Alabama ELA Standard: 1.LF.36

Order and Chaos: Recipe or Instinct?

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?

Gr 1-8

Order and Chaos: The Perfect Heartbeat

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?

Gr 1-8

Order and Chaos: The Shuffle

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

Gr 1-8

Order and Chaos: No Traffic Lights

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?

Gr 1-8

Order and Chaos: The Snowflake

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?

Gr 1-8

Systems: Grandpa’s Axe

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?

Gr 1-8

Systems: The Thermostat

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?

Gr 1-8

Systems: Watch vs. Forest

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?

Gr 1-8

Systems: The Traffic Jam

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?

Gr 1-8

Systems: Pull One Thread

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?

Gr 1-8

Change: The Caterpillar’s Bargain

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?

Gr 1-8

Change: The Sealed Jar

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?

Gr 1-8

Change: The Tree’s Scar

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?

Gr 1-8

Change: One Domino

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?

Gr 1-8

Change: Canyon vs. Earthquake

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?

Gr 1-8

Order to Chaos: Dominoes or Dam?

Sometimes outside forces turn order into chaos. But sometimes chaos comes from within.

Gr 2-8

Earth’s Layers: Who Contributes The Most?

Earth’s layers will disagree about which one contributes the most to the planet’s success.

Gr 1-8

An Under-Appreciated Planet

Students write from the point of view of the most under-appreciated planet.

Gr 1-8

Order and Chaos Hide Inside Each Other

Chaos can contain order. Order can contain chaos! Is chaos ever truly random?

Gr 3-8

Chaos Can Be Positive or Negative

Sometimes we want order, but sometimes we need chaos!

Gr 1-8

Power and Traditions

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

Gr 1-8

Halloween Worksheets

Crosswords, image analysis, and writing prompts for Halloween!

Gr 1-8

Power can be Visible or Invisible

What are examples of unseen Power? And can invisible power be more powerful than visible power?

Gr 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Holiday Shuffle – Day vs Date

Wouldn’t some holidays be better on a certain day of the week? Should Thanksgiving have a set date?

Gr 1-8

Tournament of Mythological Creatures

Who will win the tournament of mythological creatures!?

Gr 1-8

Tournament of Not-So-Famous Inventors

Which inventor and invention will win the tournament?

Gr 1-8

Student Introductions With Depth, Complexity, and Frames: Level Two

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

Gr 1-8

Domesticated Animals Tournament

Which domesticated animal will win the tournament?

Gr 1-8

Types of Energy Tournament

Which type of energy will win the tournament!?

Gr 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Natural Disasters Tournament

Earthquake vs. hurricane. Tsunami vs. wildfire. Students set the criteria, argue their case, and crown a champion. Warning: it gets heated.

Gr 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8

Van Gogh Self-Portrait Tournament

Who will win the tournament of Van Gogh self-portraits!?

Gr 1-8

Robot Writing: Acropolis

One painting of ruins. Three robots. Three pieces of writing. Who wrote it best?

Gr 1-8

Robot Writing: Orchestra

Read three pieces of writing from three different robots based on a beautiful painting and decide who wins!

Gr 1-8

Squiggles Collection 1

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

Gr 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8

Discussing An Important Decision from History

How would people with two different perspectives discuss a decision from history?

Gr 2-8

Chess Variant: Monster Chess

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

Gr 1-8

Plant Adaptation Tournament

Who will win in a tournament of eight plants with Interesting adaptations!?

Gr 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8

Charge of the Light Brigade – Chess Variant

What if one side played with THREE QUEENS and the other had SEVEN KNIGHTS!? What if?

Gr 2-8

Horde Chess Variant

What if one player had, say, 32 pawns?

Gr 2-8

Tournament: 8 Wonders of the Solar System

Which location is the most wondrous place in the solar system?

Gr 1-8

The 8th Wonder of the World Tournament

Which of these eight wonders deserves to become the Eighth Wonder of the World!?

Gr 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8

Exploration Technology Tournament

Which of these pieces of exploration technology is most important? Most underrated? Most long-lasting?

Gr 1-8

Precipitation Tournament

Eight types of precipitation battle it out in this tournament.

Gr 1-8

Tournament of Ancient Inventions

Which of these inventions of the ancient world is most influential? Least useful today? Most taken-for-granted?

Gr 1-8

Animal Adaptation Tournament

Which animal has the most interesting, most valuable, or strangest adaptations?

Gr 1-8

Habitable Planets and Moons Tournament

Which object in the solar system is most habitable?

Gr 1-8

Parts of Speech Tournament

Which part of speech is most useful? Interesting? Strange?

Gr 1-8

New Uses for a Paperclip

So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?

Gr 1-8

Tournament of Presidents

So who was the strangest of these eight presidents?

Gr 1-8

Holiday vs Holiday (from a Mascot’s Perspective)

Want something to do during the holiday season that is both fun and involves thinking? Get students writing about what a snowman would think about Halloween or what a ghost would think about Thanksgiving.

Gr 1-8

The Tournament of Biomes

Want to move beyond memorizing the characteristics of biomes? In this lesson, students work through a Tournament of Biomes, explaining which biome wins in each round (based on criteria you choose). In the end, they crown a 👑 Champion Biome!

Gr 1-8

Writing Sample: Peter Pan

A passage from “Peter Pan” to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Gr 1-8

Fraction Ordering Tournament

Which set of fractions would be the trickiest to order from least to greatest? Let’s have a tournament!

Gr 2-8

The Resiliency Tournament

Your students will set up a tournament to determine which person or character best demonstrated resiliency.

Gr 1-8

Propaganda and Logical Fallacies

Let’s see how propaganda techniques can make even something great seem bad.

Gr 1-8

Academic Love Letters

What if Kylo Ren wrote a love letter to Abe Lincoln or the Sahara Desert wrote one to the Moon?

Gr 1-8

Teaching Criticism

Ask students to go beyond “I don’t like it” and form critical opinions based on a set of criteria. Students can produce written arguments or turn their opinion into oral presentations.

Gr 1-8