Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear Clifford! Hard to believe, but Clifford the Big Red Dog turned 50 last week. Author Norman Bridwell, 84, wrote the first Clifford book 50 years ago, when he was a struggling artist trying to make it in New York City. He sent out 10 paintings to publishers, hoping to be a children’s book illustrator. The paintings were rejected, but one staff person told him the only way he would get published is to write his own book. He wrote “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” and today there are 90 Clifford books in 13 languages, a television show, stuffed animals and more. The girl in the stories, Emily Elizabeth, is based on Bridwell’s daughter by the same name. Find a story that interests you in your eEdition. Turn that story into your own Clifford story and illustrate it.

A Big Dog Party

Search by Date

Growing, Growing, Growing

Election 2012: Give Us Energy!

Let’s Have Fun!

Your eEdition allows you to access information in a variety of ways. One feature allows you to search previous editions for topics that interest you. Another lets you look at entire editions of the eEdition from different days. This can be done by using the toolbar option that allows you to view eEditions by date. Find that option on the home page of your eEdition. Then scan the front page of the eEdition for every day over the last week. List what the top stories were on each day. Were stories on the same topic front-page news on different days? Write a paragraph summarizing the top story for the week and why that story got front-page coverage. Then write a sentence describing the advantages of having the ability to compare eEditions from different days.

Debate over energy and the environment has gone on in the United States for years. Should the nation drill more for oil and gas or should it go for clean energy sources? Are hybrid cars better? Can we switch to solar or wind energy? These are issues the two presidential candidates will debate in this year’s election and the issue you will debate as a class this week in the News Bytes Mock Election,

using information from your eEdition. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is pledging to make the U.S. independent of energy produced outside the country by 2020 through aggressive exploration for oil, gas, coal and other resources, along with drilling in ocean areas, western lands and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. President Obama ordered a temporary moratorium on deep-water drilling after the massive BP oil spill, approved a drilling plan in the Arctic Ocean, set a goal of cutting oil imports in half by 2020 and proposes that Congress give oil market regulators more power to control price manipulation. As a class, debate how the U.S. should proceed and vote at the end.

The Gold Rush turned San Francisco, California, into the booming city it is today. The land rush made the state of Oklahoma a cattleman’s heaven. A disease called tuberculosis helped the state of Arizona grow. Tuberculosis is a lung disease, and Arizona’s dry climate was considered especially healthful for people trying to recover, according to an Arizona Republic article. Doctors treated patients in clinics called sanatoriums built at the turn of the 20th century. In teams, find an eEdition or online article about something interesting in the history of your state. Do further research and put together a Power Point presenta-tion on the subject for the class.

If you live in Detroit, Michigan, you may have noticed an odd trend: Children and grownups playing hopscotch along the sidewalks of the city. An effort called Hopscotch Detroit was organized to set a record for the longest hopscotch course listed on the website www.recordsetter.com, according to a Detroit Free Press article. Volunteers started applying chalk squares on sidewalks in the downtown area and didn’t stop until four miles later. The idea behind the hopscotch event was to show the city as a place where fun things happen. Search your eEdition for fun events in your community. Write a paragraph describing one event that interests you, and why.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

Common Core/National Standard: Understanding the operations and functions of technology systems and becoming proficient in the use of technology.

Common Core/National Standard: Conducting short research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

Common Core/National Standard: Propelling conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate a current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas.

In every classroom, there are students who excel and students who struggle — and everything in between. How can teachers help students when there is such a large range of abilities? The Education Achieve-ment Authority of Michigan decided it’s best to meet students where they are rather than hoping each will be able to keep up in a standard classroom. The approach is called student-centered learning. With it, each child works at his or her own speed and ability, rather than at a pre-determined grade or age level. Students get their lessons on com-puters with help from the teacher. When a student masters the content of a lesson, he/she gets to move on. In teams or alone, find an eEdition article on new educational ideas. Or find one online. As a class, discuss the merits of some new ideas. Than write a short summary of one.

What’s New in Learning?

Bouncing Bumps and Bruises

Walk This Way

Election 2012: War of Words on War

Use That Index!

How high can you bounce? High enough to get injured? That is the concern of children’s doctors across the United States and Canada when it comes to backyard trampolines. The pediatricians recently released an updated policy state-ment that said backyard trampolines are “intrinsically dangerous” and should be strongly discouraged, according to a USA Today article. In 2009, there were an estimated 98,000 trampoline-related injuries, resulting in 3,100 hospital- izations. Fractures and dislocations make up about 48 percent of the injuries, the article said. Head and neck injuries make up about 15 percent. Netting erected around trampolines has improved the safety somewhat, but not enough, the pediatricians said. Find an eEdition article about activities that kids your age like to do. Write an opinion essay discussing ones you think are safe and ones you think are not.

