© Copyright Highlights for Children

Initiation: Read a St.Patrick's Day book to the class and discuss what they believe St.Patrick's Day is all about. Talk about different traditions for the day.

Development: You can go ahead and chart the different St.Patrick's Day traditions on a KWL chart. Make sure you have looked up St.Patrick's Day on the internet and researched some fun information about the holiday to share with the class. After you filled in the what you Know what you Want to know and what you've Learned chart, pass out a baggy of Lucky Charms cereal to each student. Have each student separate all of the different charms and group them accordingly. Make copies of a Lucky Charms graph and have each student graph what they have. They can begin by using tally marks on a separate piece of paper. Once everyone has graphed their cereal charms, have them split up into 5 or 6 groups and combine their charts into a new, larger graph. Compare graphs and discuss which Charm there are most of and least of.

Closure: Combine groups for a classroom graph and post inside your room for everyone to see.

Materials: Lucky Charms cereal, KWL chart, information about St.Patrick's Day, copies of Lucky Charms graphs

Time: 30-40min.

Caroline Wyman has a degree in Sociology and a Masters in Elementary Education and is the administrator for TeacherNet.com.

ACTIVITIES
Fun This Month (page 2)
Make a pinwheel and figure out a maze.

Find the Pictures (page 2)
Look for the 10 pictures hidden throughout the issue.

Hidden Pictures® (page 14)
Find the open book, spatula, and other objects.

BrainPlay (page 39)
What is a rock?

HUMOR
The Timbertoes® (page 29)
Mabel plays a silly trick on Tommy.

READERS' CONTRIBUTIONS
Your Own Pages (page 32)
Readers see drawings and poems from their peers all over the world.

REBUS
A Big Dinner for Little Mouse (page 11)
This mouse has a healthy dinner and a good night's sleep.

ACTIVITIES
Fun This Month (page 2)
Make a pinwheel and figure out a maze.

Find the Pictures (page 2)
Look for the 10 pictures hidden throughout the issue.

Dillon's Vacation (page 6)
Solve this puzzle.

Hidden Pictures® (page 14)
Find the open book, spatula, and other objects.

Tag with a Twist! (page 21)
Try these new ways to play an old favorite game.

Lunch at The Banana Café (page 22)
Trace the path that will lead Max to his friends and a delicious banquet.

Crafts (page 26)
Design a Personalized Mobile, create a CD Rainbow Sun Catcher, and make a Lezim, an Indian musical instrument.

Check . . . and Double Check (page 34)
Find 12 differences in these pictures.

Thinking (page 35)
Ponder what's happening in this race.

Make 11 (page 38)
Enjoy this game for two players.

BrainPlay (page 39)
If you found your old backpack at the bottom of your closet, what might you expect to find in it?

Picture Puzzler (page 43)
Untangle this maze to unite dogs with the people who are walking them.

FICTION
Kissy Face (page 12)
James finds that being a big brother is a good thing.

Nighttime in the City (page 36)
The city noises sing a lullaby.

HUMOR
Jokes (page 15)
Readers relate the best jokes they have heard.

The Timbertoes® (page 29)
Mabel plays a silly trick on Tommy.

Riddles (page 38)
Kids share their favorite riddles.

READERS' CONTRIBUTIONS
Your Own Stories (page 20)
Kids share stories they wrote.

Your Own Pages (page 32)
Readers see drawings and poems from their peers all over the world.

Dear Highlights (page 42)
The editors deal with readers concerns about getting angry and including others in activities.

REBUS
A Big Dinner for Little Mouse (page 11)
This mouse has a healthy dinner and a good night's sleep.

SCIENCE AND NATURE
Try This! Swirling Colors (page 10)
Watch the colors flow and mix.

Science Corner (page 18)
Find out how hot water can help open a jar.

Dino Days (page 18)
"Do you have an idea of how big a dinosaur's brain was?" Dino Don Lessem answers this question.

