Efforts to integrate mathematics and science have been widely recognized by mathematics and science educators. However, successful integration of these two important school disciplines remains a challenge. In this article, a mathematics and science activity extends the use of Venn diagrams to a life science context and then circles back to a…

No person, place, or thing can capture the attention of a class of sixth graders like "man's best friend." To prompt students' interest in a series of lessons on proportional relationships, the authors brought in a unique teaching aid--a dog. A family dog was used to supply the measurements for scatter plots and variables so that students could…

Pursuing student voice in your design of curriculum helps students take more ownership of their learning. Gaynor and Shanklin developed an open-ended survey to gather information about students' growing understandings of the purposes for reading and writing and to solicit feedback about the year's activities. The survey is presented here, along…

"It's All Connected" provides teachers of mathematics the support they need to improve their instruction. This in-demand collection of lessons for grades 6-8 explores proportionality, proportional relationships, and proportional reasoning, acknowledging that the ability to reason proportionally is crucial in the middle school mathematics…

Publishing podcasts, writing digital stories with "choose your own adventure" endings, and collaborating with students around the country through wikis, Skype, and VoiceThread, Julie D. Ramsay never imagined that she and her fifth grade students would be forging a new frontier using technology to support writing lessons. In a school district with…

You'll gain plenty of weather resources from this month's issue (temperature concepts, weather instruments, the water cycle/evaporation). You can use that information with these outdoor seasonal connections.

The findings reported on in this manuscript emerged from a design experiment conducted at a low-income urban middle school intended to support the teacher in incorporating pedagogical practices supportive of students' everyday knowledge and practices during a 6th grade unit on food and nutrition from the LiFE curriculum. In studying the impact of…

This is the story of one middle school teacher's journey of implementing literature circles with English language learners. Theory and research suggest that literature circles are valuable and important for young adolescents yet many teachers are still skeptical about implementing them. During this three-month study 22 sixth graders, 12 of them…

This reference guide is designed to help sixth grade teachers plan for instruction and provides all of the goals and objectives in one document. The guide can be used to link instructional objectives across disciplines, plan integrated units, and assist in assessing student progress over time. Only the very basic components of each discipline…

In 1993 Lake Agassiz School in North Dakota received a Knight Foundation grant so teachers and students could participate in a program to learn how to create an opera. The program instructed teachers on how students could maximize their understanding about producing an opera. The school formed a partnership with the Metropolitan Opera Guild of New…

Shares experiences with coaching the Sixth-grade Math Olympiad Team in a middle school. Discusses the Olympiad and concludes that this activity is one way of providing mathematical experiences that have an enriching effect on young women and encourage their personal and mathematical growth. (ASK)

Presents a sixth-grade student's fictional story and illustrations using economics vocabulary words learned in mathematics class from the storybook, "How to Turn Lemons into Money." (MKR)

Uses the chicken problem for sixth grade students to scratch the surface of systems of equations using intuitive approaches. Provides students responses to the problem and suggests similar problems for extensions. (ASK)

Describes a reading program for gifted middle school readers designed to increase critical reading ability and student appreciation of literary technique and broaden understanding of sophisticated vocabulary. (MLF)

Discusses experiences using a new mathematics curriculum with sixth grade students for nine weeks. Presents a student's discovery of her power in mathematics through this problem-centered curriculum. (ASK)