Feeling the heat lately? It might be because of El Niño, a climate pattern characterized by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It can affect the trade winds. These are the permanent, normally easterly winds that flow around the Earth's equator.
When we track the water temperature using tools like satellites, buoys, and ocean floats to measure temperatures below the ocean's surface, they show a large body of unusually hot water. Way bigger than the pot of water you’re boiling for your mac and cheese. Yes, even if you’re making extra mac and cheese. This is serious business! It can cause the sea-surface temperatures in parts of the tropical Pacific to rise by more than 2°C (about 3.6°F) above average, suggesting this year's El Niño is unusually strong, and could make 2027 one of the hottest years on record.
Depending on where you are in the world, El Niño is associated with both droughts and floods. These affect the lives of people living in those places, as well as their agriculture and food production, so the whole world feels the El Niño effects.
The UK wants to see more hedgehogs, and it’s not because hedgehogs are incredibly cute. Well, not just because of that. The UK’s hedgehog population is in dangerous decline, but part of the solution could be an AI tool called Tessera that uses satellite images to help build a map of hedgehog habitats.
Before Tessera can work its magic, it needs some input. Researchers need to find and learn hedgehogs’ preferred environments by identifying the habitat’s fingerprint. A fingerprint, in this case, is a pattern or collection of characteristics generally found in hedgehog habitats. Maybe your habitat fingerprint would include a freezer full of ice cream and trampoline floors! It has nothing to do with actual fingers, even though that would be a great excuse to spend all day looking at hedgehog paws.
Researchers do their field work in small areas, then input their findings into the software that can extrapolate, show where the other similar habitats are, and record changes over time. The project will hopefully help us learn about where hedgehogs live, how we can help them survive, and how we can set up our homes to comfortably accommodate a hedgehog houseguest.
Feeling stressed? Try reading this out loud!
Researchers have found that reading together can help strengthen bonds and reduce stress. In a recent study, families were asked to read together while wearing a brain monitoring cap that tracks activity over time. The results suggested that moments of shared reading can sync brain patterns between two people, which then suggest that the experience of reading books together helps parents and children connect.
Furthermore, the importance of stories themselves can’t be ignored. Stories are how people explain the world and their lives to one another — the decisions you make and the person you become are partially influenced by the stories you’ve read or heard. The research is very new, but studies of this sort can help us understand why reading together builds empathy, focus, emotional well-being, and might support children’s development and encourage a lifelong love of reading. And not just because a good story might distract two siblings for long enough to stop flicking each other’s ears!
Nanolitho... Nanilitha... Hmm. Ahem. Nanolithography is the process of fabricating, etching, or printing patterns on a material’s surface at the nanometer (one billionth of a meter) scale. It’s OK, we had to look it up, too.
It’s probably not a word you hear in everyday life, but you’re likely familiar with some of the results. You’re probably reading this on one of those results, because it’s a prominent part of building phones and computers — both things that rely on technology that allows manufacturers to pattern incredibly small things. The process is similar to screen printing, where you create a stencil of your design, lay your screen onto your material, pour on the paint, and lift your screen to reveal the design. Nanolithography uses a similar method, but on a much, much, much smaller scale. Way smaller stuff than you’d ever get your pencil sharp enough to sketch!
For example, scientists have created the world’s smallest violin at 13 microns wide and 40 microns tall. To put it in perspective, a micron is 0.000001 m, and one single human hair is between 15 and 120 microns. So you probably can’t play the violin, but it’d be really easy to pack in your bag.
Aside from being cool, learning how to work with material at this teeny tiny scale can open up new possibilities in technology, and is crucial for making improvements.
Turn your classroom into a global exploration hub! This country report template invites students in Grades 3–8 to become curious investigators — uncovering what makes each country unique and sharing their discoveries in creative ways.
Designed with flexibility in mind, the resource includes two approachable formats:
- Snapshot Style: A lively, visual option that’s perfect for quick learning or younger students. Learners can sketch, label, and highlight key features — like flags, landmarks, foods, and traditions — while building confidence with short responses.
- Explorer Style: A more in-depth format for students ready to dig deeper. It guides learners through topics such as geography, wildlife, culture, and history, helping them organize ideas and develop clear, informative writing.
Best of all, this template pairs seamlessly with BBC videos — bringing countries to life through real-world sights, sounds, and stories. Students can watch, wonder, and then weave what they’ve learned into their own reports.
