Classroom Activities - Middle School

Language Arts

Newspaper Info - 1:3
Skill: generating questions
A newspaper has so much information. Talk with students about how one can use a newspaper to find a job, a place to live, a car, entertainment and even a mate! They can use the newspaper as a reference to find information such as where the President is, the television lineup for this evening or the sports scores from yesterday. Have the students create a list of questions that could be answered from the information presented in the newspaper.

Responding to Reading - 1:3
Skill: generalizing ideas
Ask students to choose one news or feature story and identify the main idea. What opinions, predictions or conclusions can students draw from the story? After reading, assign students to create an outline, web or other graphic organizer for the story.

Song Lyrics - 2:1
Skill: write poetry
Students can have fun selecting an object from the newspaper to write a song about. They can find the object, write a song title and the first verse of lyrics. Allow them to share their creations and, if they like, they can use a well-known tune and set their words to music.

Social Studies

Time of Your Life - I 1:1
Skill; constructing and interpreting timelines
Students can make a timeline of the events in their lives from birth to the present. Then they can find an article in the newspaper that lends itself to creating a timeline and make one for that story as well. They will need to select an article that gives sufficient information for this kind of project.

Trading Cards - I 2:1
Skill: identify and explain how individuals in history demonstrated good character and personal virtue
If you can collect Pokeman cards and baseball cards, why not make trading cards of today´s newsmakers? Have each student design a collector card of a newsmaker from today's paper. The front of the card should have the person's picture and the back of the card should include the pertinent information.

Problems and Solutions - I 4:1
Skill: analyze contemporary factors contributing to decisions and consider alternative courses of actions
Find a short article or photo caption that covers a simple problem. Ask students to read the article and explain the problem. Can they think of a solution? Ask students to write to the person or group that has the problem mentioned in the paper. Can they give suggestions on how to solve the problem? They can draw a picture to illustrate the problem and solution.

Mathematics

Giving Directions - II 2:2
Skill: locating and describing objects in terms of their orientation
Students can find each of the cities or countries mentioned on the front page on map of the world. Have them write directions from place to place using the directional terms, north, south, east and west.

Sports Report - II 3:1
Skill: select and use appropriate tools (measure objects)
Ask the students to measure in column inches the total amount of space devoted to sports for each page in the sports section. What fraction is given to reporting of men´s sports versus women´s sports? Have students analyze their findings and graph the results for each page of the sports section. Discuss what might account for the differences. Then have the students measure again using metric rulers.

Movie Measuring - II 3:2
Skill: Skill: identifying the attribute to be measured and select the appropriate unit of measurement (time)
The students can turn to the television page and select five movies showing on cable. How many minutes long is each movie? Have the students compare the different lengths of time on a graph. They can convert the minutes into hours.

Science

Questioning Science - I 1:1
Skill: generating scientific questions about the world based on observation
Have the class read an article that is related to science. The students can develop a series of questions about the story. Then they can write a paragraph predicting what will happen next.

Times are Changing - I 1:2
Skill: design and conduct simple investigations
Have the students look in the newspaper for pictures of items they might find in their homes. The class can discuss which of these items they would not have found in their homes 50 years ago. How was life different without each item?

Machines - I 1:3
Skill: investigate simple appliances and explain how they work
Challenge the students to find pictures of simple machines in the paper. They can label the types of machines they find. Then they can look through the newspaper for photos and ads of complex machines. Ask them to list the machines they find and include the type of simple machines that actually make them work. Have the students write brief descriptions of how one of the machines operates.