My Juniors are beginning research papers this month, so last week, I broke the news to them, as I do every year: For their papers, they'll have to get up from their computers, go to an actual library building, and do some of their research with old-fashioned paper sources: newspapers, magazines, books. The horror in their eyes grows stronger every year, for each subsequent class I encounter lives more and more enmeshed in the online world. Yet, like my fellow teachers, I persevere with my insistence, for we know that research is a skill best learned in a library.

In this lesson, students will use the USDA food pyramid and the VT to learn about what foods constitute each of the five major food groups. Then, students will use this knowledge to write "balanced diet" menus for one day.

Teachers (and parents, too), check out these links for creative activities, games and software to inspire and challenge your students. And have fun, of course.

Motivator

Talk Shoe

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Vaestro

Blurb

Our youngest generation is a scarce and precious resource facing a human wave of global competition. This reality is changing the way teachers think of literacy, and more importantly, it is changing their classroom practice. Teachers across the entire curriculum spectrum are beginning to realize that they are responsible for producing learners who possess the literacy skills needed for the 21st Century. They are realizing that literacy is the ability to comprehend all sorts of text, and helping students accomplish the goal of comprehension requires more than asking them to open a book and read the chapter.

These books offer advice, know-how and personal experience for teachers striving to grow professionally:

The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom by James Stigler

Becoming a Better Teacher by Giselle O. Martin-Kniep

Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year by Esmé Raji Codell

Holler If You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and His Students by Gregory Michie

"Literacy, Education and Technology" is the slogan of the Verizon Foundation's Thinkfinity website, "an exciting collection of online educational resources." Exciting, indeed! Partners include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the International Reading Association, the National Geographic Society, and more. Check out this terrific resource for educators.