Daily Starters

Scholastic has daily starters available - for free - at http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/. Each one has a teachable moment (usually a day in history type thing), a brief writing prompt, and a vocabulary activity. For example, the starter for Sept. 24th reads:


Teachable Moment

Basketball was invented by James Naismith, who taught physical education at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachussetts. During the cold winter of 1891, Naismith had to come up with an exercise his students could perform indoors because it was too cold to go outside. And so he came up with the game of basketball!

My Morning Journal
Can you imagine inventing your own sport? Tell how the game would be played and what equipment would be needed.

Word of the Day
It’s National Punctuation Day!

!?”[*—!

Do you think the lowly comma is irrelevant? Think again. A comma can save a life! For example, read the two sentences below. How does the meaning change in each? Why did it change?

1. Let's eat Grandma!
2. Let's eat, Grandma!

irrelevant  [ih-rel-uh-vuhnt] adjective

•not relevant; not related to the matter at hand

Synonyms: unimportant, beside the point, trivial

Write a sentence for irrelevant. Be sure to punctuate it correctly.