1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Alice Keeler is a mother of 5 and a teacher in Fresno, California. She has her B.A in Mathematics, M.S. in Educational Media Design and Technology and is currently working on a doctorate in Educational Technology with an emphasis in games and simulations. EdTech speaker, blogger, and presenter. Founder of coffeeEDU, a 1 hour conference event for educators. New Media Consortium Horizon report advisory panel member. High school math teacher for 14 years. Currently teaching pre-service teachers curriculum, instruction and technology at California State University Fresno. Teaches online for Fresno Pacific University in the Masters in Educational Technology. Passionate that kids are not failures, researches gamification in education to increase student motivation.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: English Language Arts
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W B Develop the topic with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience's knowledge of the topic.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

2. What inferences are people making when they say a “leopard can not change their spots?”
© Getty Images
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. What inferences are people making when they say a “leopard can not change their spots?”
Leopards tend to hunt at twilight or with the full cover of night. To beat the daytime heat, and avoid run-ins with other predators, the big cats will often find a branch in a tall tree and nap away the sunlight hours.
Like military camouflage, the leopard’s spots make this sneaky hunter difficult to see when it’s stalking in the tall grass. That’s good news for the cats, bad news for gazelles and visitors to wildlife preserves hoping to catch a glimpse of the elusive beast.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. What inferences are people making when they say a “leopard can not change their spots?”1
Web Search
Is it true that a leopard can not change its spots? 2
Critical Thinking
What are idioms and why do you think the idiom “a leopard can not change their spots” became popular? 3
Where was this phrase first used and what was the context? 4
What has the idiom come to mean today? 5
Are there any other idioms that have a similar meaning?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. What inferences are people making when they say a “leopard can not change their spots?”5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. What inferences are people making when they say a “leopard can not change their spots?”1
Web Search
Is it true that a leopard can not change its spots? 2
Critical Thinking
What are idioms and why do you think the idiom “a leopard can not change their spots” became popular? 3
Where was this phrase first used and what was the context? 4
What has the idiom come to mean today? 5
Are there any other idioms that have a similar meaning?
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. What inferences are people making when they say a “leopard can not change their spots?”1
Web Search
Is it true that a leopard can not change its spots?
(Possible Search Queries: “Can a leopard change its spots,” “Leopard Spots” )
Sources
Science Daily
It is true that a leopard cannot change its spots. It has been determined scientifically that the leopard's spots are in fact genetic and are inherited.

8. What inferences are people making when they say a “leopard can not change their spots?”2
Critical Thinking
What are idioms and why do you think the idiom “a leopard can not change their spots” became popular?
(Possible Search Queries: “Idioms,” “Popular Idiom and meanings” )
Sources:
Wikipedia:
Idiomsite:
The Free Dictionary
An idiom is a sentence or combination of words whose figurative meaning is separate from its literal meaning. The figurative meaning of idioms are commonly understood in certain areas due to frequency of use. Students should recognize it’s popularity may be due to the visual metaphor it creates, it’s biblical origins or it’s relative ease to understand.

9. Main Critical Thinking Question3
Web Search
Where was this phrase first used and what was the context?
(Possible Search Queries: “Can a leopard change it’s spots origin,” “Can a leopard change its spots meaning, context”)
Sources
Phrases.org:
Dictionary.com:
Biblehub:
The origin of this phrase comes from the bible, Jeremiah 13:23. Jeremiah is speaking to King Jehoiakim and telling him why difficult times have fallen upon him. They are due to the evil things he is doing and Jeremiah uses the idiom to illustrate the point that he (King Jehoiakim) is incapable of changing.

10. Main Critical Thinking Question4
Web Search
What has the idiom come to mean today?
(Possible Search Queries: “Can a leopard change it’s spots meaning today” )
Sources
Idiom Meanings:
Using English:
Students should recognize that the meaning of a phrase has to do with a person’s inability to change their character or identity. The phrase is usually applied to negative aspects of someone's character.

11. Main Critical Thinking Question5
Web Search
Are there any other idioms that have a similar meaning?
(Possible Search Queries: “Idiom meanings,” “Popular Idioms”)
Sources
Idiomsite:
The idiom, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” has similarity in meaning in that it deals with a person’s inability to change.

12. Main Critical Thinking Question
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question.