Alabama ELA Standard: 1.LF.1

Two cooks make the same dinner. One follows the recipe to the exact gram. The other just throws things in by feel. Whose food turns out better — the ordered cook or the chaotic cook?

A heartbeat sounds steady, but a perfectly regular one is a warning sign — healthy hearts speed up and slow down a little. Is a healthy heart ordered or chaotic?

To shuffle a deck you follow exact steps to make the cards random. Are you creating chaos, or doing something very orderly?

One town runs its intersections with signals. Another has no lights at all — drivers just work it out. Which town’s traffic is more orderly?

A snowflake builds a perfect six-sided pattern, and no one designs it. Did that order come from inside the water, or from outside in the cold?

Grandpa’s axe broke, so he put on a new head. Years later the handle cracked, so he replaced that too. Now no original piece is left. Is it still the same axe, or a new one?

A thermostat fights to keep a room the same — open a window and it just cranks the heat to undo you. In a system that pushes back like that, can you ever really change just one thing?

A watch stops dead if one tiny gear breaks. A forest can lose a whole species and barely notice. Which is the better-built system — the one where every part matters, or the one where no part is essential?

Picture a jam where no one crashed and no one even stopped on purpose — everyone crawls for an hour, then it clears for no reason. Did anyone actually cause this traffic jam?

A sweater is really one long thread looped a thousand times. Pull the right loose end and the whole thing unravels in seconds. So is a system like that strong or fragile?

To become a butterfly, a caterpillar doesn’t just sprout wings — inside the cocoon it dissolves into liquid first, almost nothing left, then rebuilds. Would you trade everything you are now to become something far greater?

You love a flower so much you seal it in a jar to keep it exactly as it is, forever. A month later it’s brown and crumbling. Did sealing it stop the change, or just hide it?

A nail got hammered into a young tree. The tree didn’t push it out — it grew around it, sealing the nail inside a knot of new wood. Was that change the tree healing, or the tree getting damaged?

You nudge one domino. It tips the next, which tips two more, which tip four, until a thousand have fallen. Did you cause one change, or a thousand?

It took a river six million years to carve the Grand Canyon. An earthquake can drop a cliff into the sea in ten seconds. Which one changed the land more — the slow river or the fast quake?

Introduce Order by exploring “written” vs “unwritten” rules.

We compare the power of traditions shared by millions with smaller traditions shared by perhaps just one family.

Sometimes power is concentrated in one place. Other times it is spread out.

Power may seem loud and fast, but it can also be slow and quiet.

Once students know the prompts of Depth and Complexity, let’s take them much higher up Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Everyone starts with the same squiggle. No two drawings end up the same. What do you see?

Want your classroom discussions to go a bit more smoothly? Train students to use a few simple phrases and it’ll make all the difference in the world.

What if you had really weak chess pieces, but you could always move twice?

What if we played chess on a board that’s only 4×5?

What if one player had, say, 32 pawns?

Tired of boring ol’ chess? Then you need to try FOUR PLAYER chess!

What if each square on a Tic-Tac-Toe board had another Tic-Tac-Toe board inside of it?

Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe, but both players can both play as both X and O throughout the whole game!

In this grid-based strategy game, who will be the last to add to the snake?

Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) subtraction game!

Problems create rules. Rules create new problems. Can you trace the cycle in history, stories, and your own life?

Plural nouns in English are deliciously fascinating. Yet most plural lessons are so dull! In this experience, students are given a pile of plurals and then inductively create groups and pull out rules and patterns.

It’s a great moment for your civilization! Power is moving from the hands of a few to a more democratic government.

Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe if both players could play as both Xs and Os!

How quickly can you break the numeric code?

A crocodile makes a deal. But the deal creates a paradox. Can your students untangle a 2,000-year-old logic puzzle?

Chomp away at your opponent in this grid-based strategy game.

The first person to run out of regions loses in this strategy game.

What if you only played Tic-Tac-Toe with Xs and you could play on multiple boards?

Who can make the most boxes from dots in this strategy game?

Learn how to play the abstract, paper-and-pencil game Sprouts.

So… do your students moan when forced to work in a group? Part of the problem is that lack the structure to work well with peers. Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats are a perfect tool to help with this problem.

Is there a consequence for not doing something? You may have found a rule!

How would people from history have interacted online? Students will develop a conversation online between people involved in the same event from history.

Ready to learn a 2,500-year-old Chinese board game? Let’s… Go!

Starting with specific examples of fantastic classroom behavior, your class will end up with one sentence summing up their expectations. It’s a classroom motto!

The story of the Fabergé Eggs is heartbreaking. It’s also the perfect way to build empathy in your classroom.