VALUES
Goofus and Gallant® (page 6)
Goofus doesn't read the directions; Gallant checks the instructions first.

The Bear Family (page 19)
Piddy learns to watch but not touch the baby animals.

VERSE
A Man for All Seasonings (page 5)

Reflections (page 15)

Initiation: Read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and discuss what happens to the caterpillar, how many pieces of fruit, candy, leaves... and so on does the caterpillar eat. Ask outloud "what if the caterpillar ate two more apples? How many apples would he have eaten?"

Development: After talking about the apples, and adding a few more pieces of fruit, ask the class "now what if the caterpillar had eight oranges and could only eat three of them? How many oranges would have been left over?" Continue giving the class verbal problems using the fruit and or candy as an example while writing the numbers and number sentences on the board depending on the skill levels. For the younger students, have an apple, orange, and strawberry cut out for each group of students to use. Cut a whole in each piece of fruit to represent the fruit that the caterpillar ate. They can then add pieces of fruit and write down as a group the number sentence. For example if they have three apples and add four more, their number sentence would be 3+4=7. Or they can use the apples with the holes in them and make a subtraction number sentence. For example they might have four whole apples and then two apples with holes in them so the number sentence would be 4-2=2. Use all kinds of foods to make it fun. Be creative!

Closure: Pass out apples to everyone to eat or give them a cut out apple with their name on it as a math reminder for The Very Hungry Caterpillar lesson.

Materials: The Very Hungry Caterpillar book, fruit cut outs, paper, pencils, apples.

Time: 30 minutes.

Caroline Wyman has a degree in Sociology and a Masters in Elementary Education and is the administrator for TeacherNet.com.

Initiation: Read the story "Will You Be My Friend?" by Nancy Tafuri and discuss the story about friendship and how the bird built his nest. Talk about birds and the work birds go through to make a nest.

Development: Explain that each student will be making their own nest and will later write about the experience of making a nest as if you were the bird. Tell about the struggles of finding material to make your nest. How did you find your spot for your nest? Why is it important for a bird to make a nest?

Before making the nests have the classroom go outside and find their own items to make up their nest. They will need to collect grass, sticks, straw, string, leaves...they can put their findings in a brown paper bag that they will later use to make the nest. Once they come in have them put newspaper on top of their desk for easy clean-up. Dump their collected nature pieces on the desk and instruct the class to fold their paper bags inward and roll it all the way down until it shapes into a nest shape. They then can glue their grass, leaves, sticks, etc. into the nest. Depending on the level and student ability have the children write about their nest as if they were the bird that made the nest. Tell about the struggle to find the nest materials, where they had to fly to, how long it took, what problems they ran into...

Closure: Share their stories with each other and show the nests.

Materials: Brown paper bags, grass, leaves, sticks, straw, glue, writing materials.

Time: 45 min.

Caroline Wyman has a degree in Sociology and a Masters in Elementary Education and is the administrator for TeacherNet.com.

The way poets use language invites kids to read.

"Poets play with words in a lot of ways," Griswell says. "They paint word pictures that startle you or make you laugh. In 'Snowman Sniffles' on page 5 in the February 2007 issue, the poet uses surprising images to catch the reader’s attention. The line 'a little, sad late-season sniff dried by the spring wind's handkerchief ' creates an image in a reader’s mind—one that's fresh and new and full of wonder."

Rhyme and rhythm also invite readers into poems. Kids love to anticipate the ends of lines, and they enjoy the music of poetic language. Poems are fun to read more than once. As kids read again and again, they become more fluent readers.

Illustrations for poetry also play a big role in the reader's enjoyment.

"Very often, it's the art that gets kids to stop and enjoy the words," Griswell says.

"When Waffles Are Awful" on page 7 in the February 2007 issue connects to kids through their tummies. But before kids begin to chew on the words, the illustration of a mountain of waffles topped with whipped cream and berries grabs their attention.

