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?

How quickly can you break the numeric code?

A mosaic technique that makes watercolor approachable. Students walk away with something they’re proud of.

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

Various desserts melt in surprisingly different ways.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?

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

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

It’s Hamlet in just about five minutes!

Oil paint floats on water and becomes a familiar scene.

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

Teach your students about basic cryptography and code making.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What if one player had, say, 32 pawns?

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

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

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

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

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

The only type of octopus that routinely wanders onto land!

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

Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Who can guess the codeword first?

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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!

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

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!?

One artist, two paintings. Notice details, compare, synthesize, then find a parallel in another creator’s work.

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

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

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

Can you shred paper using just Lego?

You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!

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

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

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

Andy Goldsworthy turns leaves and stones into art. Your students will learn to draw his signature natural curves — then build on them.

Shaolin kung fu students as seen from a satellite.

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

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

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

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

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

Crosswords, image analysis, and writing prompts for Halloween!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you see in this squiggle?

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

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

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

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

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

Why does this dinosaur keep looking at me…

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?

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

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

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

Romeo and Juliet in just about five minutes.

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

Shakespeare’s Much Ado summarized in just five minutes!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!

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

Vulcan Point Island is an island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island

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

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

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