Janet Stout presents a lesson for middle school students that reinforces the concept of the five themes of geography. Stout includes a list of the materials required, the time needed, and the procedures. Teachers.Net provides the lesson as part of the Teachers.Net Lesson Exchange online resource.

Activities and strategies help teach the five themes of geography--location, place, human-environmental interaction, movement, and region. Reproducibles included.

Teaching Social Studies to English Language Learners provides readers with a comprehensive understanding of both the challenges that face English language learners (ELLs) and ways in which educators might address them in the social studies classroom. The authors offer context-specific strategies for the full range of the social studies curriculum, including geography, U.S. history, world history, economics, and government. These practical instructional strategies will effectively engage learners and can be incorporated as a regular part of instruction in any classroom. An annotated list of web and print resources completes the volume, making this a valuable reference to help social studies teachers meet the challenges of including all learners in effective instruction. Features and updates to this new edition include: • An updated and streamlined Part 1 provides an essential overview of ELL theory in a social studies specific-context. • "Teaching Tips" offer helpful suggestions and ideas for creating and modifying lesson plans to be inclusive of ELLs. • Additional practical examples and new pedagogical elements in Part 3 include more visuals, suggestions for harnessing new technologies, discussion questions, and reflection points. • New material that takes into account the demands of the Common Core State Standards, as well as updates to the web and print resources in Part 4.

"Five Times Five: Five Activities for Teaching Geography's Five Themes" is a July 20, 1998 article by Gary Hopkins featuring teaching suggestions best suited for use with elementary and middle school classes. The five themes of geography are: location, place, human/environment interaction, movement, and regions. Hopkins also offers access to related links. Education World, Inc. provides the article online as part of its Lesson Planning Center resource.

Three critical areas: managing time and space, managing student behavior, managing instructional strategies.

England's school system performs below its potential and can improve significantly. This white paper outlines action designed to: tackle the weaknesses in the system; strengthen the status of teachers and teaching; reinforce the standards set by the curriculum and qualifications; give schools back the freedom to determine their own development; make schools more accountable to parents, and help them to learn more quickly and systematically from good practice elsewhere; narrow the gap in attainment between rich and poor. The quality of teachers and teaching is the most important factor in determining how well children do. The Government will continue to raise the quality of new entrants to the profession, reform initial teacher training, develop a network of "teaching schools" to lead training and development, and reduce the bureaucratic burden on schools. Teachers will be given more powers to control bad behaviour. The National Curriculum will be reviewed, specifying a tighter model of knowledge of core subjects so that the Curriculum becomes a benchmark against which school can be judged. Schools will be given more freedom and autonomy, the Academies programme extended and parents will be able to set up "Free Schools" to meet parent demand. Accountability for pupil performance is critical, and much more information will be available to aid understanding of a school's performance. School improvement will be the responsibility of schools, not central government. Funding of schools needs to be fairer and more transparent, and there will be a Pupil Premium to target resources on the most deprived pupils.