Quick Teacher Tips: Use country studies as a springboard into wider learning across subjects:
- Geography: Map skills, climate zones, landforms, and ecosystems
- Language Arts: Informational writing, summarizing, note-taking, and presenting
- History: Key events, timelines, and how the past shapes the present
- Math: Population comparisons, distances, currency conversions
- Arts & Culture: Traditional patterns, music, celebrations, and food
- Current Events: Tie in informational reading and media literacy by exploring what’s happening in that country today in an age-appropriate way.
Invite your students to explore the life cycles of common organisms with these life cycle sequencing cards. The cards cover the bean plant, butterfly, birch tree, apple tree, honeybee, ladybug, and frog. They come already mixed up, so kids can color, cut, and put them in order. Use as an introductory task, check for understanding, center activity, or study guide!
As you introduce life cycles, focus on key concepts such as stages of growth, changes in form and function, and the idea that all living things follow a pattern from beginning to end. Encourage students to ask questions, make predictions, and notice patterns across plants and animals.
Teaching life cycles in elementary school is not only standards-based, it's also a great way to help students understand how living things grow and change over time. At this level, students are ready to explore clear, observable stages — like seed to plant or egg to adult—and begin comparing similarities and differences across species.
Make early reading feel magical with this Alphablocks Word Magic printable bundle! Designed with busy teachers and families in mind, these pages offer simple, joyful practice that helps young readers build confidence one word at a time. Students can trace letters to complete each word or use their letter tiles to build it themselves — an effective way to strengthen phonics understanding through both writing and hands-on play.
This “Word Magic” pack includes engaging practice with:
-
Hard “c” words to help students recognize how the letter c can change its sound.
-
Words with the “ear” sound, giving readers experience with trickier vowel teams.
-
“ch” and “sh” digraphs, perfect for boosting early decoding skills.
-
“ai” and “ee” vowel patterns, supporting growing readers as they learn long-vowel spellings.
-
Ending blends like nd, nt, and mp for stronger blending and spelling accuracy.
These worksheets are perfect for small-group instruction, literacy centers, morning work, tutoring, or home reading practice. They’re easy to use, fun to repeat, and help students feel proud of the words they can read and make.
Looking for even more Alphablocks resources? We have tons available — just search “Alphablocks” on the site!
Watch full episodes of Alphablocks on their official YouTube channel!
Give young readers a boost with this friendly Alphablocks worksheet bundle! Designed for both teachers and families, these printables make early reading practice simple, engaging, and confidence-building. Students can sound out words, blend the sounds together, and check off each word as they read. They can also write the words on the lines or build them using their letter tiles — great for hands-on learners.
Inside this “I Can Read” pack, you'll find:
-
CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) that help children master the basics of blending.
-
Consonant blends like ch, sh, and th to strengthen early phonics skills.
-
Long vowel spellings such as ai, igh, and ee to support growing readers as they move into more challenging patterns.
These pages work beautifully for small-group instruction, centers, morning work, homework, tutoring, or at-home practice with parents.
And if your readers want even more Alphablocks fun? We’ve got you covered — just search “Alphablocks” on the site to explore the full collection!
Watch full episodes of Alphablocks on their official YouTube channel!
Join the Go Jetters on a journey to India to explore one of the Seven Wonders of the World — the Taj Mahal! In this fun worksheet, you'll:
- Uncover fascinating facts about its marble design, gemstones, and cultural significance.
- Locate the Taj Mahal on a map.
- Color gemstones to finish a pattern.
- Create your own dance inspired by India’s classical Kathak.
Kyan conquered his fear of the dragons to help his friends! Pretend you are in a parade and do your best dragon dance. Color the lanterns to complete the pattern.
Join the Go Jetters on a journey to Northern Ireland’s famous landmark — Giant's Causeway! In this fun worksheet, you'll:
- Discover how volcanic activity shaped this World Heritage Site.
- Locate Giant's Causeway on a map.
- Practice hexagonal patterns.
- Identify seabirds.
E and Magic E make a sound like EE and EA. Look at what they can do together! Add your E and Magic E tile to make some pals for Eve! Now see if you can read this: Eve can see what is for tea! Bits of tree and a fat green pea!
Watch full episodes of Alphablocks on their official YouTube channel!
