Sunday, May 1 is May Day, an ancient festival that celebrates the abundance of flowers and warm weather at this time of the year. To celebrate the day, cut out pictures from today's newspaper that remind you of May and springtime. As a class, make an art collage, using everyone's pictures. Display your work in the classroom. Come up with a creative title for your collage.

Learning Standard: Reading and writing with developing fluency, speaking confidently, listening and interacting appropriately, viewing strategically and representing creatively.

In 1980, about 6.5 percent of children ages 6 to 11 were considered obese in the United States. Now 19.6 percent of children that age are considered obese. Children are obese when they weigh a lot more than they should. This happens when they eat more food than they burn off with exercise, play and other activities. Scientists have discovered that being obese can lead to many health problems for people as they get older. To help kids make healthy food choices, the famous chef Jamie Oliver has started a program called Food Revolution to get schools to provide healthier lunches. Another idea to improve health is to make sure kids get a lot of physical activity during and after school. Search the newspaper to find stories about ways schools and families could make changes to help children be more healthy. Design an ad for the newspaper to help raise awareness of the importance of healthy eating and exercise.

Learning Standards: Understanding and demonstrating ways in which health and well-being can be enhanced and maintained by such things as comparing food intake to the recommendations of the USDA Food Guide Pyramid; understanding and demonstrating how to promote positive health practices within the school and community.

The Girl Scout, Boy Scout and Cub Scout troops of Camp Zama, Japan, a major United States military base, decided to take action when the earthquake and tsunami destroyed parts of that Asian nation this spring. They organized Operation Backpacks for Japan: Kids Helping Kids. Their mission is to provide "comfort and a message of love to the kids of Japan who have lost everything." They are requesting donations of backpacks, paper, crayons, comics, stuffed animals, flashlights, games, small blankets, hairbrushes, combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, hats, non-perishable snacks and other items and putting them in backpacks to send to the children living in Sendai, Japan. Search the newspaper for another example of people working to help Japan's earthquake victims or other people in need. Think about ways to cheer up the people being helped. Write notes and draw pictures to send the people.

Learning Standards: Extracting appropriate and significant information from the text, including problems and solutions; writing personal and formal letters.

Babies are just so cute - both human and animal. Zoos around the country have welcomed a lot of new baby animals in the past 12 months. Visitors to the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, Massachusetts, now can enjoy seeing a new baby gorilla and baby zebra. The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park in California have hippo, elephant, giraffe, tiger and cheetah babies. The Atlanta Zoo in Georgia boasts a baby panda named "Po" that was named after the panda in the movie "Kung Fu Panda." As a class, search the newspaper for zoos near you and find out if they have any new animal babies. Or find an example online with your teacher. Research one animal and design a poster showing where it lives in the wild, what it eats and if it is endangered.

Learning Standards: Knowing that living organisms depend on one another and on the environment for survival; reading and writing with developing fluency, speaking confidently, listening and interacting appropriately, viewing strategically and representing creatively.

The NBA playoffs are under way to determine who gets to play for the championship. The NBA has had many remarkable players who have scored thousands of points during their careers. The league's top all-time scorers are Wilt Chamberlain (31,419 points), Michael Jordan (32,292 career points), Karl Malone (36,928 points), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387 points). In groups or pairs, search the newspaper to find teams in the 2011 NBA playoffs. Use the sports section and online resources to find out which player is the highest scorer on your three favorite teams. Then figure out how many points each has scored so far in his career, and how many more points each would need to score in his career to be in the top five all-time NBA scorers.

Learning Standards: Knowing numbers through the 10,000 place and being able to add and subtract numbers up through the 10,000 place.