Five warm-ups for grades 6–8. Each takes three to five minutes. Answers and teacher notes are in the collapsed box under each prompt.
ELA
A fact can be checked and proven true or false. An opinion tells what someone thinks or feels. Label each sentence F (fact) or O (opinion). Then rewrite sentence 2 so it becomes a fact.
- October has 31 days.
- Fall is the best season of the year.
- At sea level, water freezes at 32°F.
- Pumpkin pie tastes better than apple pie.
- In a survey, most of the people asked said fall is their favorite season.
Answer and teacher notes
1. F 2. O 3. F 4. O 5. F
Sentence 5 is the tricky one. It is about opinions, but whether most people in the survey said so can be checked, so it is a fact. Sample rewrite of sentence 2: Fall begins in late September and ends in late December. or Many trees change color in the fall. Signal words that often point to opinions: best, worst, better, should, beautiful, boring. Follow-up: have students write one fact and one opinion about the same topic, such as their favorite food.
Math
Suppose a town far to the north has a cold fall day. At 6 a.m., the temperature is −4°F.
- By 2 p.m., the temperature rises 19 degrees. What is the temperature at 2 p.m.?
- By midnight, it falls 23 degrees from the 2 p.m. temperature. What is the temperature at midnight?
- A classmate says, “−4°F is colder than −8°F because 4 is smaller than 8.” Is the classmate right? Explain using a number line.
Answer and teacher notes
1. −4 + 19 = 15°F.
2. 15 − 23 = −8°F. Check: −8 + 23 = 15. ✓
3. No. On a number line, −8 is farther left (farther below zero) than −4, so −8°F is colder. For negative numbers, the one with the bigger absolute value is the smaller number.
Extension: what was the difference between the warmest and coldest temperatures listed? 15 − (−8) = 15 + 8 = 23 degrees. Students can also find the total change from 6 a.m. to midnight: −8 − (−4) = −4, a drop of 4 degrees.
Science
On a cold morning, you can see your breath as a small cloud. On a warm afternoon, you can’t, even though you breathe out the same way. (a) What is in your breath that makes the cloud? (b) What happens to your breath when it meets cold air? (c) The cloud disappears after a second or two. Where do you think the water goes?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) Air from your lungs is warm (close to body temperature, about 98.6°F) and holds a lot of invisible water vapor, a gas.
(b) Cold air can hold less water vapor than warm air. When your warm breath hits cold air, it cools quickly and reaches its dew point, the temperature where the air can’t hold all of its water vapor. The extra vapor condenses into tiny liquid droplets, and those droplets are the cloud you see. The Library of Congress notes it’s common when the air is below about 45°F. (c) Answers will vary. The droplets mix into the surrounding air, which is drier, and they evaporate back into invisible water vapor. Connection: clouds in the sky form the same way, when rising air cools to its dew point.
Source: Library of Congress: Why do I see my breath when it’s cold outside?
Social Studies
On October 20, 1973, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. In 1956, a design contest drew 233 entries from architects in about 30 countries, and Danish architect Jørn Utzon won. Construction began in 1959. Utzon left the project in 1966, years before it was finished. (a) How many years did construction take? How many years ago did the Opera House open? (b) Sydney is in the Southern Hemisphere. What season was it there in October? (c) Why might a city want a famous, one-of-a-kind building, even if it takes a long time to build?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 1973 − 1959 = about 14 years of construction. 2026 − 1973 = 53 years ago.
(b) Spring. Seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere because Earth’s tilt points that half toward the Sun when the Northern Hemisphere is in fall. (c) Answers will vary: attracting tourists, giving the city a symbol people recognize, national pride, and a home for the arts. The building’s white, sail-like roof shells make it one of the most photographed buildings in the world, and it was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2007. Map tip: show Sydney Harbour on Australia’s southeast coast.
Sources: Britannica: Sydney Opera House; EBSCO Research Starters: Sydney Opera House Opens; UNESCO: Sydney Opera House
Current Events
Archaeologists reported last week that they found a complete mummified dog, at least 1,200 years old, at Castillo de Huarmey, a site on Peru’s northern coast. The site was used by the Wari Empire from 600 to 1050 CE, about 400 years before the Inca rose to power. The team identified the dogs as Peruvian hairless dogs, a breed still around today. Many of the dogs’ skulls were missing their first premolar teeth, and that trait is linked to the same gene that causes hairlessness. (a) For how many years was the site in use? (b) Most ancient dog remains are just bones, with no skin left. How do the missing teeth help scientists tell that the dogs were hairless? (c) Only a few of the dog bones had butchery marks. What does that suggest about how people treated these dogs?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 1050 − 600 = 450 years.
(b) Because the same gene causes both hairlessness and missing premolars, a skull missing those teeth is a clue that the dog was probably hairless, even without skin. One naturally mummified skull still had hairless skin and ears attached, which backs this up. (c) Dogs apparently were not commonly eaten, so they were likely kept as companions or valued animals. Push for careful wording: the evidence suggests this but doesn’t prove it. The researchers also found that hairless puppies ate diets similar to human children’s and said this might point to organized breeding, but they could not confirm it. Fun fact: Peru named the hairless dog part of its cultural heritage in 2000. The study appears in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
Source: ScienceDaily: Archaeologists Discover 1,200-Year-Old Mummified Hairless Dog in Peru (Dartmouth College)
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