Tim Yoder

A group of 117 English men, women, and children landed on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina in August of 1587. Under the leadership of Gov. John White, houses were built, and what was intended to be a permanent colony was established. The first English child born on American soil, Virginia Dare, was born to John White’s daughter and son-in-law shortly after their arrival. After it became obvious that the colonists were unprepared for life in the New World, John White

After President John F. Kennedy was killed, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. The Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing President Kennedy and that Jack Ruby acted alone when he killed Oswald. The findings of the Warren Commission turned out to be quite controversial. Another federal investigation into the Kennedy assassination was conducted in 1978 by the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations.

How to Keep Score in Bowling – A Real-life Application of Following Directions and Addition Skills Back in the “old days”, people who bowled at the bowling alley were given a paper score sheet, and it was up to them to keep score to determine the winner of the game. Today the scoring is all done by computer, and if one can read the numbers on a monitor, one can determine who won the game. Most young people today do not have a clue about how to keep score in bowling. This resource is designed t

The sky went dark the morning of May 19, 1780, in New England. The darkness traveled quickly from the West and did not go away until the following day. At the time and in years following the event, many theories have been offered to explain the darkness. After receiving an overview of the situation, students working in groups form a hypothesis giving their explanation of the mysterious event. The students then receive three sets of clues, one set at a time, to help them solve the mystery.

Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, began their trip around the world on May 20, 1937, in a Lockheed Electra twin engine plane. Their trip began in Oakland, CA, and they arrived at Lae, Papua New Guinea, on June 29th. At 10:00 A.M. on July 2, Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae and began what was expected to be a 20-hour, 2,556 mile trip northeast to Howland Island, where their plane would be refueled. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was waiting off the coast of the island. Its

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Today there are still questions about what happened on that day. This slide show depicts the major events of the day from the arrival of the Kennedy’s in Dallas to the swearing in of Lyndon B. Johnson as the 36th President of the United States. It touches on the arrest of suspect Lee Harvey Oswald and his murder two days later. It follows President Kennedy’s funeral procession

This resource is not just for the Christmas holidays. We have math class all year long. As a take-off on the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, “The Twelve Days of Math Class” recounts all the gifts received by a student from his or her math teacher… “On the twelfth day of math class, my teacher gave to me: 12 calculators, 11 plastic rulers, 10 sets of markers, 9 mini whiteboards, 8 pink erasers, 7 sharpened pencils, 6 packs of paper, 5 binder rings, 4 number cubes, 3 red pens, 2 paper clips

Homophones can be tricky, even for professional sign-makers and creators of messages on a restaurant or school marquee. This resource includes three slide shows, each of which has 20 pictures of signs containing homophones. Half of the signs are spelled correctly, and half of them have the wrong spelling of a homophone on them. The student’s first task for each sign is to identify the homophones. The next task is to determine if each homophone is spelled correctly, and if it is not, to come u

Pythagorean Theorem – Solving Real-Life Problems This resource presents ten real-life problems that are solved using the Pythagorean Theorem. A diagram accompanies each problem. An answer key is included, along with 2 solution pages which detail how each problem is solved. The ten problems are presented in three formats: 1) A black and white printable worksheet (PDF) - free response answers - can be used as a review/practice exercise - can be used as a formative assessment 2) A digital activit

Basic Math Fact Fluency with Mixed Combinations – Level Two with Three Operations Every math teacher knows that basic math fact fluency is critical to student success in any math procedure involving computation. The goal I have for my students is that they know the basic math facts as well as they know the letters of the alphabet. To keep my students sharp, we regularly solve oral mixed combinations mentally. A mixed combination involves performing the basic operations on a set of given number

Basic Math Fact Fluency with Mixed Combinations – Level One with Four Operations Every math teacher knows that basic math fact fluency is critical to student success in any math procedure involving computation. The goal I have for my students is that they know the basic math facts as well as they know the letters of the alphabet. To keep my students sharp, we regularly solve oral mixed combinations mentally. A mixed combination involves performing the basic operations on a set of given numbers

Basic Math Fact Fluency with Mixed Combinations – Level Two with Four Operations Every math teacher knows that basic math fact fluency is critical to student success in any math procedure involving computation. The goal I have for my students is that they know the basic math facts as well as they know the letters of the alphabet. To keep my students sharp, we regularly solve oral mixed combinations mentally. A mixed combination involves performing the basic operations on a set of given numbers

Using brain teasers and lateral thinking problems is an excellent way to engage your students’ attention immediately at the beginning of class. Students thrive on these types of questions because they are puzzling, challenging, and fun. I learned this strategy early in my 43-year teaching career, and in this resource I am sharing 230 tried-and-true questions that I gathered over those years. That’s one for every day of school, plus 50 more to replace those that won’t work for you or to use as ne

Basic Math Fact Fluency with Mixed Combinations – Level One with Five Operations Every math teacher knows that basic math fact fluency is critical to student success in any math procedure involving computation. The goal I have for my students is that they know the basic math facts as well as they know the letters of the alphabet. To keep my students sharp, we regularly solve oral mixed combinations mentally. A mixed combination involves performing the basic operations on a set of given numbers

This resource includes FOUR math center activities, each of which allows two or three students to practice customary measurement conversions in a Concentration/Memory Game format. There are four sets of cards dealing with the following measurements: length and area, weight and temperature, capacity, and time. Each set includes 16 cards consisting of eight matching pairs. Examples: 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 pound = 16 ounces, 1 gallon = 4 quarts, and 1 hour = 60 seconds, etc. Concentration/Memo

Basic Math Fact Fluency with Mixed Combinations – Level One with Three Operations Every math teacher knows that basic math fact fluency is critical to student success in any math procedure involving computation. The goal I have for my students is that they know the basic math facts as well as they know the letters of the alphabet. To keep my students sharp, we regularly solve oral mixed combinations mentally. A mixed combination involves performing the basic operations on a set of given number

These twelve digital drag-and-drop Easel activities will help your students to discriminate between beginning consonant blends as they match pictures with the letters of their beginning sound. The students will do the activities on their devices. THERE ARE NO WORKSHEETS TO PRINT. There is no prep needed by the teacher, and no grading is required as the activities are self-checking. The activities require no cutting or pasting by the students. Each of the activities involves sorting 12 pictures

These 14 digital drag-and-drop Easel activities will help your students to discriminate between beginning consonants as they match pictures with the letter of their beginning sound. The students will do the activities on their devices. THERE ARE NO WORKSHEETS TO PRINT. There is no prep needed by the teacher, and no grading is required as the activities are self-checking. The activities require no cutting or pasting by the students. Each of the activities involves sorting 12 pictures into 3 colu

This EASEL resource contains 10 digital drag-and-drop activities that involve matching pictures (actual photographs) of rhyming words. It requires no teacher prep, no copies, no cutting, no pasting, and no grading. Your students will do the activities on their devices, and the activities are self-checking. Each activity has two sets of four pictures. Paired with each set of pictures is a collection of five pictures, four of which rhyme with a picture in the set. The object is to match the rhym

This resource is a set of ten digital drag-and-drop Easel activities that your students will do on their devices. THERE ARE NO WORKSHEETS TO PRINT. There is no prep needed by the teacher, and no grading is required as the activities are self-checking. The activities require no cutting or pasting by the students. This resource will provide practice for your students to sort pictures without labels into correct categories. All of the 150 pictures are actual photographs. Each of the activities in