Hands-On Math
America’s Teaching Zoo
Today’s homework: Hand-feed tigers, divvy up raw meat for hyenas and teach the sea lion to play hide and seek. Show your students why math, especially measurement, is an essential tool when it comes to caring for animals.
Watch the Movie: http://www.thefutureschannel.com/dockets/realworld/teaching_zoo/index.php
Problem Solving
Water Geometry
Landscape Architects want to be sure that the plants and flowers in their gardens stay vibrant and healthy. The activity has students solve a problem that they would face if designing a garden in a grand scale – ensuring that every square inch gets enough water.
Get the Lesson: http://www.thefutureschannel.com/hands-on_math/water_geometry.php
Quite a Concept
Creating Cars
Your students like to ride in them, plan to drive one and hope to own one, but do they know they could also have a job designing cars? Introduce them to the engineers and designers at Ford Motor Company to see how they use math to create concept cars.
Watch the Movie: http://www.thefutureschannel.com/dockets/realworld/creating_cars/index.php
Time for Dinner!
Food in Space
A 1000-day mission and six crew members, each needing four pounds of nutritious and tasty food per day. Variety is a must. That's what Dr. Michele Perchonok and the other food science specialists and dieticians at NASA's Johnson Space Center are up against, as they develop food for a mission to Mars.
Watch the Movie: http://www.thefutureschannel.com/dockets/realworld/food_in_space/index.php
Real Math. Real Science. Real Careers.
The Digital Video Resource Library
Take math and science on location! Our DVD Library gives you access to 67 Futures Channel micro-documentaries and hundreds of hands-on activities. Visit our website to take it for a test drive!
http://www.thefutureschannel.com/demo/access.php
Comments
Jul. 18, 2007 - Great Links! Here's some more of my new favorite phonics freebies.
Posted by PhonicsMom
Those look great for all my kids (including a really tall one...he loves all car websites, and loves to play on them with the kids.)
I think I'll pass on feeding tigers, though.
Here are some more good free phonics resources that Don Potter (http://www.donpotter.net) has recently added:
Blend Phonics (This part is old, but still good: http://www.donpotter.net/PDF/Reading%20Made%20Easy%20with%20Blend%20Phonics%20justified.pdf) and a new Blend Phonics Reader (http://donpotter.net/PDF/Reading%20Made%20Easy%20with%20Blend%20Phonics%20Reader.pdf). You can also read and learn about it at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend_phonics)
Don Potter also has recently added a 21st century version of the 18th century classic, Webster's blue backed speller. The speller can be used to teach both phonics and spelling, so can be used by many age groups at the same time and is ideal for use by homeschooling families. (Older children can be learning to spell the words that younger children are learning to sound out and spell...yes, spell--it is possible, they can learn to spell as well, that's how it was done in the days of one-room schoolhouses, you can read about the importance of teaching spelling before moving on to reading here from a teacher in the 1800's: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Spelling/spelling1851.html.) Here it is: http://donpotter.net/PDF/Webster%27s%20Spelling%20Book%201824.pdf
You can learn a little about the history of Webster's Speller on my website here: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/historyofreading.html and at the end of Don Potter's pdf copy of the speller.