"You can't look at that illustration without wanting to sink your teeth into those waffles," Griswell says. "The art gets readers to stop on that page and enjoy the poem."

When kids stop to read poetry, it often makes a lasting impression.

"We get requests from adults to find poems they remember reading in Highlights when they were children," Griswell says. "People fondly remember a lot of different things, but poetry can stay in the mind and heart for a lifetime."

ACTIVITIES
Fun This Month (page 2)
Make a pinwheel and figure out a maze.

Hidden Pictures® (page 14)
Find the open book, spatula, and other objects.

Crafts (page 26)
Design a Personalized Mobile, create a CD Rainbow Sun Catcher, and make a Lezim, an Indian musical instrument.

Check . . . and Double Check (page 34)
Find 12 differences in these pictures.

Thinking (page 35)
Ponder what's happening in this race.

BrainPlay (page 39)
Describe how a pen works.

FICTION
The Tenth Puppy (page 8)
Saralynn helps her uncle discover the missing "puppy."

Ask Arizona (page 24)
Arizona and Ollie figure out a great way to remember "Grandfather Oak."

Play Ball, Jaguar Paw! (page 40)
Jaguar Paw finally finds some kids who just want to play the game.

HUMOR
A Chicken Chuckle (page 28)

NONFICTION
What a Pro Knows: Bubble Science (page 16)
Fan Yang may be the world's only bubble artist and scientist.

READERS' CONTRIBUTIONS
Your Own Stories (page 20)
Kids share stories they wrote.

Your Own Pages (page 32)
Readers see drawings and poems from their peers all over the world.

Dear Highlights (page 42)
The editors deal with readers concerns about getting angry and including others in activities.

SCIENCE AND NATURE
Science Corner (page 18)
Find out how hot water can help open a jar.

Dino Days (page 18)
"Do you have an idea of how big a dinosaur's brain was?" Dino Don Lessem answers this question.

Nature Watch (page 28)
Spring peepers live in marshes and other wetlands in eastern and central North America.

Learning to Speak Bear (page 30)
Scientist Lynn Rogers studies what black bears are saying.

Science Letters (page 34)
Learn how thermometers find the temperature.

VALUES
Gallant Kids (page 7)
Adam and Daniel Parker share their love of Marx Brothers movies with senior citizens.

"Rats!" I groaned. "Is he coming along?"

I stared disgustedly at my new stepbrother, Benny, sitting in the back seat of Dad’s car. Benny is eight, short and thin, with beady eyes and big ears. Now that Mom and Dad are divorced, I only see Dad every other weekend, and Benny is always horning in. He ruins everything.

The time we went hiking, he got a blister. The zoo made him sneeze. At the baseball game he got a peanut up his nose. If Dad had to remarry, I don’t see why he picked Benny’s mother. I mean, she’s OK. It’s just too bad that Benny was included in the deal.

Today Dad and I were going deep-sea fishing for the first time. Now it was spoiled.

"Joe," Dad said in his patient voice, "Benny's your brother -- "

"Some brother!"

"We'll have a good time," Dad promised. "Better bring a jacket."

"What for?" I glanced at the steel-colored Florida sky. "It's hot today."

The fishing boat was a scabby old tub, but when you're only paying 15 dollars a person for three hours of fishing, you don’t get the Queen Elizabeth II. There were several people on board, sitting on benches on each side of the deck. A few were in the cabin.

The captain's mate gave each of us a rod and reel and a bucket of bait before we cast off.

"We're making up a jackpot for whoever catches the biggest fish," the mate said. "If you guys want in on it, it will cost you a buck apiece."

Dad gave him three dollars. I figured paying for Benny was wasted money. He probably wouldn’t even bait his hook.

I was right. The kid stared suspiciously into the bucket and made a face.

"This stuff stinks! What is it?"

"Dead fish," I told him.

"Do I have to touch it?"

"If you want to bait your hook, you do."

"Here, Benny," Dad said, "take my rod. The hook's baited and in the water. I'll use yours."

