This article differentiates between sustained productive learning and short term enthusiasm in learning. (BB)

Children use creative thinking processes when teachers assign ambiguous rather than specific problems. Suggestions for developing questions that encourage experiential and metaphorical thinking are offered. (DF)

Describes discovery learning, a teaching method that encourages students to use inductive reasoning. Students explore and experiment using the skill or idea being taught; they determine rules, make generalizations, and discover concepts. The teacher acts as coach, advisor, and reinforcer. A student page offers a discovery learning game on capital…

Elementary teacher describes a two-week project which involved using cooperative learning to teach sixth graders about averages. Cooperative groups worked to find the daily average of a variety of items. Students had real-world examples of averaging to replace standard textbook drill and practice. (SM)

Students need to be able to classify mapping devices, map purposes, and code forms so that skills learned on one map setting can be readily transferred to any map using the same techniques. (MB)

The ninth installment of the Science in a Box series (self-contained, hands-on activities for students grades three and up) presents activities for learning to use the sense of touch to determine how different objects conduct heat. All projects in the series are inexpensive and easy to assemble. (SM)

Ordinary household appliances can be used in the classroom to inspire unusual research, artwork, and problem solving. Suggestions on how to organize and collect materials to develop an appliance science unit are offered. (DF)

Presents ideas to help elementary teachers encourage their students to discover the excitement of doing descriptive, historical, or experimental research by seeking new information, testing hypotheses, gathering data, drawing conclusions, and using appropriate vocabulary. The article includes questions for children to investigate and words used by…

Describes one elementary teacher's strategies to help students learn spelling using cooperative learning groups. Mixed-ability groups of four children are established, and students take turns being the caller, recorder, reader, and checker. Students retain more because of the amount of repetition. A weekly classroom spelling schedule is presented.…

Presents classroom learning activities to help elementary teachers and students learn about and experiment with the sense of taste. One involves tasting an apple while smelling an onion; another involves locating areas of the tongue that respond to salt, sweet, bitter, and sour. (SM)

Presents creative ways for teachers to interest students in learning history by encouraging a feel for the context and interrelationships of events. Names, dates, and events are interspersed with opportunities for students to experience history through their own lives (e.g. oral histories, personal scrapbooks, family photographs, and household…

Presents ideas to help elementary school educators teach their students about magnetic force fields by observing how iron filings line up around magnets. The article lists materials needed and offers a student page with suggested student activities. (SM)

Presents low-cost learning activities to help teach elementary students about the earth's magnetic field. One project has students make a model of the earth's magnetic field. Another has them experiment with magnetism. (SM)

Activities using a grocery store receipt are suggested to develop thinking skills. Science, mathematics, language arts, health, and social studies activities are also offered. A reproducible page with a receipt on it is provided. (MT)

Presents a handbook of activities to sharpen elementary students' observational and critical thinking skills as they monitor national, local, and classroom elections. Activities teach the steps of sound decision making. Students learn to set up complete classroom or schoolwide elections. A poster describes life in the White House. (SM)