Feeling the heat lately? It might be because of El Niño, a climate pattern characterized by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It can affect the trade winds. These are the permanent, normally easterly winds that flow around the Earth's equator.
When we track the water temperature using tools like satellites, buoys, and ocean floats to measure temperatures below the ocean's surface, they show a large body of unusually hot water. Way bigger than the pot of water you’re boiling for your mac and cheese. Yes, even if you’re making extra mac and cheese. This is serious business! It can cause the sea-surface temperatures in parts of the tropical Pacific to rise by more than 2°C (about 3.6°F) above average, suggesting this year's El Niño is unusually strong, and could make 2027 one of the hottest years on record.
Depending on where you are in the world, El Niño is associated with both droughts and floods. These affect the lives of people living in those places, as well as their agriculture and food production, so the whole world feels the El Niño effects.
The UK wants to see more hedgehogs, and it’s not because hedgehogs are incredibly cute. Well, not just because of that. The UK’s hedgehog population is in dangerous decline, but part of the solution could be an AI tool called Tessera that uses satellite images to help build a map of hedgehog habitats.
Before Tessera can work its magic, it needs some input. Researchers need to find and learn hedgehogs’ preferred environments by identifying the habitat’s fingerprint. A fingerprint, in this case, is a pattern or collection of characteristics generally found in hedgehog habitats. Maybe your habitat fingerprint would include a freezer full of ice cream and trampoline floors! It has nothing to do with actual fingers, even though that would be a great excuse to spend all day looking at hedgehog paws.
Researchers do their field work in small areas, then input their findings into the software that can extrapolate, show where the other similar habitats are, and record changes over time. The project will hopefully help us learn about where hedgehogs live, how we can help them survive, and how we can set up our homes to comfortably accommodate a hedgehog houseguest.
Feeling stressed? Try reading this out loud!
Researchers have found that reading together can help strengthen bonds and reduce stress. In a recent study, families were asked to read together while wearing a brain monitoring cap that tracks activity over time. The results suggested that moments of shared reading can sync brain patterns between two people, which then suggest that the experience of reading books together helps parents and children connect.
Furthermore, the importance of stories themselves can’t be ignored. Stories are how people explain the world and their lives to one another — the decisions you make and the person you become are partially influenced by the stories you’ve read or heard. The research is very new, but studies of this sort can help us understand why reading together builds empathy, focus, emotional well-being, and might support children’s development and encourage a lifelong love of reading. And not just because a good story might distract two siblings for long enough to stop flicking each other’s ears!
Nanolitho... Nanilitha... Hmm. Ahem. Nanolithography is the process of fabricating, etching, or printing patterns on a material’s surface at the nanometer (one billionth of a meter) scale. It’s OK, we had to look it up, too.
It’s probably not a word you hear in everyday life, but you’re likely familiar with some of the results. You’re probably reading this on one of those results, because it’s a prominent part of building phones and computers — both things that rely on technology that allows manufacturers to pattern incredibly small things. The process is similar to screen printing, where you create a stencil of your design, lay your screen onto your material, pour on the paint, and lift your screen to reveal the design. Nanolithography uses a similar method, but on a much, much, much smaller scale. Way smaller stuff than you’d ever get your pencil sharp enough to sketch!
For example, scientists have created the world’s smallest violin at 13 microns wide and 40 microns tall. To put it in perspective, a micron is 0.000001 m, and one single human hair is between 15 and 120 microns. So you probably can’t play the violin, but it’d be really easy to pack in your bag.
Aside from being cool, learning how to work with material at this teeny tiny scale can open up new possibilities in technology, and is crucial for making improvements.
Turn your classroom into a global exploration hub! This country report template invites students in Grades 3–8 to become curious investigators — uncovering what makes each country unique and sharing their discoveries in creative ways.
Designed with flexibility in mind, the resource includes two approachable formats:
- Snapshot Style: A lively, visual option that’s perfect for quick learning or younger students. Learners can sketch, label, and highlight key features — like flags, landmarks, foods, and traditions — while building confidence with short responses.
- Explorer Style: A more in-depth format for students ready to dig deeper. It guides learners through topics such as geography, wildlife, culture, and history, helping them organize ideas and develop clear, informative writing.
Best of all, this template pairs seamlessly with BBC videos — bringing countries to life through real-world sights, sounds, and stories. Students can watch, wonder, and then weave what they’ve learned into their own reports.
