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Teachers and families across the country are facing a new reality of providing opportunities for students to do science through distance and home learning. The Daily Do is one of the ways NSTA is supporting teachers and families with this endeavor.

Each weekday, NSTA will share a sensemaking task teachers and families can use to engage their students in authentic, relevant science learning. We encourage families to make time for family science learning (science is a social process!) and are dedicated to helping students and their families find balance between learning science and the day-to-day responsibilities they have to stay healthy and safe.

Each Daily Do has a collection of resources (most free) that you can use at home or in your classroom.

Use this discussion thread to share your impressions, questions, and ideas about NSTA's Daily Do and how you are using them with your family and students. 

See All NSTA Daily Do

Reflecting on Week 1' Daily Do - check out the blog authored by Korei Martin summarizing the first week of NSTA Daily Do.  

'If we want our students to do science outside of the classroom, we’ve got to give them something to figure out!'

Titles include:

• Why do we all have to stay home?
• What's in an egg?
• How do we find patterns in weather?
• Why is my shadow always changing?

Explore a Daily Do with your children/students today!

Take care.

This is awesome, great class starters.  My classes are going to be in week 3 and I am always looking for new ways to bring science to them since I cannot be in a classroom with them.

Thank you for sharing the Daily Do's, I am going to start assigning these for my students to supplement the Amplify Science curriculum that I am currently using, which gets redundent.

I am going to start using these during our CORE/Homeroom class time. I was running out of ideas and this just gave me a ton of new concepts and ideas to work with. 

Hello, all of these ideas for remote learning are very helpful. Having a Daily Do will help teachers keep their students interest in the subject of science. This allows for students to use some extended thinking. This also ensures students are getting some of the same type of extended thinking practices at home. This makes it easier for the parents, by having the Daily Do's already created and ready to share. These could be used outside of remote learning as well! They could also be used to start the school day as morning work. Thank you for sharing these ideas!

These are great activities for students. It can also help parents get involved with their students work in a fun way.

Wow - this is a great resource. So glad this was put together so quickly, especially in light of COVID-19. I think one of the greater things I have seen come from this pandemic is that families with young learners have come together to work on school-administered content. One of the biggest content areas I've seen featured is science! This resource is a great way to get children engaged in what NSTA called 'sensemaking.' I especially love the content, such as the 'Why is our fruit turning brown?' Daily Do! When students see firsthand experiences of scientific principles in such a natural context, their understanding becomes that much deeper. This is a great tool that I will definitely pass on!

Such a great resource!!  I am looking forward to utilizing it next year in my lesson planning with the PLC.  Have already shared it with the department!!

I love the Daily Do's! I think they are extremely helpful to everyone, not just educators. The one that I was most impressed with was the 'Why do we all have to stay home' one, simply becuase I think that this is a topic that SO many people are struggling with right now. It's hard to explain to younger children why we have to stay home, and it seems that no matter what we do or say they just may not understand, so I love that this resource is available to others for the guidance! 

I think Daily do are an awesome thing to incoporate inside a classroom or even at home. With this pandemic I think parents should consider daile do to get their kids excited about science.

If parents get an access to NSTA how can they mark their children's progress, or is there no way to do such thing?

As a future educator, seeing this page was awesome! In my school years, I did not have a lot of hands on experiences with science and I do not want that for my students. I want them to fully engage and enjoy themselves while learning about science. I love all of the ideas the Daily Do page gives! Thank you so much for sharing!

As a future teacher, I really enjoyed looking through this post and seeing all of the different lesson plans that this post has to offer. These are very fun and educations lesson plans and activities. I really enjoyed the wide range of lesson plans that there were to offer. This will be somethig I will be using when I am a teacher in the future, and maybe even this year as I am also participating in my feild experience! 

I love that the education field is so collaborative and that educators want to help other educators succeed in being effective. This post as many different plans that would be very helpful! This is an excellent resource that I am so grateful to have as a future educator. I can't wait to get inspiration from these plans and create personalized ones that would work in my classroom and my field experience!

I'm a mother of a four year old, and currently working with 5th graders in my field work studying for Elementary Education! I'm loving these helpful resources to use for my future students and my own children! What a great compilation!

I love that this allows future educators to come together to share ideas and learn from each other. The Daily Do's provide helpful tips and lesson plan ideas that will definitely be implemented into my teaching career. It is a great resource to learn from. 

I think the Daily Do's are great tools for educators to implement into their classroom and I think it is especially important right now. I's sure educators are struggling to find ways to make their lesson work in a virtual setting and i think these could help teachers find creative ways to teach their students. I would love to use these in my classroom when I become an educator.

