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 simile compares two unlike things using like or as. A metaphor compares them directly, saying one thing is another. For each sentence, write S (simile) or M (metaphor), name the two things being compared, and tell what quality they share. Then write one simile and one metaphor of your own about autumn.
- After the bell, the hallway was a river of backpacks.
- Her laugh was as loud as a trumpet.
- The fog crept over the field like a slow gray cat.
- My little brother is a tornado when he gets home from school.
- The library was a quiet cave on a rainy afternoon.
Answer and teacher notes
1. M. Hallway (crowd of students) and a river: lots of things flowing in the same direction.
2. S (uses as). Laugh and a trumpet: loud and hard to ignore.
3. S (uses like). Fog and a cat: moving slowly and silently. “Crept” adds personification.
4. M. Brother and a tornado: fast, wild, leaves a mess behind.
5. M. Library and a cave: quiet, dim, sheltered.
Common mistake: calling any sentence with like a simile. “I like pizza” compares nothing. A simile needs two unlike things; “my sister is like my mom” is a plain comparison, not figurative language. Discussion: which is stronger, sentence 4 or “My little brother is like a tornado”? Many writers feel the metaphor hits harder because it doesn’t hedge. Sample autumn lines: “Leaves fell like slow orange snow” (simile); “The maple was a torch on the hillside” (metaphor).
Math
On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. His capsule, Friendship 7, circled Earth 3 times in about 4 hours and 55 minutes. On October 29, 1998, Glenn flew to space again aboard the space shuttle Discovery at age 77. That mission orbited Earth 134 times and traveled 3.6 million miles in 213 hours and 44 minutes.
- How many years passed between Glenn’s two flights? How old was he on the first one?
- The 1998 mission made about how many times as many orbits as the 1962 flight? Round to the nearest whole number.
- About how many miles did Discovery travel per orbit? Round to the nearest thousand.
- Find Discovery‘s average speed in miles per hour. (Hint: change 213 hours 44 minutes into hours first.) Round to the nearest thousand.
Answer and teacher notes
1. 1998 − 1962 = 36 years. On the first flight he was 77 − 36 = 40. (Check: Glenn was born July 18, 1921, so he was 40 in February 1962 and 77 in October 1998.)
2. 134 ÷ 3 ≈ 44.7, so about 45 times as many orbits.
3. 3,600,000 ÷ 134 ≈ 26,866, so about 27,000 miles per orbit, a bit more than the distance around Earth at the equator (about 24,900 miles) because the shuttle flew a few hundred miles above the surface.
4. 44 minutes = 44 ÷ 60 ≈ 0.733 hours, so the time is about 213.73 hours. 3,600,000 ÷ 213.73 ≈ 16,843, or about 17,000 mph.
Check item 4 by estimating: 17,000 × 214 ≈ 3,638,000, close to 3.6 million. ✓ Common mistake: writing 213 hours 44 minutes as 213.44 hours. Minutes are out of 60, not 100. Extension: about how many minutes did one orbit take? (213 × 60 + 44 = 12,824 minutes ÷ 134 ≈ 96 minutes.) Glenn flew in 1998 partly so scientists could study how spaceflight affects an older body. Today is the 28th anniversary of that launch.
Sources: NASA: John H. Glenn Jr. biography (birth date, Friendship 7, STS-95 orbits, miles, and hours); NASA: STS-95 mission page (launch date and Glenn’s age)
Science
Fire salamanders are black-and-yellow amphibians found in Europe. Their skin glands make toxic secretions that protect them from predators. Scientists reported this week that, under ultraviolet (UV) light, fire salamanders glow green and cyan, mostly from their skin glands and the secretions themselves. This is biofluorescence: the animal absorbs light of one color and gives it back off as a different color. It is different from bioluminescence, where a living thing (like a firefly) makes its own light through a chemical reaction. (a) Would a fire salamander glow in a completely dark cave? Explain. (b) Humans can’t see UV light, so how do you think the scientists spotted the glow? (c) The researchers have two ideas: the glow might help salamanders recognize each other, or it might warn predators that they’re toxic. Pick one and describe an experiment to test it. (d) The secretions kept glowing for more than 24 hours after leaving the animal. Why might that be useful to scientists studying where salamanders have been?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) No. Fluorescence needs incoming light to absorb. With no light at all, there is nothing to turn into a glow. A bioluminescent animal like a firefly could still glow in the dark. (b) They shone a UV lamp (a “black light”) on the salamanders. The UV is invisible, but the green and cyan light given off is in the range we can see. (c) Answers will vary. Recognition: in a dark tank with a little UV light, see whether salamanders approach a glowing model more often than an identical non-glowing one. Warning: offer predators (or model predators) glowing and non-glowing targets and compare how often each is attacked. Look for a control group and one variable changed at a time.