Quick Teacher Tips: Use country studies as a springboard into wider learning across subjects:
- Geography: Map skills, climate zones, landforms, and ecosystems
- Language Arts: Informational writing, summarizing, note-taking, and presenting
- History: Key events, timelines, and how the past shapes the present
- Math: Population comparisons, distances, currency conversions
- Arts & Culture: Traditional patterns, music, celebrations, and food
- Current Events: Tie in informational reading and media literacy by exploring what’s happening in that country today in an age-appropriate way.
Invite your students to explore the life cycles of common organisms with these life cycle sequencing cards. The cards cover the bean plant, butterfly, birch tree, apple tree, honeybee, ladybug, and frog. They come already mixed up, so kids can color, cut, and put them in order. Use as an introductory task, check for understanding, center activity, or study guide!
As you introduce life cycles, focus on key concepts such as stages of growth, changes in form and function, and the idea that all living things follow a pattern from beginning to end. Encourage students to ask questions, make predictions, and notice patterns across plants and animals.
Teaching life cycles in elementary school is not only standards-based, it's also a great way to help students understand how living things grow and change over time. At this level, students are ready to explore clear, observable stages — like seed to plant or egg to adult—and begin comparing similarities and differences across species.
Make early reading feel magical with this Alphablocks Word Magic printable bundle! Designed with busy teachers and families in mind, these pages offer simple, joyful practice that helps young readers build confidence one word at a time. Students can trace letters to complete each word or use their letter tiles to build it themselves — an effective way to strengthen phonics understanding through both writing and hands-on play.
This “Word Magic” pack includes engaging practice with:
-
Hard “c” words to help students recognize how the letter c can change its sound.
-
Words with the “ear” sound, giving readers experience with trickier vowel teams.
-
“ch” and “sh” digraphs, perfect for boosting early decoding skills.
-
“ai” and “ee” vowel patterns, supporting growing readers as they learn long-vowel spellings.
-
Ending blends like nd, nt, and mp for stronger blending and spelling accuracy.
These worksheets are perfect for small-group instruction, literacy centers, morning work, tutoring, or home reading practice. They’re easy to use, fun to repeat, and help students feel proud of the words they can read and make.
Looking for even more Alphablocks resources? We have tons available — just search “Alphablocks” on the site!
Watch full episodes of Alphablocks on their official YouTube channel!
Give young readers a boost with this friendly Alphablocks worksheet bundle! Designed for both teachers and families, these printables make early reading practice simple, engaging, and confidence-building. Students can sound out words, blend the sounds together, and check off each word as they read. They can also write the words on the lines or build them using their letter tiles — great for hands-on learners.
Inside this “I Can Read” pack, you'll find:
-
CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) that help children master the basics of blending.
-
Consonant blends like ch, sh, and th to strengthen early phonics skills.
-
Long vowel spellings such as ai, igh, and ee to support growing readers as they move into more challenging patterns.
These pages work beautifully for small-group instruction, centers, morning work, homework, tutoring, or at-home practice with parents.
And if your readers want even more Alphablocks fun? We’ve got you covered — just search “Alphablocks” on the site to explore the full collection!
Watch full episodes of Alphablocks on their official YouTube channel!
Join the Go Jetters on a journey to India to explore one of the Seven Wonders of the World — the Taj Mahal! In this fun worksheet, you'll:
- Uncover fascinating facts about its marble design, gemstones, and cultural significance.
- Locate the Taj Mahal on a map.
- Color gemstones to finish a pattern.
- Create your own dance inspired by India’s classical Kathak.
Kyan conquered his fear of the dragons to help his friends! Pretend you are in a parade and do your best dragon dance. Color the lanterns to complete the pattern.
Join the Go Jetters on a journey to Northern Ireland’s famous landmark — Giant's Causeway! In this fun worksheet, you'll:
- Discover how volcanic activity shaped this World Heritage Site.
- Locate Giant's Causeway on a map.
- Practice hexagonal patterns.
- Identify seabirds.
E and Magic E make a sound like EE and EA. Look at what they can do together! Add your E and Magic E tile to make some pals for Eve! Now see if you can read this: Eve can see what is for tea! Bits of tree and a fat green pea!
Watch full episodes of Alphablocks on their official YouTube channel!