Enrichment

Asking students to “think creatively” won’t get you far. They won’t know how to start, they’ll get stuck with simple ideas, or they’ll just go completely wild. SCAMPER is a tool for scaffolding the process of creativity.

Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?

A favorite of mine! This task is delightfully complex and ambiguous, forcing students to make choices without enough information and with no right answer. How will they survive on the moon for three days?

So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?

Nothing could possibly go wrong with a love potion on the loose!

These two tables are the same size. But how!?

Nothing like a paradox to get your kids brains exploding 🤯! This one starts with five simple words: “This statement is a lie.”

Anyone, yes anyone, can create a (somewhat) realistic self-portrait using these steps. Anyone!

Students start with the same squiggle and then draw on it, turning it into whatever they think it might be.

Students will work their brain in several ways, noticing details, comparing, synthesizing, and finally identifying a parallel. All with one artist’s work!

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

Create mathematical art with curves that, well, aren’t curvy.

Create and print mazes for your students – with bonus side quests!

Teach your students about basic cryptography and code making.

Terri Eicholz explains how she builds empathy in her students using the story of the Faberge Eggs.

How fast do you get your mathematical car going without crashing?

Let’s try a cipher that doesn’t substitute new letters or shapes. We just mix things up.

How quickly can you break the numeric code?

A worksheet pack featuring writing prompts, a summer essay project, a science-based escape room activity, and image analysis prompts.

You won’t believe how fascinating it is to watch a map of the most popular baby names by US state.

Crosswords, image analysis, and writing prompts for Halloween!

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

What if we turned a tooth brush into a robot… that could do art?

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

Create a piece of repeating art in the style of MC Escher!

Writing prompts, non-fiction analysis, and science topics related to Christmas and Hanukkah.

So, what CAN a CAN be used for other than storing liquids?

Put these animals into groups. Then do it again. Then… do it one more time. How does re-re-grouping the same creatures reveal new patterns and give new insights?

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

Cindy Phan shares her method of introducing watercolor to students using a mosaic technique.

Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!

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

Let’s encode and decode secret messages like Julius Caesar!

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

It’s Hamlet in just about five minutes!

So, what can a cardboard tube be used for other than holding wrapping paper?

Ghost is a word-building game for two players. The first person to create an actual word loses.

Shaolin kung fu students as seen from a satellite.

What would the consequences be if all people lived much, much longer?

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

Want to take Tic-Tac-Toe to the next level!? Imagine a 15×15 board. You must get five-in-a-row. You cannot get six-in-a-row. That’s Gomoku!

Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) grid-filling game!

Roll three dice and combine them using any mathematical operation. But be strategic to maximize your points!

What if a students’ self-portrait was made of words that describe the student!?

What surprises can you spot when a kernel pops in super slow-mo?

Can you shred paper using just Lego?

You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!

What are these two women up to? What’s that thing she’s holding? Let’s make some inferences!

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

Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.

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

Hey! Our New Year traditions have a lot in common.

Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles’ song Help!?

Shakespeare’s Much Ado summarized in just five minutes!

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

Oil paint floats on water and becomes a familiar scene.

Here’s how you can draw The Penrose Triangle, an example of an impossible shape.

What if one player had, say, 32 pawns?

Let’s encode some secret messages with a cipher that was actually used during the American Civil War!

Pick a few numbers, draw some corresponding lines on grid paper, and you’ll end up with some interesting, looping math-y art!

What’s going on in this room? There are shoes everywhere! Are those… oranges? Let’s make some inferences!

Can your students tell the difference between cubism and abstract art?

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.

Put these countries into groups. Then do it again. Then… do it one more time. How does re-re-grouping the same places reveal new patterns and give new insights?

How to draw a simple version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!

So, what can a chair be used for other than, you know, sitting in?

What happens when you blow a bubble in below-freezing temperatures?

Students grapple with The Crocodile Dilemma, a paradox from Ancient Greece in which a tricky crocodile makes a deal with some parents. Warning: students brains might explode 🤯

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

The barber shaves everybody who doesn’t themselves. So… does the barber shave himself?

It’s a car made out of Lego with a working engine.

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

Who can guess the codeword first?

A music video filmed on 64 phones and then displayed on 64 phones. What?

What would the consequences be if a town’s tap water became… unreliable?

So, what can a pencil be used for other than writing and drawing?

Now let’s try the Path Cipher – a cipher that mixes things up even more than Zig Zag did.

Romeo and Juliet in just about five minutes.

Why does this dinosaur keep looking at me…

Turn your students into a bunch of Monets with q-tips and some tempera paint.

Watch this block of Lego cast three completely different shadows of three distinctly different objects! How’d he do it?

Let’s get students’ art really popping with two-point perspective!

Let’s give our students an art history lesson while teaching them how to enhance their drawings using one-point perspective.

What do you see in this squiggle?

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

The only type of octopus that routinely wanders onto land!

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

An animated summary of Shakespeare’s utterly ridiculous “Twelfth Night.”

Students start with facts, then make groups, and then work with a single statement about Christmas Trees.

Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?

Students start with the same squiggle and then draw on it, turning it into whatever they think it might be.

Worksheets for Earth Day! Featuring reading, writing, and math… with a pinch of Depth and Complexity.

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

What if this triangle pattern just kept repeating… forever!?

St. Patrick Day’s themed word searches, crossword puzzle, reverse crossword, transition writing practice, and a math puzzle.

How to draw the final version of the twisty Henri Matisse knot!

Sure, anyone can win at checkers… but can you lose!?

What would the consequences be if no one had to sleep anymore?

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

How to draw a more complex version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!

This optical illusion looks like a 3D staircase, but it’s all drawn on a plain piece of paper.

Teach students to draw, and then build on, natural curves using the style of artist Andy Goldsworthy.

Watch astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti cook a meal in zero gravity on the International Space Station.

What’s going on in this painting? Who is that guy? What’s his job? And where’s his other boot?

Various desserts melt in surprisingly different ways.

What if we completely rebuild something slowly? What if we completely rebuild it all at once? Is it still the same thing?

Students start with the same squiggle and then draw on it, turning it into whatever they think it might be.

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