(d) Answers will vary: a glowing trail could show where salamanders traveled, hid, or met each other, even a day later. Teacher note: the article points out that full moonlight has a larger share of UV and violet light than daylight, so the glow might matter most on moonlit nights. The glowing chemical hasn’t been identified yet, and both explanations are hypotheses, not proven facts. Connection: highlighters and the white stripes on some safety vests also fluoresce under black light.
Source: ScienceDaily: Scientists Discover a Secret Glow in Toxic Fire Salamanders (Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology; Royal Society Open Science; October 28, 2026)
Social Studies
On October 29, 1929, a day now called Black Tuesday, the U.S. stock market collapsed. A stock (or share) is a small piece of ownership in a company that people can buy and sell. Prices had been falling for days. On Thursday, October 24 (“Black Thursday”), a record 12,894,650 shares changed hands as people rushed to sell, and banks bought large amounts of stock to try to calm the panic. On Black Tuesday, about 16 million shares were traded and prices collapsed. (a) How many years ago was Black Tuesday? (b) About how many more shares were traded on Black Tuesday than on Black Thursday? About what percent more? (c) If almost everyone wants to sell a stock and almost no one wants to buy it, what happens to its price? Why? (d) Why might big banks buying stock have calmed people down, at least for a little while?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 2026 − 1929 = 97 years. (b) 16,000,000 − 12,894,650 = 3,105,350, about 3.1 million more shares. 3,105,350 ÷ 12,894,650 ≈ 0.24, so about 24% more. (c) The price drops. Sellers must keep lowering their asking price to find anyone willing to buy. This is supply and demand: lots of supply, little demand. (d) Answers will vary: it showed that powerful, well-informed buyers still thought the stocks were worth something; it created buyers when few existed; people may have felt someone was “in charge.”
Point out that fear spreads: when prices fall, more people sell to avoid losing more, which pushes prices down further. Britannica notes that the crash began a 10-year economic slump that affected all the Western industrialized countries, known in the United States as the Great Depression. Extension: what is one way a stock market crash could affect families who never owned any stock? (Businesses close or cut jobs, banks struggle, people spend less.)
Sources: Britannica: Stock Market Crash of 1929 summary (Black Thursday volume, banks’ buying, 16 million shares, 10-year slump); Britannica: Black Tuesday
Current Events
Ants are everywhere: there are more than 15,000 known species. A new study led by Lukas Schrader of the University of Münster in Germany suggests that the asteroid that struck Earth about 66 million years ago, ending the age of dinosaurs, may have helped ants spread into thousands of new species. The team compared the DNA of 163 ant species from 12 of the 16 living ant subfamilies. They found bursts of activity in “jumping genes” (pieces of DNA that can copy themselves and move to new places) soon after the impact, and ant groups with the most jumping genes generally have the most species today. The study appeared this week in Science Advances. (a) About what percent of known ant species did the team study? (b) Why would it help to sample ants from many different subfamilies instead of just one? (c) Groups with more jumping genes have more species. Does that prove jumping genes caused the new species? Explain. (d) How could a disaster that wiped out many living things create new opportunities for the survivors?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) 163 ÷ 15,000 ≈ 0.011, or about 1%. (b) Different subfamilies are distant branches of the ant family tree. Sampling widely shows whether a pattern is true for ants in general or just one group. (c) No. It shows a correlation (two things that go together), not proof of cause and effect. Something else could cause both, or the link could run the other way. The scientists themselves use careful words like “may have” and “suggests.”
(d) Answers will vary: with many animals gone, survivors faced less competition and fewer predators; empty habitats and new food sources were open; new forests and ecosystems formed. The researchers also connected the jumping genes to an increase in genes for smelling chemical signals, which ants use to communicate and recognize their own colony. Extension: name another group of animals that spread out after the dinosaurs disappeared. (Mammals are a classic example.)
Source: ScienceDaily: The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs May Have Helped Ants Conquer the World (University of Münster; Science Advances; October 27, 2026)
Keep going
More bell ringers: Bell ringers for middle school · Math bell ringers · Science bell ringers · Social studies bell ringers · Grammar bell ringers · 100 bell ringer questions
End of class: Exit tickets for middle school · Math exit tickets · ELA exit tickets · Science exit tickets · Social studies exit tickets · Printable exit slips
Tools: Printable bell ringer sheet · Free AI bell ringer creator