"OK!" said Benny. He gripped the handle of the rod as if his life depended on it.

A breeze had sprung up, and the waves were choppy. Some clouds slid over the sun. Nobody caught anything.

Then Benny said, "Something's jerking my line. What should I do?"

"Jerk back!" I told him. I reached for his rod. "I'll get it for you!"

"Let him do it, Joe," Dad said. "Pull, Benny, and hang on tight!"

Wouldn't you know it? Benny caught the first fish -— a little snapper -— and he acted as if it were a prize marlin.

Meanwhile the sky had grown dark, and the breeze had turned into a stiff wind. The waves rose higher. Drops of rain slapped our faces, the temperature dropped, and thunder rumbled in the distance. The boat rocked like a runaway cradle.

Dad's face turned green.

"I think I'll go below," he said as he handed me his rod. "Look after Benny."

He staggered across the deck and bent over the rail.

I had expected Benny to get seasick, but not Dad. Well, the kid would probably be next.

The waves were really high now. One second the boat seemed to be standing on a hilltop, and the next it would plunge into a valley. I clung to the rail and watched the waves rise and fall.

My stomach suddenly heaved, and a bitter taste rose into my throat. I leaned over the rail and lost my lunch.

I'd never been so sick in all my life -— and I was freezing! Goosebumps stood out on my arms like grapefruits. Why hadn’t I worn a jacket? Why had I even come? Who needed to go deep-sea fishing anyway? I suddenly realized I hated fish -— especially the dead ones in the bait buckets. The stink of them filled my nose, my head -— my stomach! Breakfast followed lunch.

"Maybe you'd better go inside the cabin, Joe," said Benny. "I'll help you."

"I don't need any help!"

But I did. I was so weak my legs trembled. I could never have crossed that squirming deck if Benny hadn’t supported me. The kid was stronger than he looked. He helped me down the steps and steered me to the bench where Dad was sitting with his head drooping on his chest.

Dad briefly stared at us with bleary eyes before closing them again. I knew just how he felt.

It was warmer in the cabin, but I kept shivering while I tried to keep my stomach from crawling into my mouth.

Benny took off his windbreaker and draped it over my shoulders. "You'd better lie down on the bench and put your head on my lap," he said.

I lay there for the rest of that miserable voyage. When I finally tottered off the boat, I said I'd never step off solid ground again. Dad said he felt the same way.

I thanked Benny for his jacket -— and for his skinny thighs, which had made a pillow for my woozy head.

"No problem!" Benny grinned. "What are brothers for?"

"To make money!" I pointed at the bundle of dollar bills he was carrying. Because of the storm, nobody else had caught a fish, so Benny had won the jackpot.

He deserved it.

Initiation: Can anyone tell me how dinosaurs are found? Does the mailman find dinosaurs? Do policemen find dinosaurs? Does a detective find dinosaurs?

Development: After brainstorming ideas of how dinosaurs are found I will show the class some pictures of a paleontologist doing some digging for fossils. We will discuss and talk about fossils. I will then tell the class that they are going to become paleontologists. Each student will have the opportunity to work as a paleontologist would by using a toothpick and a chocolate chip cookie. The cookie itself will be the "rock" and the chocolate chips will be the "fossils". They will carefully chip away at the cookie while trying to excavate the chip.

Closure: Do you think a paleontologist has a difficult job? If so why? How did you feel about being a paleontologist? Tomorrow we will talk more about fossils and how a dinosaur can be put together like a puzzle.

Materials: Pictures of paleontologists, goggles for students, tooth picks, chocolate chip cookies.

Time: 30 minutes

For a sample of Dino Days section click here.