I am still really enjoying all of the reasources that this discussion gives us, it is a great especially right now due to many schools having to teach both virtually and in person. This can be super helpful for teachers out there and future teachers!

As a future educator I love seeing all of these resources and discussion boards for teachers. I love finding communties of educators that are dedicated and passionate about helping and inspiring other educators.These are such wonderful resources that could be easy to implement into the classroom. I am considering subbing and these would a great resource of activities if they were needed.

Thank you for sharing information in regards to the Daily Do. We are currently providing an in-person instructor; however, this is an exceptional resource for quarantined students. With the threat of blended and remote learning, I have added several lessons to my collection for later use.

Thank you so much for sharng this amazing resource! I am finding so many wonderful resources on this website.

Aida

I really like some of the daily do's that deal with topics in Cancer cells and Henrietta Lacks. I plan to use these lessons when teaching Biology!

Noah

Thank you so much for sharing! I wish china has this good website. I really learned something from here!

Sincerely

Allison

The daily do's are helpful because educators can share their ideas during distance learning, which is a new concept for everyone. This is a great place to communicate with others to find ways to cope with different requirement than what most are used to. 

I think distance learning is the way of the future. Even before the era of COVID-19, distance learning has been empowering students everywhere.

I find distance learning to be draining, but it seems the students learn better...actually.

Still trying to figure out how not to go back to the same post.

As a student teacher who experienced my first practicum in an online setting, these Daily Do's were a great way to get student's engaged in relevant phenommena! Whether an educator uses the whole daily do as part of a lesson or just takes a phenommena with some components of the Daily Do when lesson planning, they are quite helpful! It is difficult to engage students through distant learning and by asking students questions that guage their curiosity or personal experiences, it heightens the chance for responses via webcam or the chat box. These Daily Do's are absolutely fantastic for microlessons as well and you can find atleast that will relate become to your overarching phenommena helping students contextualize the scientfic ideas. 

These Daily Do's seem like a great way to keep students engaged whether at home or in person. They seem like something that would get kids in a routine as well as keep them engaged through interactive lessons. I am excited to try some of these out with my students!!

The Daily Dos seem like a great idea! I cannot wait to try them with my classes! They are interesting and will spark stuents interests. There are so many differnet topics and ideas that all students' interests will be reached. I think these are a great way to try and keep students engaged especially if they are learning from home. What a great resource!

I loe how the Daily Dos have students actually DOing something. Distance learning is a whole new challenge to get students engaged and I like the activities the Daily Dos provide. I can't wait to try some of these with my class and see how they react to them. The Daily Dos look like they would hold the students attention even with distance learning!

I think that providng ways for teachers to get parents to interact with science activites while at home is really important, becuase when the students see that their parents are doing science experiments with them it will help the student enjoy the science activity, which will help the students engage more with the activity.

Providing ways for students, teachers, and parents to connect through these activities is great in the fact that they are staying engaged in the material even though the world as a whole is enduring these unique circumstances. 

Excellent activity for Virtual learner!! I was trying to find a activity which I could use for students to discuss and talk to their guardian and get them involve in science. This is perfect way to bring community in a loop.

Hello Flavio Mendez. I currently just learned about the Daily Dos that are available through this NSTA website and I think they are going to be a great resource to encourage and engage my future students into different science lessons. I plan on taking advantage of them and doing them with my son as well. I think they are a great way to encourage and get involved more in his education.

I just learned about this website and about NSTA Daily Do! The Daily Do's are awesome to use with students to begin the day and have them engaged. There are several Daily Do's to choose from which I loved and I also loved how each Daily Do gives you specific instructions, explanations, and activities to use with the students. Students are able to predict, investigate, discuss, record, etc on the subject and small lesson that is assigned to them. I will defintely be using the Daily Do's in my future classroom. 

 Hello, There are several Daily Do's to choose from which I loved and I also loved how each Daily Do gives you specific instructions, explanations, and activities to use with the students. Students are able to predict, investigate, discuss, record, etc on the subject and small lesson that is assigned to them. I will be using this in my future classroom. 

- Gabriela Garcia

Hello, I never knew there was these type of information for me to learn for my teaching preparation. There are a lot of Daily Do’s to choose from and that is something I liked about it. I liked about it because it gives you specific information of what to use or do with students for example activities. Students will be able to predict, investigate, and discuss experiments in my future classroom. This is something that I will consider to use when I become a teacher.

