Instructional Minute

Get inspired with a new collection of journal prompts to give students meaningful opportunities to reflect on and write about what they've learned. These brief activities will help them deepen their understanding and expand their thinking while building a strong foundation for the future.

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This National Poetry Month, promote creative thinking in your classroom and fortify your students’ literacy skills by weaving poetry into your lessons. Watch the recording of our webinar with poet Richard Blanco for practical guidance on how to get your learners engaging in new literary works.

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Quality Questioning is a process that depends on the preparation of a limited number of focus questions as a part of lesson design, ongoing partnership with students to develop skills and mindsets that enable them to effectively participate, and intentional use of classroom questioning practices that engage all students in thinking and learning. When strategically planned and intentionally executed, these three practices work together like a three-legged stool, supporting quality questioning and generating feedback both students and teachers can use.

1. Quality questions generate responses that serve as feedback to both students and teachers.
2. Selection and use of strategic response structures facilities feedback from all students.
3. Quality questioning strategies support dialogue that makes student thinking and responding visible as feedback to all.
4. Quality questioning for feedback develops self-regulated learners.
5. Teaching students new skills and dispositions is crucial to the effectiveness of questioning for real-time feedback.
6. New roles and responsibilities support quality questioning for real-time formative feedback.

On-demand videos of Amplify Science lessons are available in the Amplify Science Program Hub, accessible through your Programs & Apps menu. Simply select the on-demand resources icon, filter by grade level, choose your unit, and find the on-demand videos tab. These recorded lessons are great for supporting students after absences and creating engaging sub plans with Amplify Science.

Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 with our free, ready-to-use activity bundles! These resources include a customizable poster activity for the whole class, grade-banded activities that encourage discussion, and a beautiful Earth Day poster for your classroom.

Keep reading for more resources to help you finish the school year strong with Amplify Science!

There are three different types of knowledge and mistakes: factual, procedural, and conceptual knowledge.

• Factual Knowledge: refers to having ready in the memory the answers to a relatively small set of problems of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The mistake made with this knowledge happens when a student makes an error about something that they actually do have factual knowledge about.
• Procedural Knowledge: a sequence of steps by which a frequently encountered problem may be solved. The mistake made with this knowledge happens when a student overlooks a step in a procedure in a way that results in an incorrect solution.
• Conceptual Knowledge: refers to an understanding of meaning; knowing that multiplying two negative numbers yields a positive result is not the same thing as understanding why it is true. The mistake made with this knowledge happens when a student makes an error or obtains the incorrect solution because a concept has not yet been fully developed or understood.

Wessman-Enzinger, Nicole M., and Natasha E. Gerstenschlager. Celebrating Mathematical Mistakes: How to Use Students' Thinking to Unlock Understanding. Solution Tree, 2025

On March 20th, NCTM hosted a virtual learning opportunity geared towards Classroom Conversations — Kindergarten Block Teams: Building Math and SEL Skills Through Purposeful Play. Don't worry if you weren't able to attend! Below is a link to the recording of this session:

Building Math and SEL Skills

Create custom targeted question sets to improve instruction. This resource has thousands of real test questions, allows the user to filter questions, and then export into a PDF if needed. Follow the link below for access!

SAT, PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10 Educator Question Bank

In our current information economy, math is everywhere. The people we date, the news we see, the influence of our votes, the candidates who win elections, the education we have access to, the jobs we get — all of it is underwritten by an invisible layer of math that few of us understand, or even notice.

But whether we know it or not, our numeric literacy — whether we can speak the language of math — is a critical determinant of social and economic power.

It’s critical to understand how the impact of math runs throughout our electoral process in ways most of us never notice — from gerrymandered voting districts and AI-created political ads to ballot measures and candidate choices. Counted Out shows us the power of math that undergirds our democracy. Who holds that power? Who doesn’t? And how can we all speak the language of math to fully participate in a world that belongs to everyone?

Join us for a viewing of the film on April 22nd at 5:30 in Conference Room B at the Halik (4200 Wainwright Ave, Lansing, MI 48911).

Date: Monday, April 28th

Link to details: highcaliberkarting.com/teacher-staff-appreciation-day

Location: 1982 W Grand River Ave #800 Okemos, MI 48864

Time: After school

Cost: Free All Access Day Pass (with valid ID), free Groovy donuts, free swag

Children invited: not this time

RSVP: There is a link on their webpage.

K-8 Science:

• May 14th

K-8 Math:

• April 17th*
• May 20th

K-8 ELA:

• May 6th

9-12 Math:

• April 17th*
• May 15th

9-12 ELA:

• May 6th

*Please note that K-12 Math will be meeting together on April 17th at 4:30 pm to discuss the current Math Pilot. This is a great opportunity for teachers who aren’t currently piloting to learn more about the prospective curricula! If you have any questions regarding this, please do not hesitate to reach out to Yvonne Thomas or Lisa Dean.

Click on the above title to view the evaluation documents for staff!

Below you can find the new, updated required instructional minutes by grade level and content area. Each grade level also includes a sample schedule.

Teachers are encouraged to monitor student progress regularly using formative assessments and adjust pacing as needed based on classroom data. However, teachers should aim to stay within two weeks of the pacing outlined in the guides to maintain alignment with district-wide goals. While we do not adjust pacing for snow days, the pacing is a guide and the expectation is to stay within the established two-week time frame.

The documents attached outline K-8 curricular resources, standards and pacing. This can also be found by clicking here on the LSD website.

The document attached outlines 9-12 curricular resources, standards and pacing. This can also be found by clicking here on the LSD website.

A resource to use as you see fit.