My quest began that first year. At the time, we were using Silver Burdett Ginn as our integrated approach to reading and language arts. Their first theme was "Creative Imaginations." After completing a few of the Creative Imagination stories and the lessons that followed, a story, David Weisner's June 29, 1999, was next on the schedule. Ironically, June 29 is my birthday and this was the story that gave me the idea to have an extended lesson that did not follow the standardized curriculum. The story was science fiction, set in the future. I noticed that the story’s content developed in my class a sense of creativity—thoughts and ideas that eventually made us want to create our own inventions. The seed of an idea was sown.

Excited, I sent out a letter to the parents and students describing our upcoming Invention Convention and outlining directions for the students to follow at home and in the classroom. The project was fairly easy to complete, with only two requirements.

The major requirement was that each student's invention had to solve a problem by creating something unique. We brainstormed ideas in the classroom and talked about inventions and how they historically evolved to solve a problem. Students worked out the details of their ideas at home and then brought them back to me for approval. I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page before their projects proceeded.

The second requirement was that students had to be able explain their invention by describing how they got their idea, the problem the invention solved, and the steps they took in creating their invention.

As we worked through this process, the idea we had planted for having an interactive Invention Convention came to fruition. As a class, we decided to present our inventions to the lower grades. We would do this by arranging our classroom in a "convention" layout so that visiting students would be able to move easily around the room, view the inventions, watch demonstrations, and have the inventors explain their projects and answer any questions.

The results were more than expected. The students loved showing off their inventions! They felt pride in what they had created. Some students even wanted to try to get their invention patented. We enlisted the local newspaper to cover our event—it was thrilling to see news of our classroom printed in black and white. We were special. We accomplished something uniquely our own. It was the most exciting time of the year for my class. We treasured the creativity, we loved the attention, and we were proud of each other.

Would I recommend having an Invention Convention to teachers who want to shine through the success of their students? Absolutely!

Caroline Wyman has a degree in Sociology and a Masters in Elementary Education and is the administrator for TeacherNet.com.

Purchase Hidden Pictures books here!

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In this big picture find the fish, golf club, sock, slice of cake,
mouse, apple, slice of pizza, balloon, crescent moon, scissors, teacup, ice-cream cone, and cap.

Can you find these Hidden Pictures?

© Copyright Highlights for Children

1. Help students recognize how far they have come as readers and writers since September. Begin by having them look back at some of their favorite reading and writing experiences. Have the students make a list of what they feel good about as readers and writers and what they think they still want to learn more about. Students can turn this list into a letter to be shared with their families. Encourage parents to write back and/or discuss the contents with their child.
2. Design a spring readers and writers bulletin board. Begin with a tree where students can put fully grown "leaves" with reading and writing accomplishments written on them. Provide cutouts of buds just beginning to emerge so that students can write topics they want to learn more about or titles of books they would like to read. Use this as a chance to talk to students about how we are always working to make ourselves better readers and writers. There is always an area in which we can "grow."
3. As the days begin to warm, take the students on a nature walk outside. Ask them to take notes on what they are hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, and even tasting as winter turns to spring. This is a perfect time to involve parents, as they can be "writing buddies" on the nature walk. Then, either inside or outside, have students write a poem, a short story, or an essay about their spring observations. Use the different genres represented in such magazines as Highlights for Children as models for the students' writings. The students' original pieces can be assembled into a class book, complete with illustrations, to be shared with everyone.
4. Ask students to bring in a favorite book they have read over the school year and "sell it" to the class. Encourage the students to select books that are about springtime or the outdoors. Weather permitting, these talks can take place outdoors! Encourage students to keep a list of books they find interesting for future reading selections and to share with their families.
5. On the first night of spring, invite families to come to "Spring Festival" by sending student-designed invitations ahead of time. Display students' recent and past achievements, and allow time for students to present the reading and writing experiences that they enjoyed the most.

