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
An idiom is a phrase whose meaning is different from the meanings of its individual words. Read each sentence. Write what the idiom in bold really means, then write one clue from the sentence that helped you.
- I didn’t study for the quiz, so I just had to wing it.
- Don’t worry about the spelling test. It will be a piece of cake.
- Jordan spilled the beans about the surprise party, so now everyone knows.
- I’ve been under the weather all week, so I stayed home to rest.
- We’re in the same boat: neither of us finished the project.
Answer and teacher notes
1. Wing it = do something without preparing. Clue: “didn’t study.”
2. A piece of cake = very easy. Clue: “Don’t worry.”
3. Spilled the beans = told a secret. Clue: “now everyone knows.”
4. Under the weather = feeling sick. Clue: “stayed home to rest.”
5. In the same boat = in the same situation. Clue: “neither of us finished.”
Idioms are a kind of figurative language: the words don’t mean what they literally say. They are especially tricky for English learners, so invite students who speak other languages to share an idiom from home and translate it word for word (the literal versions are often funny). Extension: draw the literal meaning of one idiom, like actual beans spilling out of a bag, and have a partner guess the idiom.
Math
You wrap a measuring tape around the widest part of a round pumpkin. Its circumference is 94.2 cm. Use π ≈ 3.14 and the formula C = π × d.
- What is the pumpkin’s diameter?
- What is its radius?
- You cut a circular lid with a diameter of 15 cm. What is the circumference of the lid?
- A giant pumpkin at a fair has a diameter of 60 cm, twice your pumpkin’s diameter. What is its circumference? What do you notice?
Answer and teacher notes
1. d = C ÷ π = 94.2 ÷ 3.14 = 30 cm. Check: 3.14 × 30 = 94.2. ✓
2. r = d ÷ 2 = 15 cm.
3. C = 3.14 × 15 = 47.1 cm.
4. C = 3.14 × 60 = 188.4 cm. That is exactly twice 94.2 cm: when the diameter doubles, the circumference doubles too.
Common mistake: multiplying 94.2 by 3.14 instead of dividing. Ask, “Should the diameter be bigger or smaller than the distance all the way around?” Notice that the lid in question 3 has a diameter equal to the pumpkin’s radius, so its circumference is half the pumpkin’s. Real pumpkins aren’t perfect spheres, so these are estimates. Extension: using C = 2πr, find the circumference of a pumpkin with a radius of 10 cm (62.8 cm).
Science
Spooky fog at Halloween parties often comes from dry ice, which is solid carbon dioxide (CO2). At normal air pressure, dry ice doesn’t melt. It turns straight from a solid into a gas at −78.5 °C (about −109 °F). Going directly from solid to gas is called sublimation. (a) Water ice melts at 0 °C. How many degrees colder is dry ice? (b) Why do you think it’s called “dry” ice? (c) When dry ice is dropped into warm water, a thick white fog rolls out and sinks toward the floor. The CO2 gas itself is invisible. So what is the white fog made of? (d) Why should dry ice never be sealed in a closed bottle or jar?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 0 − (−78.5) = 78.5 degrees Celsius colder. (b) Because it never becomes a liquid at normal pressure, it leaves no puddle as it disappears. (c) Tiny droplets of water. The very cold CO2 gas bubbling out of the water chills the water vapor above it, which condenses into a cloud of droplets, the same way your breath makes a cloud on a cold day. The fog sinks because the cold CO2 it travels with is denser than the surrounding air. (d) As the solid sublimes, it makes a large amount of gas. In a sealed container, the pressure builds until the container can burst.
Safety (worth saying aloud): dry ice is cold enough to cause frostbite, so it is handled only by adults wearing gloves; it is never eaten or put in drinks; and it is used only in well-ventilated areas, because the carbon dioxide gas can build up in closed spaces. This prompt is a thought exercise; no demonstration is needed. Connection: the “frost” caps on Mars are partly frozen carbon dioxide too.
Source: Wikipedia: Dry ice (sublimation temperature, fog, and safety)
Social Studies
On October 27, 1904, the first underground line of the New York City subway opened, run by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT). The line was 9.1 miles long with 28 stations, running from City Hall north to Grand Central, west to Times Square, and up the West Side to 145th Street. By the next morning, about 110,000 people had tried it. (a) How many years ago did the subway open? (b) With 28 stations on a 9.1-mile line, there are 27 gaps between stations. About how far apart were the stations? (c) Why would a crowded city choose to build its railroad underground? Give two reasons. (d) How might a fast, cheap train change where people chose to live and work?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 2026 − 1904 = 122 years. (b) 9.1 ÷ 27 ≈ 0.34 miles, about a third of a mile. (c) Answers will vary. Strong ideas: the streets were already jammed with wagons, streetcars, and people; tunnels don’t need land that is already covered with buildings; trains underground avoid traffic and weather; there is less noise and soot than with the elevated trains that ran above the streets.
(d) Answers will vary: people could live farther from their jobs and still get to work quickly; businesses could open near stations; crowded downtown tenements might empty out a little as families moved to roomier areas. Extension: think about your own community. What kind of transportation shapes where people live there (highways, buses, trains, bike paths)?
Source: Tenement Museum: On This Day in 1904, the First Underground Subway
Current Events
Archaeologists say they may have found the world’s oldest known shipwreck, in shallow water off Kekova, near Antalya in southern Turkey. The wooden hull has disappeared, but the cargo survived: large two-handled storage jars. Based on the style of the pottery, the team tentatively dates the wreck to about 2700–2400 BCE, roughly 4,500 years ago. The previous record holder, a wreck off Dokos, Greece, is about 4,200 years old. Divers spent about four months freeing the pottery from barnacle-covered rocks. (a) About how many years older is the new find than the old record holder? (b) How can pottery help date a ship when the wood is gone? (c) The ship rests between two islands. The researchers think it may have been sheltering from a storm and hit rocks. What clues could support that idea? (d) Scientists will test residue inside the jars. What might they learn?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 4,500 − 4,200 = about 300 years older. (b) Pottery styles and ways of making pots changed over time and from place to place, so experts can compare the jars’ shape and manufacturing technique with pots already dated at land sites. (c) Answers will vary: islands block wind and waves, so a sheltered spot between them makes sense in a storm; the cargo lying at the bottom of a rocky slope suggests the ship struck the rocks.
(d) What the ship was carrying (the article mentions the possibilities of olive oil, wine, or tree resin), and possibly where it came from: some of the jars or their clay may have come from the Central Jordan Valley. Stress the careful language: “may have found,” “tentatively dated.” The team has not yet published a peer-reviewed paper on the results, and the date could change. Discussion: why do scientists use words like “may” and “about” when they share new findings?
Source: ScienceDaily: Archaeologists May Have Just Found the World’s Oldest Shipwreck (Macquarie University, via The Conversation; October 26, 2026)
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