This is such a great idea! The Daily Do's are a great way to keep students entertained, while still being able to learn. The best part is that they are able to use this with their families. The students, along with their families, will be able to work on fun activities and learn about different science topics. 

Great idea. the Daily Do's are a wonderful resource that can keep the students entertained and on topic. The best part I think about the Daily Do's is that they can also be completed with the student's family. Overall I will defiantly look into them further to expand my resources. 

As a future educator, these Daily Dos are really helpful as to finding new ways to teach and educate children. I will keep looking for more ideas that I can do in the future!

This is such a helpful lesson for the elementary students! It helps engage them and makes science more fun. I love how there are videos as reference for the kids who need to see the lesson in action. Great tips for engaging the young ones in science!

This is such a helpful lesson for the elementary students! It helps engage them and makes science more fun. I love how there are videos as reference for the kids who need to see the lesson in action. Great tips for engaging the young ones in science!

As a naturally curious individual, I find that the Daily Do aligns nicely with the message that I put forward to my students...namely that science is all around us, we just need to take the time to notice the ways in which it is present in any given moment, make observations, infer what we are able, and ask questions about what we wonder. If we practice this daily, we will come to understan more that we could ever imagine. The truly nice thing about the Daily Do is that it vairies, whereas in my classroom, it may be unit/topic driven. The Daily Do presses on my capacity to think about the interconnectedness of science and the disciplines that touch it across all subjects and interests.

These are awesome! So many interesting topics

These are so cool! As someone who is studying to be an Elementary Teacher finding ideas for quality lessons is always exciting!

I am new to the teaching world, and I am so very excited to discover the NSTA 'Daily Do.' There are an abundance of lesson plans that I myself want to work through! I can see the the 'Daily Do' as being a great supplementary tool in the classroom and also at home with my own young children. I love that there is a section for families which encourages 'Dinner Table Discussions' that also provides guidance on how families can utilize scientific phenomena to create fun, teachable moments at home! 

These are awesome resoueces for a future teacher!!

These daily dos are so cool! I spent almost an hour one time just checking out interesting mini-articles it is really fun and informative!

Hi everyone!

I just attended a webinar through NSTA last night and learned about the Daily dos. I think they're a great idea, especially since science is often overlooked in elementary instruction. I'm observing in 4th grade classroom, and they only spend about thirty minutes on science if they even get a science lesson in. My mentor teacher is often busy planning for other lessons that science isn't as engaging as it should be. These daily dos make it easy, engaging, and fun for both teachers and students. And, getting families involved too is great! My only question is about the encouragement of getting families involved. Do the daily dos require many materials and resources that families might not have access to? Are they adaptable for those who do not have all the materials? Or will there be some students at a disadvantage due to expenses and lack of resources? 

Since this is a time of distance learning, I feel like these activites are such a great way for students to still be engaged even if they are not in the classroom! These daily do are great rescources to use when being in the classroom is not ideal, this way students can still be excited  and engaged about school!

These activities are a great way for students to get a more hands-on experience, even when they can't be in the classroom. I think these are very beneficial in a time of remote or hybrid learning.

The NSTA Daily Do is such a great resource to have. It is educational but also very interesting. They are things that are going to keep the students interested. This is the best resource in the remote learning era.

What a great resource! The ideas are endless. As a future educator I am always looking for resources to keep and have under my belt. 

I love the idea of the Daily Do's to have as a resource for my future classroom! Not only does it provide an easy way for me to find resources to use as a teacher, but it also gives me ideas I can share with parents to do at home with their kids. This gives parents a perfect opprotunity to get involved with their child's education.

I really liked the idea of the Daily Do's. It gives a different opportunity to teachers, parents, and students when it comes to learning and teaching. I think this helps with keeping students engaged and having fun learning science. 

The NSTA Daily Do's are great resources for everyone to incorporate at home or at school. They provide fun activities that will keep everyone engaged and are truly spectacular learning experiences.

I have just recently been introduced to NSTA and the Daily Do's but I am so amazed at the complexity and creativity of the activities. I am a college student on my way to becoming an elementary education teacher. Though I hope I am not teaching virtually by the time I complete my degree, I am so excited and eager to use the Daily Do's in my classroom, virtual or not. I think students will love them and want to continue to learn more and more. 

I believe that being able to do a Daily Do's with students virtually is something amazing. I am new to NSTA but I believe that all the information is so valuable and resourceful even without being able to be in a face-to-face classroom arrangement. 

