Critiques two popular and current perspectives on the nature of understanding in science education, and offers a competing perspective drawing from Dewey, aesthetics, and aesthetic experience. Uses aesthetic understanding as an analytic lens to critique and illuminate the learning of three students studying geology in a fourth-grade classroom.…

Discusses the need to change the Montessori botany nomenclature cards to reflect the progress of the field over the past 55 years. Maintains that the materials used should reflect the goals of botany study for children. Provides a sample outline of lessons and nomenclature for the flowering plants. Discusses the need to use available reference…

An elementary school teacher describes how students in grades five through six developed language-arts and other skills by rewriting Shakespeare plays; learning stage design, techniques, and vocabulary; reflecting on Shakespeare's intentions and their own insights into the plays' meanings; and presenting both original plays and their own versions.…

Strategy games can provide an interesting context for students to solve problems in an elementary mathematics classroom. The games are easy to learn, but finding a winning strategy exercises students to develop different methods to win the game.

The intent of this article is to inspire physical educators to reflect on their individual practices and to investigate ways to implement differentiation strategies in a learning environment that is not "one size fits all." They should know what differentiation is, and be familiar with numerous strategies that can be practiced in physical…

Contemporary American culture has taken on protecting children from the consequences of their own actions so much that parents are raising children for whom being responsible for one's own actions and one's own work is anathema to "good parenting." Unlike the culture of the past, many parents spend hours on end with their children under…

Although interviewing looks easy, it is much more complicated than it appears, and generally, students are not taught how to conduct an interview. Planning and preparation must include research about the subject of the interview and the person being interviewed. Good questions build on the question before, make the person being interviewed think,…

The issue of how a child constructs higher order, logical mathematical intelligence within the context of a multiple-intelligences classroom is explored in this story. Teacher journal observations of one 5th-grade child are woven with selected literature on multiple intelligences and research trends in elementary mathematics education. The story…

A pilot hunger awareness program was developed for fourth graders in a low-income elementary school. Objectives were to provide students with information that would increase their awareness of hunger in their communities by helping them identify signs of hunger, food pantries located within their school zip code area, and a resource person in…

This paper examines recent Australian children's literature. It focuses on the prevailing social attitudes in Australia towards gender, environment, and multiculturalism and how these social issues are treated in the fiction books written for Australian children. The paper also examines the implications for children's literature of the…

This study, which was conducted by a national consumer advocacy organization, examined the nutritional adequacy of the diets of elementary school children. The study also examined the nutritional adequacy of meals served in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The study determined that: (1) children consume too much fat, cholesterol, and…

This monograph is a compilation of comments written by elementary level classmates of students with severe disabilities, produced as part of Maine's statewide project for inclusive schools, Project LEARNS (Local Education for All in Regular Neighborhood Schools). The comments are grouped into six categories: (1) valuing differences and overcoming…

Parent participation in the education of their disadvantaged children at Buffalo (New York) Public School 37 resulted in the development of an effective reading program. Desired competencies were delineated; carefully paced and sequenced teaching plans were prepared; and criterion referenced tests were used to measure the levels of mastery of each…

This paper comments on program and policy issues concerning school-age day care. The issues discussed are as follows: (1) what kind of day care provision do school-age children prefer? (2) what constitutes a high quality day care program? and (3) how can parents, the general public, and politicians be persuaded to support and finance day care…

Overviews attempts to integrate language arts and social studies and reviews research on language processes. Discusses types of writing designed to produce active and responsible learners. Describes writing exercises designed to enable students to inventory knowledge; to initiate, consolidate, and personalize learning; and to clarify thinking. (RH)