Presents a collection of teaching activities suitable for students in the upper grades. These activities focus on practical programming projects, use of word processors for learning a foreign language, an Atari program for making a starburst, and a program (with deliberate errors) to determine the thickness of folded paper. (JN)

Reports on an innovative program for providing daily 10-minute Latin classes to 12,000 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students in the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) School District. Describes a typical class, objectives of the program, and the instructional principles followed. (PGD)

Describes the Lose to Win Program, a weight loss program for third, fourth and fifth grade students. The program included nutrition education, exercise, and improving the self concept, and involved the use of rewards, and support of parents and school staff. (JAC)

A teacher describes what happened when she discovered that a blind student had been mainstreamed into one of her fifth-grade art classes. (RM)

A program is described that successfully involves parents in their child's education at a middle school in Louisiana. (MD)

A fifth-grade class was taught how animated films are made by actually making some. Each cartoon involved four parts: title, artwork, credits, and storyboard. In addition to learning about animation, they had the experience of thinking in logical sequence and of working cooperatively. (CS)

Sixth-grade students explore the underlying issues of two versions of the Golden Rule, the negative one viewed by Confucius as a moral prescription and the positive one viewed by Jesus as a religious prescription. (Author/RM)

Describes an arts unit on music and poetry for upper elementary classes which covers tone color, dynamics, register, tempo, form, and enunciation. Students read poems, write and record their own poems, and listen to poetry readings. The unit concludes with a choral speaking experience. (AM)

Described is a device designed to assess food intake which consists of a card display of 40 foods and pictorial representation of a day with which students indicate their typical food patterns. Results from a field test with upper elementary students (N=532) proved favorable. (DC)

The combination of programed instruction and feedback had a positive impact on four resource teachers working with gifted students (Grades 5 through 7) in a rural area of North Carolina, where education for gifted and talented students is mandated. (CL)

Forty-six intermediate and junior high students with disabilities (learning, emotional disturbance, mental retardation) participated in a noncompetitive Math Olympics. Teams of students participated in game-like activities involving basic skills, calculators, problem solving, and place value. Guidelines for planning a Math Olympics focus on…

Describes the scope of the Kentucky Authors Project, which involved 4th through 11th graders and 7 teachers at 5 Kentucky schools. Names the participating authors and schools. Presents lessons learned from the project and guidelines for assembling similar projects. (PA)

Discusses Hugh Mehan's "Learning Lessons" in the development of the naturalistic study of classroom discourse studies and considers the emergence of an alternative program for classroom discourse studies in critical discourse analysis. Critiques some studies of classroom discourse and analyzes a fourth-grade lesson on fractions to show how the…

Discusses how students in a culturally diverse fourth grade class explored their own cultures and learned about other cultures, using quilts as a context. Notes that the students read books about quilts, conducted oral interviews of family members, wrote about their cultural traditions, and designed individual quilt squares. Concludes that the…

The article details a program in which gifted upper elementary grade students used videomicroscopy in a study of microscopic life in pond water. Each child produced a narrated videotape of a specific species studied. Program evaluation confirmed the motivational benefits of early opportunities with scientific instrumentation and methodology. (DB)