Orange Shirt Day and what is now called 'The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is coming up on September 30. Here is a free resource for educators and parents of children learning and participating in Orange Shirt Day. A coloring page can be a simple tool to engage children and gives them an additional way to show their support as they learn about why orange shirt day is so important.
Coloring has been proven to have the ability to help relieve stress, generate mindfulness, engage active listening and help with the processing of emotions. And don't forget, coloring isn't just for kids!

Written by award-winning Indigenous author Monique Gray Smith, this magazine, which is based on the Seven Sacred Teachings, is aimed for students in grades 5–12 and is available in both English and French.

Each chapter teaches children about residential schools, Treaties, and the historic and current relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

Accompanied by supplementary educational resources, the magazine is both a guide and a journal for young people as they explore their feelings, build confidence, and foster greater respect and empathy throughout their reconciliation journeys.

Students analyze stylistic choices and grammar use in authentic writing, focusing on the use of the semicolon in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

PHYSICAL SCIENCE
Have you ever wondered why there are so many kinds of chocolate? This experiment explores the history behind chocolate and involves some yummy tasting as you develop a deeper understanding behind the different types of this sweet treat.

ABOUT THE SCIENCE
In 2011, the world's largest chocolate bar weighed 5792 kg. (12,770 lbs.), which would have taken over five million average sized cacao beans to make. Your regular chocolate bar would need about 46 of the same sized beans.
The main ingredient of cocoa (chocolate) is roasted cacao beans. Yes, these are spelled differently! The cacao is the name of the bean that produces cocoa. The beans come from the cacao trees that grow in tropical climates. There are three main varieties of the tree:
• The Forestero tree is the one most often used for chocolate production around the world. In fact, over 90% of the world’s chocolate comes from this kind of tree.
• The Criollo tree produces a milder, fancy chocolate and is considered a delicacy. The fact that it does not produce as much as the Forestero and is more inclined to disease, make it less popular for production.
• The Trinitario tree is a hybrid between Forestero and Criollo. That means they have the best characteristics of both plants, making it higher quality than the Forestero, but more resilient than the Criollo.
At the plantations, the cacao beans are fermented and dried and then packaged for shipping around the world. Now, on to the chocolate making!
Roasting is the done to bring out the aroma and flavor. Then the cacao beans are cracked and emptied, leaving only the pulp and the seeds or nibs. The nibs are then taken and crushed into a thick paste called chocolate liquor. Sugar and other ingredients are added to the paste to sweeten it up and then it is run through a series of rollers to get the texture right. After being rolled out, the mixture goes into another machine that mixes, mashes, swirls and adds air to the chocolate. This machine is called a conch and the mixing done at this stage can last anywhere from a few hours to days depending on the quality of chocolate being produced. The next step is tempering the chocolate, making the color and texture shiny and consistent. After being tempered it is poured into a mold and allowed to set. It is then packaged and eventually makes its way into your tummy.

After discussing the differences between idols and heroes, students choose a real world hero and create media resources that celebrate and promote their actions.

A PBS Learning Media resource that is perfect for pre-K kids. Topics from math, science to art provide early childhood resources to strengthen kids’ interest and sense of discovery.

Being a student can challenge the hardiest of souls. At Everyday Power, you'll find tons of inspirational quotes, self-help articles, and thought-provoking questions that help you define what matters to you.

If you've ever wondered, "What do I love to do?" or "How can I be more positive?" or "How can I make a difference in the world?" you're sure to find something uplifting and motivational at Everyday Power.

Students track the elements of mystery stories through Directed Learning-Thinking Activities, story maps, and puzzles. Then they offer clues for other readers as they plan and write original mystery stories.

Hank gets real with us in a discussion of evolution - it's a thing, not a debate. Gene distribution changes over time, across successive generations, to give rise to diversity at every level of biological organization.

Lessons, worksheets, labs, tutorials and resources for students and teachers on evolution and zoology.

Hank introduces us to the relatively new field of evolutionary developmental biology, which compares the developmental processes of different organisms to determine their ancestral relationship, and to discover how those processes evolved. Also fruit flies with eyes on their legs and chickens with teeth!

Simple machines are devices with few or no moving parts that make work easier, and which people have used to provide mechanical advantage for thousands of years. Students learn about the wedge, wheel and axle, lever, inclined plane, screw and pulley in the context of the construction of a pyramid, gaining insights into tools that have been used since ancient times and are still important today. Through numerous hands-on activities, students imagine themselves as ancient engineers building a pyramid. Student teams evaluate and select a construction site, design a pyramid, perform materials calculations, test a variety of cutting wedges on different materials, design a small-scale cart/lever transport system to convey building materials, experiment with the angle of inclination and pull force on an inclined plane, see how a pulley can change the direction of force, and learn the differences between fixed, movable and combined pulleys. While learning the steps of the engineering design process, students practice teamwork, creativity and problem solving.

A hypothetical scenario is introduced in which the class is asked to apply their understanding of the forces that drive natural selection to prepare a proposal along with an environmental consulting company to help clean up an area near their school that is contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE). Students use the Avida-ED software application to test hypotheses for evolving (engineering) a strain of bacteria that can biodegrade TCE, resulting in a non-hazardous clean-up solution. Conduct this design challenge activity after completion of the introduction to digital evolution activity, Studying Evolution with Digital Organisms.

Students explore picture books to identify the characteristics of four types of conflict. They then write about a conflict they have experienced and compare it to a conflict from literature.

Using excerpts from the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, comics, and songs from different musical genres, students examine the characteristics of transcendentalism.

As part of their study of Richard WrightŐs "Black Boy", students research and reflect on the current black-white racial divide in America. By examining the work of literature in the context of contemporary events, students will deepen their understanding of the work and of what it means to be an American today.

Example PBL Student Action Plan Template. Students can fill this out to plan their project. The teacher may also complete this for students in an I DO situation. The students and teacher can do it together in a WE DO situation.

his short video will give you a brief explanation of how I run my Daily 5 rotations and how my rotations are set up on my Daily 5 Rotations board.

Pairs of students respond to literature alternately in shared journals. Mini-lessons are presented on responding to prompts, creating dialogue, adding drawings, and asking and answering questions.