“This was the best money I have ever spent on a teaching tool.” ~ a teacher in Wisconsin
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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?
Watch this block of Lego cast three completely different shadows of three distinctly different objects! How’d he do it?
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.
A counting game where twos become “fizz” and threes become “buzz.” Easy to learn, surprisingly hard to survive.
St. Patrick Day’s themed word searches, crossword puzzle, reverse crossword, transition writing practice, and a math puzzle.
How quickly can you break the numeric code?
Ready to learn a 2,500-year-old Chinese board game? Let’s… Go!
Sure, anyone can win at checkers… but can you lose!?
Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?
Let’s get students’ art really popping with two-point perspective!
Romeo and Juliet in just about five minutes.
Let’s encode some secret messages with a cipher that was actually used during the American Civil War!
Create mathematical art with curves that, well, aren’t curvy.
An animated summary of Shakespeare’s utterly ridiculous “Twelfth Night.”
Nothing could possibly go wrong with a love potion on the loose!
What’s going on in this room? There are shoes everywhere! Are those… oranges? Let’s make some inferences!
Ghost is a word-building game for two players. The first person to create an actual word loses.
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?
Roll three dice and combine them using any mathematical operation. But be strategic to maximize your points!
Can you shred paper using just Lego?
Create a piece of repeating art in the style of MC Escher!
What if a students’ self-portrait was made of words that describe the student!?
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.
What if you had really weak chess pieces, but you could always move twice?
Turn your students into a bunch of Monets with q-tips and some tempera paint.
Everyone starts with the same squiggle. No two drawings end up the same. What do you see?
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
The barber shaves everybody who doesn’t themselves. So… does the barber shave himself?
So, what can a chair be used for other than, you know, sitting in?
What if we played chess on a board that’s only 4×5?
A mosaic technique that makes watercolor approachable. Students walk away with something they’re proud of.
The only type of octopus that routinely wanders onto land!
Pick a few numbers, draw some corresponding lines on grid paper, and you’ll end up with some interesting, looping math-y art!
So, what can a pencil be used for other than writing and drawing?
Let’s give our students an art history lesson while teaching them how to enhance their drawings using one-point perspective.
Nothing like a paradox to get your kids brains exploding 🤯! This one starts with five simple words: “This statement is a lie.”