What you need:

• green poster board


• large plastic lid


• scissors


• glue


• green paper


• short cardboard tubes


• pencil

1. On green poster board, trace around a large plastic lid. Cut out the circle.
2. Glue green paper around four short cardboard tubes. Glue the tubes, standing up, in the middle of the circle. Let the glue dry.
3. Turn the tubes over and use a pencil to trace around the tops of the tubes onto green poster board. Draw a four-leaf clover shape around this tracing, and cut it out. Draw a smaller clover, and cut it out.
4. Cut four coin slots in the large clover. Glue the large clover on top of the tubes. Glue the small clover on the side of the tubes.
5. Label the coin slots "Quarters," "Pennies," "Dimes," and "Nickels."
6. To make your bank reusable, cut four holes in the base to remove coins. Put the plastic lid over the base to use the bank again.

Invitations
For each invitation, cut a strip of colorful paper 9 inches long and 3 inches wide. Fold it in half to make it 41/2 inches by 3 inches. With the fold at the top, decorate the front to look like a small notebook cover with a big question mark and "Who-Dun-It?" written on it.

Inside, write "You’re invited to a Mystery Party! Be at the scene of the crime on" and list the time and date of the party. Below that, put your name, classroom number, "Please let us know if you're able to attend."

You might suggest that each student bring along two baseball caps. Make them into a Sherlock Holmes hat by wearing them together with one turned backward.

Decorations
Use a jewelry box for a centerpiece, or decorate a small box to look like one. Arrange a few pieces of toy jewelry around the box. Place a large sign reading "Stolen Jewels Were Here" in the jewelry box.

To make footprints, trace around a pair of shoes several times on poster board. Cut out the shapes and put them on the wall, the floor, or across the tablecloth, leading toward and away from the box of jewels.

Draw large magnifying glasses, fingerprints, question marks, and arrows on different colors of poster board. Cut them out and hang them from the ceiling with string, or fasten them to a cord hung across the room.

Refreshments
Fill a muffin tin with cupcake papers. Put a jelly bean or a few raisins in two of the papers. Fill all of the papers with muffin or cupcake batter and bake them. Give a prize to the two detectives who get the "jewels."

Pour fruit punch into a large punch bowl, and float thin slices of lime, orange, and lemon in the bowl to make "Floating Jewels Punch."

Prepare other party foods, such as crackers and cheese or peanut butter-filled celery sticks. Serve them on a tray or cookie sheet labeled with a card that reads "Exhibit A" and tell your students they can "Eat the Evidence!"

Games
Find the Missing Jewels
Before the party, hide small paper bags filled with jelly beans in different places around the party room. Make a separate map for each place, showing furniture shapes, doors, windows, and so on. Place an X where a "sack of jewels" is hidden. Roll up each map and tie it with string.

At the party, give each student a map, and let everyone find his or her own bag of jewels.

Remember the Clues
Sit in a circle. Each student thinks of a one-or two-word clue, such as "black," "eight o'clock," "silver button," etc. Go around the circle, with each student saying his or her own clue plus all the clues said before. Continue around a second time until each student has had a chance to recite the entire list of clues. Students remembering all the clues get a prize.

Can You Name It?
Before the party starts, find objects that might be identifiable by the way they sound when you use them, such as a stapler, a pair of scissors, a pencil and pencil sharpener, a hole punch, and so on.

Divide your students into two teams. Have the teams stand with their backs to you and their eyes shut. Tell each team that, as you make a sound with each object, the first team to identify what you're doing wins a point. The team earning the most points wins the game.

Escape Route
This game can be played if your party area has a lot of open space. Set up the obstacle course ahead of time. Arrange for your students to zigzag around "cars" (three chairs), crawl through a "tunnel" (under a table), jump over a "pond" (a pan of water), walk a "tight rope" (a rope lying on the ground), tiptoe around "alarms" (pieces of cardboard scattered on the ground), and get back home (a mat on the floor).

Divide your students into two teams. Players must go through the obstacle course one at a time, holding the jewels (a bag of jelly beans). When players get back home and touch the mat, they pass the jewels on to the next player, who then goes through the course. Do one practice run for each person. Then time each team as they race through, one team at a time. The faster team two out of three times wins.