Since the attack on America on September 11, 2001, the United States has been waging a war against ter-rorists, and involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. War strategy and the country’s defense will be a topic of debate in this fall’s presidential debates, the first of which is Wednesday at the University of Denver in Colorado. President Barack Obama ended the war in Iraq, increased troops in Afghanistan and will pull all

troops out of that country by 2014. He also approved the mission that killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, and has made an agreement with congress- ional Republicans to reduce the size of the military to cut $487 billion in spending over 10 years. Repub-lican candidate Mitt Romney endorses the 2014 end to U.S. combat in Afghanistan in concept, but says final pullout will depend on conditions at the time. He would increase the number of troops and war-ships in the U.S. military and add almost $100 billion to the Pentagon budget in 2016. Search your eEdition for stories about the war in Afghanistan. Hold a mock presidential debate between Republicans and Democrats on how the U.S. should proceed there.

“Mom! That’s like a mile away. I’m not going to walk that far!” David Kunst probably never said that to his mother. He was the first person to complete an around-the-world journey on foot. It took him four years and 21 pairs of shoes to go 14,500 miles across the land masses of four continents. October 5 marks the 38th anniversary of his accomplish-ment. In his walk he raised money for the United Nations Children’s Fund and was joined by his brothers for part of the journey. Find an eEdition article about someone trying to reach a goal. Write an essay discussing this goal and what it could teach you about achieving a goal you have for your own life.

The front page Index of your eEdition lets you find information about what is inside the eEdition in an easy way. And every once in a while it’s good to review how it works. Click on the Index on Page 1 of today’s eEdition. Then go to the tool bar at the top of the page and find the pull-down that offers readers a Visual or Graphic Mode and a Text Mode. With the Index open, try each mode. What do you see with each mode? What are the advantages of each mode? Finish by writing a complete sentence explaining which mode you think you would use the most.

Common Core/National Standards: Engaging effectively in a range of collaborative discussions; producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

Common Core/National Standards: Using prescribed technology tools for data collection and analysis; describing uses of technology in daily life.

Common Core/National Standard: Propelling conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate a current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas.

To spank or not to spank. That is the question that has faced schools in Texas after high school student Taylor Santos opted for a paddling rather than a two-day in-school suspension. The spanking was done by a male vice principal and left her bottom “fire-engine red and looked as if it had been burned and blistered,” her mother told ABC News. Corporal punishment has been outlawed by 31 states, but is still legal in 19 others unless abolished by local authorities, the article said. In the district where Santos attends school, parents must be called before the punished is meted out. However, the spanking must be done by an administrator of the same sex to reduce the force of hitting for girls. Find an eEdition or online story about using corporal punishment in schools. Write an opinion essay supporting one side or the other.

The Spanking Debate

Search and Explore

How High Can You Go?

Election 2012: To Tax or Not to Tax?

On-Air Presidents

Stories about the economy have been in the news a lot lately, and many of them include numbers: how the government is distributing money, how the stock market is moving, how many people are being laid off by companies and so on. Explore news about the economy by using the Search or Advanced Search function of the eEdition and searching for the word “economy.” Read one of the stories you find and figure out the best way to present the information in a graph or chart. Then make the graph or chart. Write a paragraph explaining ways that graphs or charts can be effective for displaying and organizing information.

Each year, the tax man cometh, but who he will be coming to is the big issue in the presidential debates that start this Wednesday. Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney have widely divergent ideas on taxes. The Associated Press recently ran an article about the positions of the two candidates on taxes and other issues. The article said that Romney wants to keep the tax cuts approved while George

W. Bush was president for all incomes and drop all taxes by 20 percent. He also would curtail credits, deductions and exemptions for the wealthiest Americans, eliminate capital gains taxes for families making below $200,000 and cut corporate taxes by 10 percent. Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and ensure they pay 30 percent of their income in taxes. He supports extend-ing Bush-era cuts for those making below $200,000, wants to let the top tax rates go back up by 3 to 4 percent and would raise rates on capital gains and dividends for the wealthy. As a class, debate the tax issue. Then write how you would deal with taxes if you were president.

Boys, you are going to have to be on top of your game when asking a girl to a dance, because a student at Patriot High School in Nokesville, Virginia, has set the bar really high. He enlisted the help of a U.S. Customs pilot to fly a helicopter over the school and drop a stuffed teddy bear onto the football field to ask a girl for a date. There is no word if the object of his affection accepted his invitation, but the pilot is in hot water. He has been put on administrative leave pending an investi-gation. Find an eEdition story about an over-the-top invitation or proposal. Or find one online. Discuss it. Then draw a comic strip showing someone doing something over-the-top and funny.

On October 5, 1947, a presidential speech was shown on television for the first time. Harry S. Truman addressed the nation from the White House, asking Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europe-ans. World War II was over, but Europe was still in tatters and experiencing a famine. At the time of his speech, there were only few thousand televisions in American homes. This week, President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney will debate on television. Watch the debate, read the eEdition coverage and write an analysis to share with the class.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

Common Core/National Standards: Selecting appropriate representations for numbers, including integers and rational numbers, in order to simplify and solve problems; using charts and graphs to display information.

Common Core/National Standards: Engaging effectively in a range of collaborative discussions; adding drawings or visual displays when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or points.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

Common Core/National Standards: Propelling conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate a discussion to broader themes; producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task.