

This is one of those great cooking activities you can give to your young ones. My 3 and 4 year olds love to make patty cakes as do the older ones. When the patty cakes have cooled they usually make and add icing to them for color. They might need a little help with the oven though.

Ingredients: 1 vanilla cake packet mix, 1 egg, 2/3 cup of milk, Patty cake paper holders

Method: Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place cake mix into a bowl with egg and 2/3 cup of milk and mix thoroughly. Scoop mixture into little patty cake holders and place in oven for about 10 - 15 minutes. Pull out when slightly browned and leave to cool.

"Walking Into The City" Dave Rosenberg, Teacher

"I live in Adelaide, Australia and we are concerned about the fitness of the children in our care. We live about 6 kilometers from the centre of the city, so one day I challenged my year 4/5 class.(9 to 10 year olds).

I asked them, "Who would like to walk into the city?" At first, they seemed horrified about walking that distance, but after we had discussed training and backup from parents, the idea turned into the challenge that I wanted.

We started walking around the school as part of our training. Everyday we would venture out further. We would estimate the distance on maps that the children were given and then we estimated how long it would take us to walk the next training session (Great Maths lesson). I wrote to the parents and got their support. We managed to get enough parents who were free during the day to come and pick us up at the end of the walk. We even planned our goal to be a great playground in the city so the children (who had the energy could play while waiting for the parents to turn up.) The children started walking to home as part of Homework. Parents walked with them so there was a positive spinoff.

The day arrive and we stretched before starting our walk. It turned out to be a huge success with more parents turning up on the day to clap the walkers achieving their goal. Every time the children drive into the city they will remember the walk into the city.

Follow up activities were:

• writing about their achievement (in catchy slogans) on the steps of the school administration building.
• drawing their shoes in pencil and writing the slogan "these shoes are made for walking" underneath. painting on the soles of their shoes (with luminous colours)and then printing out their footprints on paper. (made a great display across the ceiling of our classroom)

Overall it was a great activity which covered the subjects of Fitness, Maths and Art."

Classroom Jobs LaVerne Browne, 5th Grade Teacher

"For ease in assigning classroom jobs, I use a different folded pieces of construction paper for each job. Each job gets 2 pieces of the same color; one for new jobs and one for old. To each folded piece of paper, I attach a letter size envelope. Both the construction paper along with the attached envelope is stapled onto a small bulletin board. At the beginning of the year, each student has his/her name in the new envelopes. As each job is assigned weekly, I put the student's name who had the job in the old envelope, then pull a new students' name from the new envelope. When all my students have had a particular job, I take all the old names out, put them in the new envelope, and start over. It is visible for students and if they forget who has a particular job, all they have to do is look over at the board."

Super Job Chart Maxine Bonneau, Grade 4 Teacher

"On a piece of blue posterboard, I measured out 24 lines fitted side-by-side, 12 in each column. I leave about 3" for the heading: "Classroom Job Chart." The rows are set up with leftover pieces of clear laminate (from the 12" of waste that comes off of the machine when you start it. Or, you can use clear cellophane. I cut strips 1" wide x 9" long (half of a posterboard held horizontally is 14"). With 1/2" for the edge, I tape the 1" strip of plastic to form a top-loading pocket. I then make a 3" long strip in the same manner to fit on the same row. Into each of these 9" strips, I slide a job description such as: pass out paper, collect paper, messenger, water plants, erase board, daily calendar numbers, weather chart, fill in test calendar, sweep floors, etc. The students' names were put onto the 3" strips and slid into the pockets. Each week, I simply take out the names, one by one and put them into the next job slot so that each week they have a different job. I have 21 students and each has a job. We even have a person to close the closet doors and to clean up after science labs. To make the chart easier for me to read, the letters are all 3/4" tall and the boys have light blue const. paper, the girls are on pink paper. If you laminate or cover both sides with clear plastic shelf liner(in any discount dept. store,) the names will last the entire school year."