1. Get in Shape

It is a big problem in this country that many people are overweight. For most people, losing weight is simply a matter of eating healthy foods and being active. In today's newspaper find stories and pictures of people exercising or being active. As a class, make a list of foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals. Then draw a comic strip for the newspaper showing kids your age being active or eating well.

Learning Standards: Comprehending what constitutes good health and nutrition; showing how science concepts can be interpreted through creative expression; using the craft of the illustrator to convey ideas artistically.

2. Get in Shape Again

Shapes often make news: New buildings, new products, new sports fields. Look at the pictures, ads and drawings in the newspaper. Find a circle, a square, an oval, a rectangle, a ball, a cube and a triangle in the photos. Then cut out each of the shapes and paste them on a separate piece of paper to make a poster as an art collage. Display your art.

Learning Standards: Acquiring information from written, visual and electronic sources; comparing, sorting and classifying familiar shapes.

3. Supreme Court Choice

Under the Constitution of the United States it is the president's job to choose candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Senate's job to approve or disapprove the choices. When 90-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens announced he was retiring, everyone wondered who President Obama would pick to replace him on the nation's highest court. Last week, he revealed his choice, nominating former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan for the job. Kagan, who is 50, is an unusual choice because she has never served as a judge. If she is approved by the Senate, the nine-member Supreme Court will have three women as members at the same time for the first time in history. As a class, talk about what qualities a justice on the Supreme Court should have. With a partner, go through the newspaper and pick positive qualities from different newsmakers and create a "Super Supreme Court Justice" based on those qualities.

Learning Standards: Engaging peers in conversations about topics of interest or importance; identifying and explaining how individuals in history demonstrate good character and personal virtue; representing creatively.

4. All-Defense

Basketball coaches like to say that scoring makes headlines, but defense wins games. What that means is that the teams that can shut down their opponents are generally more successful than ones that score a lot of points. The NBA's 2010 All-Defensive All-Star Team shows how important strong defenders are to team success. Every player on the first and second All-Defensive Teams helped put his team in the NBA playoffs this year. The first team was led by Kobe Bryant of the Lakers, who was selected for the fifth straight year. He was joined on the first team by Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics, Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, Gerald Wallace of the Charlotte Bobcats and LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Defense plays an important role in all sports. Find an example in the sports section of the newspaper. Write a paragraph explaining how defense helped one team succeed. Or for fun, write a poem, rap or rhyme about playing defense.

Learning Standards: Acquiring information from multiple soucres; writing fluently for multiple purposes to produce compositions, such as personal narratives, persuasive essays, research reports or poetry.

5. Too Much TV

TV can be entertaining, but too much TV can cause problems for young children when they get older. A new study by researchers at the University of Montreal in Canada found connections between the amount of time children spend watching TV at age 2 with problems that can develop later in life. In particular, children who watch a lot of TV at age 2, can have problems doing school work, getting exercise and being picked on by classmates by the time they are in fourth grade, researchers found. The problem with too much TV at ages 2 and 3 is that it occurs when children's brains are developing and expanding at a rapid rate. Time spent watching TV is time not spent developing thinking skills, researchers said. As a class, talk about things other than TV you could do with a younger brother or sister for fun. Then talk about what skills younger kids could gain by doing these things (remember that making up games and learning new words build word and imagination skills!). Pick one activity and design an ad for the newspaper, showing why it is fun for younger kids and what skills it can teach. Share ads as a class.

Learning Standards: Responding to a variety of oral, visual, written and electronic texts by making connections to students' personal lives and the lives of others; representing creatively.