These Daily Do's are a great idea and seem very engaging for students. However, I was wondering if you or anyone had ideas for promoting learning when students are out of the class because they are having to quaratine. While some of my students parents take a hands on aproach in there students academic life, others may not seem as interested. Is there ways to make sure students at home are able to have the same oportunites for learning as a students in the class? Along with that does anyone have any good ideas to motivated students when they are unable to come to school for weeks at a time? Thank you in advance! 

Thank you! These are great! 

Thank you! These are great and l'll plan on using them in the future.

This seems like a great resource to have in the classroom. I hope to incorporate science into the classroom more and these Daily Do's are a great way to do so. I think the Daily Do's can be effective since they incoporate the student, the teahcer and the family! Some families may not be as familiar with science as they are with math or ELA. It is important to have students invovled and engaged in their students science learning. 

Hello, that seems like a great way to teach science since it can be applied in their daily lives.

These are awesome! This is my first exposure to the Daily Do’s. I think these could be awesome supplementation pieces for students who have either missed school for certain reasons, for students who need extra help, or for those students who just enjoy learning about science. I love how students are able to access basic science topics. Also, I think this is a great tool that teachers could use incase they are not given enough time during their science instruction time to go as in depth with the topic as they would like. These are something the teacher could assign students to do at home to supplement the classroom instruction. I think the Daily Do’s will keep students engaged and interested in the topics they are learning. It would also be easy to make changes to some of the lessons as needed to meet students individual needs. I will be saving this resource!

I love the idea of these 'Daily Do's' These are fun and creative ways to introduce and discover Science topics and facts to the students. The detailed explanation is very helpful in understanding the process for students as well as teachers. It keeps the students curious all the time. Great help for teachers to introduce the lessons with a hands-on approach. I will love to try them with my future students.

The 'Daily Do's' will be my go to just for a daily start when introducing a lesson or just giving the students a jump on engagment and critical thinking. 

The 'Daily Do's' are a great way for me to try something new as this year winds down and I am looking for another way to engage my students before we begin each class. Thank you for the ideas!

The 'Daily Do's' seem like a great resource to me to try this upcoming year to engage my students.

The 'Daily Do's' sound like a great idea to use in the near future when I have a class of my own. 

I quite enjoy how these lesson plans give step by step action, as it should, but I feel like it goes deeper than some that I've read.  It tells what to ask, what to say, what you should say.  I enjoyed reading the lesson plan about how do things make sound and how it talks about which students to call on and which ones to help.  As a future teacher, I'm glad to see how this is set out so that s it's easier to read and make sense of. 

These daily dos look great! Thank you for sharing so many great resources! 

The daily do lessons are great. As a pre-service teacher, I have been collecting daily do lessons in my library for use in my classroom. They are great, ready to teach lessons. 

Some consider it convenient and effective, allowing easy control of processes from a distance, while others deny its use in principle. During the corona virus, I felt for myself what distance learning is. Then we were asked by health security to answer the question about pro life abortion, then I found https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/pro-life-abortion/ to figure it out. I myself would never fully understand the point. As a result, I prefer traditional teaching methods that allow me to more directly control the work.

I find this resource to be an excellent tool. I am both and teacher and a mother. I found it a little difficult to implement certain techniques to my students online. My children at home were engaged but wanted to have that peer-to-peer interaction versus, 'Mom' teaching them. I plan to use the daily do task for my students as well as my children going forward. 

Daily Dos are very important in the classroom. I recall learning information about the Daily Dos in this NSTA webinar. In my future classroom, I plan to have Daily Dos whether it is at the beginning of class or towards the end. I want to implement this so my students will stay engaged. I want them to get used to being in a routine of complete tasks. For example, everyday at the beginning of class, there may be a thought question for students to reflect and respond to. This process will get their brains flowing before instructional time begins!

I had no idea about Daily Do! I am happy I got to learn about this since I am a college student. I can only imagine how hard it can be to start a lesson and since this can be done at home and at school it helps teachers have activities to assign for homework or group work in a classroom. Since the activities are already step by step it helps a teacher visually see the assignment and save time as well! I would love to use this in my classroom as a warm up or exit ticket that they can continue at home. This helps the child engage and use their creativity since Daily do's are hands on I feel like the students would love to do these activities.

This is so important! I never knew about this so I am glad I do now. Ever since COVID, it has been hard to leran so now we have all of these amazing things we can use inside and outside of the classroom!

As a future educator i am so happy to see ways to keep students engaged in science activities when we cannot meet in person! These are just such great things in the covid times for us to think about. 

The Daily Do tasks are a great way to involve and engage students in science topics with phenomenons. Sensemaking activities help students try and figure out how the world around them works.

interesting!