Books | Bass Lessons

STEM to Story: Enthralling and Effective Lesson Plans for Grades 5-8 inspires learning through fun, engaging, and meaningful lesson plans that fuse hands-on discovery in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) with creative writing. The workshop activities within the book are the innovative result of a partnership between 826 National's proven creative writing model and Time Warner Cable's Connect a Million Minds, an initiative dedicated to connecting young people to the wonders of STEM through hands-on learning. Authentically aligned with both the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards, this book provides teachers, after-school and out-of-school providers, and parents with field-tested lessons, workshops, and projects designed by professionals in each field. Including reflective observations by arts and science celebrities like Jon Scieszka, Mayim Bialik, and Steve Hockensmith, lessons feature bonus activities, fun facts, and teaching points for instructors at every level. These quirky, exploratory lessons will effectively awaken student imaginations and passions for both STEM and creative writing, encourage identity with scientific endeavors, and make both science and writing fun.

Grades five through eight is the critical period for engaging students in STEM, and this book is designed specifically to appeal to — and engage — this age group. The guided curricula fosters hands-on discovery, deep learning, and rich inquiry skills while feeling more like play than school, and has proven popular and effective with both students and teachers.

• Awaken student imagination and get them excited about STEM
• Fuse creative writing with STEM using hands-on activities
• Make scientific principles relevant to students' lives
• Inspire students to explore STEM topics further

The demand for STEM workers is closely linked to global competitiveness, and a successful future in STEM depends upon an early introduction to the scientific mindset. The challenge for teachers is to break through students' preconceptions of STEM fields as "hard" or "boring," to show them that STEM is everywhere, it's relevant, and it's loads of fun. For proven lesson plans with just a dash of weird, STEM to Story is a dynamic resource, adaptable and applicable in school, after school, and at home.

The most challenging parts of teaching mathematics are engaging students and helping them understand the connections between mathematics concepts. In this volume, you'll find a collection of low floor, high ceiling tasks that will help you do just that, by looking at the big ideas at the third-grade level through visualization, play, and investigation.

During their work with tens of thousands of teachers, authors Jo Boaler, Jen Munson, and Cathy Williams heard the same message—that they want to incorporate more brain science into their math instruction, but they need guidance in the techniques that work best to get across the concepts they needed to teach. So the authors designed Mindset Mathematics around the principle of active student engagement, with tasks that reflect the latest brain science on learning. Open, creative, and visual math tasks have been shown to improve student test scores, and more importantly change their relationship with mathematics and start believing in their own potential. The tasks in Mindset Mathematics reflect the lessons from brain science that:

• There is no such thing as a math person - anyone can learn mathematics to high levels.
• Mistakes, struggle and challenge are the most important times for brain growth.
• Speed is unimportant in mathematics.
• Mathematics is a visual and beautiful subject, and our brains want to think visually about mathematics.

With engaging questions, open-ended tasks, and four-color visuals that will help kids get excited about mathematics, Mindset Mathematics is organized around nine big ideas which emphasize the connections within the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and can be used with any current curriculum.

In Part 1, he outlines his ten essential elements of music including such important and under-emphasized areas as emotion and feel, dynamics, tone, phrasing, space, and listening. This section deals more with Victor s concepts and approaches and are more theoretical in nature.

In Part 2, Victor addresses the personal lessons, using text, notation, tablature, and video footage to cover such key topics as warming up and hand-strengthening, tone, harmonics, thumb technique, tapping, looping, and soloing. This section is a more how to approach with hands-on demonstrations. Throughout, Victor underscores this vital material with a groove first ethic, as well an accent on being musical and creative three mandatory ingredients to becoming a highly-sought-after professional bassist. All of which makes Victor Wooten Bass Workshop a must-have tool for bass players at all levels.

Includes online 4 hrs. of video that can be streamed or downloaded.