“This website is my sub plans.” ~ a teacher describing Byrdseed.TV
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?
Ready to learn a 2,500-year-old Chinese board game? Let’s… Go!
A worksheet pack featuring writing prompts, a summer essay project, a science-based escape room activity, and image analysis prompts.
How quickly can you break the numeric code?
What would the consequences be if no one had to sleep anymore?
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.
Watch this block of Lego cast three completely different shadows of three distinctly different objects! How’d he do it?
A music video filmed on 64 phones and then displayed on 64 phones. What?
Create mathematical art with curves that, well, aren’t curvy.
An animated summary of Shakespeare’s utterly ridiculous “Twelfth Night.”
These two tables are the same size. But how!?
Ghost is a word-building game for two players. The first person to create an actual word loses.
What’s going on in this room? There are shoes everywhere! Are those… oranges? Let’s make some inferences!
Nothing could possibly go wrong with a love potion on the loose!
Romeo and Juliet in just about five minutes.
Sure, anyone can win at checkers… but can you lose!?
Let’s get students’ art really popping with two-point perspective!
Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?
Let’s encode some secret messages with a cipher that was actually used during the American Civil War!
Why does this dinosaur keep looking at me…
What are these two women up to? What’s that thing she’s holding? Let’s make some inferences!
What if one player had, say, 32 pawns?
Anyone, yes anyone, can create a (somewhat) realistic self-portrait using these steps. Anyone!
This optical illusion looks like a 3D staircase, but it’s all drawn on a plain piece of paper.
A mosaic technique that makes watercolor approachable. Students walk away with something they’re proud of.
What if we played chess on a board that’s only 4×5?
Teach your students about basic cryptography and code making.
What if you had really weak chess pieces, but you could always move twice?
What if you only played Tic-Tac-Toe with Xs and you could play on multiple boards?
You won’t believe how fascinating it is to watch a map of the most popular baby names by US state.
So, what can a chair be used for other than, you know, sitting in?
Everyone starts with the same squiggle. No two drawings end up the same. What do you see?
The barber shaves everybody who doesn’t themselves. So… does the barber shave himself?
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
So, what can a pencil be used for other than writing and drawing?
Nothing like a paradox to get your kids brains exploding 🤯! This one starts with five simple words: “This statement is a lie.”
So, what CAN a CAN be used for other than storing liquids?
Here’s how you can draw The Penrose Triangle, an example of an impossible shape.
Pick a few numbers, draw some corresponding lines on grid paper, and you’ll end up with some interesting, looping math-y art!
