English/Language Arts
Explore origin stories
Origin stories are great fun to read, research and write. Sometimes we can find out why we do certain things and how the customs came to be. Other times, the history has been lost and we must do the research and make some inferences. Share this Minute and other origin stories with your students. Point out that origin stories are popular in fiction as well as nonfiction. Look at the origin of Sherlock Holmes, or the story behind Peter Pan - various authors have attempted to write these. Invite your students to pick a favorite character and develop an origin story for that character.
Social Studies
Explore customs, rituals and holidays
April Fool’s Day is only one example of customs, rituals and unusual “holidays” that are practiced by our culture. Can your students come up with others? Give them some time to talk and brainstorm. Look at family rituals and customs, and then widen the social circle to the school, your town, your state and the country. What do all of these customs have in common?
STEM
Explore speed
How do you measure speed? How fast can a ball be thrown? What can be done to increase the speed of something? Have your students do some critical thinking about these questions as they ponder why teams would have been contacting the Mets with concerns about their new pitcher.
Research Skills
Explore efficient research - finding the back story
In journalism, finding out the facts behind stories is a regular task. Have your students investigate the facts behind some of the customs and rituals they identified in the social studies activity above. Have them compare encyclopedias and free web looking. Which produced more accurate results more quickly?
Explore origin stories
Origin stories are great fun to read, research and write. Sometimes we can find out why we do certain things and how the customs came to be. Other times, the history has been lost and we must do the research and make some inferences. Share this Minute and other origin stories with your students. Point out that origin stories are popular in fiction as well as nonfiction. Look at the origin of Sherlock Holmes, or the story behind Peter Pan - various authors have attempted to write these. Invite your students to pick a favorite character and develop an origin story for that character.
Social Studies
Explore customs, rituals and holidays
April Fool’s Day is only one example of customs, rituals and unusual “holidays” that are practiced by our culture. Can your students come up with others? Give them some time to talk and brainstorm. Look at family rituals and customs, and then widen the social circle to the school, your town, your state and the country. What do all of these customs have in common?
STEM
Explore speed
How do you measure speed? How fast can a ball be thrown? What can be done to increase the speed of something? Have your students do some critical thinking about these questions as they ponder why teams would have been contacting the Mets with concerns about their new pitcher.
Research Skills
Explore efficient research - finding the back story
In journalism, finding out the facts behind stories is a regular task. Have your students investigate the facts behind some of the customs and rituals they identified in the social studies activity above. Have them compare encyclopedias and free web looking. Which produced more accurate results more quickly?
© Karen Sterling, 2018 - May be used for educational purposes without written permission