Describes 16 activities that use student-created visual arts to teach conventional reading skills such as organizing sequences and remembering details. Activities suggested include: illustrating poems, descriptions, and stories; designing scenery and costumes; making pictures, book covers, cartoons, and books; and a listening game. (DF)

Considers the playground as an informal educational setting for social learning. Discusses interactions that take place between children and playground behavior; describes books that deal with playground behavior; and includes creative class activities, including role playing, that address playground behavior. (LRW)

Presents examples from children's literature that illustrate types of special "thinking/dream spots." Suggests the following activities: creating a dream place in the library media center, describing or drawing a dream spot, designing a meditation room, making a sculpture garden, and writing monologs. (AEF)

This essay describes the use of I Ching hexagrams as a focus to improve the ability of college student groups to evolve creative solutions and improve decision-making skills. The philosophy of I Ching is briefly explained, and examples are given of hexagram interpretations which are applicable to group discussion and problem solving. (DB)

Describes the Phoenix Award, which honors children's books which did not receive an award at publication (20 years in the past), but have withstood the test of time. Presents an annotated bibliography of winning titles under the categories of: Fantasy/Science Fiction; Historical Fiction (British, Depression Era, World War II, Other Wars, Other…

Describes one public library's project of photographing teenagers reading around the library and making the photos into bookmarks with the library logo and a "read" message. Discusses the background, arrangements, photo session, assembly, distribution and publicity, and funding and community response. (AEF)

Discusses the theme of snitching, or tattling, in literature and films as well as in school life. Considers what motivates behavior, when tattling is appropriate, and historical examples such as the McCarthy era and the Nazis. Provides ideas for creative learning activities for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. (LRW)

Presents the 1999 winners of the Foxfire Exemplary Classrooms Awards. The winners were diverse in grade level, urban and rural settings, years of experience with the Foxfire core practices, and ideas about how to implement the Foxfire approach. Activities and experiences from each winning classroom are highlighted. Criteria for winning an award…

Most people spend all year looking forward to the time of holidays and the celebration and reflection it brings. Although family traditions abound with hearty food and holiday cheer, the holidays can also be stressful for parents of children who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In this article, the author provides several tips…

An important aim of primary science programmes should be to continue to encourage and nurture children in creating their own explanations. As Osborne and Freyberg (1985) contended, the aims of primary science in the early years should start with the children developing explanations for their experiences. The first two of their six developing aims…

Creativity and the creative arts are important to the portrayal of human experiences through a myriad of forms, including visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and written expression. While these forms of creative expression vary within and across cultural groups, a unifying element embedded in creative works seems to prevail through a continuous search…

Learning through the arts has the potential to stimulate open ended activity that encourages discovery, exploration, experimentation and invention, thus contributing to children's development in all areas of learning and helping to make the curriculum meaningful to them. In this book, the author draws on her extensive experience of promoting young…

This article explores the use of movies as valuable instructional tools. When students are engaged with the content through a medium they love, they learn better and retain more. Incorporating motion pictures as part of classroom instruction has been spurred by the endorsement of both of the major reading and language arts organizations in the…

This article looks at an inner city playwriting project that brought professional writers and artists into inner city classrooms to help students explore the cultural history of their community and begin to find their own voices as writers. This project was set up by Larry Hunter, an African American playwright who worked as a writer-in-residence…

This report describes a community development course focusing on income-generating projects for rural women. The first section outlines the schedule of activities for each day of the 16-day course. The second section defines course objectives, including purpose and methodology, planning, group dynamics, cooperation, communication, negotiation, and…