1. Keep on Walking

With the high price of gas, people who live in cities are looking to walk instead of drive to get around. So what cities are the best for walkers? A new ranking from a Web site that rates cities for how easy it is to live without a car says San Francisco, California is the most walkable city in the nation. Next in line, according to the site www.walkscore.com, are New York, New York and Boston, Massachusetts. There are many benefits when people walk: They use less gas, they cause less pollution and they get exercise. With family or friends, find a place that would be good for walking in the stories, photos or ads in the newspaper. Write a paragraph describing why this place would be good for walking. Then draw a picture of you and your family walking there.

Learning Standard: Reading and writing fluently, speaking confidently, listening and interacting appropriately, viewing critically and representing creatively.

2. Itty Bitty Bug

In the state of California, a tiny bug known as the Asian Citrus psyllid (SIL-id) is causing big worries. Farm and border agents have set hundreds of traps in an effort to stop the little bug from bringing in a disease farmers say could cause great damage to orange and lemon trees. The psyllids transmit "yellow dragon disease," which causes the leaves of citrus trees to die. Farming makes news all over the country. Find a story about farming or agriculture in the newspaper. Write a sentence summarizing what is making news. Write a second sentence predicting what will happen next.

Learning Standard: Describing, comparing and explaining the characteristics of ecosystems, resources, human adaptation, environmental impact and the interrelationships among them.

3. Helpful Dogs

Animals can help people in many ways, and not just by being good pets. Seeing-eye dogs have helped blind people get around for years, and now an Ohio woman has trained dogs to help children with the condition known as autism. Autistic children have trouble communicating with others, and sometimes don't know when they could get hurt or hurt themselves. Karen Shirk's 4 Paws for Ability program has trained service dogs to keep autistic kids safe when they are out in public, and even to help them calm down when they get frustrated or angry. In the photos, stories and ads in the newspaper, find examples of animals that help people. Pick one and write a sentence explaining how it helps. Then write a second sentence explaining how people should treat this helpful animal.

Learning Standards: Writing fluently for multiple purposes; generating questions about issues that affect students or topics about which they are curious.

4. Dino Find

Searching for dinosaurs is always exciting because scientists never know what they're going to find. In the central Asian country of Mongolia, dinosaur hunters have found the complete fossil skeleton of a young dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago. The young dinosaur was a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, about five years old and more than six feet long. Dinosaur fossils teach people what animal life was like in the past. What would today's animals teach future scientists? In the newspaper, find an animal and brainstorm a list of things it would tell future scientists about the Earth today.

Learning Standards: Using written and visual texts to identify and research issues.

5. What a Name!

Parents sometimes like to give their children unusual names. But a judge in the nation of New Zealand has decided one name given by parents was just too weird. The judge said the parents who named their daughter Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii had made her the object of jokes and abuse and ordered them to change it. New Zealand law does not allow names that could offend some people, and the 9-year-old girl had been embarrassed by her Talula name. Unusual names can be found every day in the newspaper. Find one that interests you today and think about what it would be like to have that name. Draw a comic strip showing a day in the life of a person who has the name you chose. Learning Standards: Responding to a variety of written, visual and electronic texts by making connections to students' personal lives and the lives of others; using the craft of the illustrator to convey ideas artistically.