Enrichment

So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?

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?

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?

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.

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

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

What if we played Tic-Tac-Toe with numbers and instead of three-in-a-row, we add up to 15? Well… then we'd have Number Scrabble!

Let's make valentines with an educational twist!

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

How quickly can you break the code with Bulls and Cows?

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

Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?

What do you see in this squiggle?

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

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

Who can guess the other person's codeword first? This game practices inducting thinking and encourages the development of a strategy.

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

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

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

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

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

You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!

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

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

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!?

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

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

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

Learn how to play the abstract, paper-and-pencil game Col!

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

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?

Learn how to play the abstract, paper-and-pencil game Chomp!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 🤯

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Oil paint floats on water and becomes a familiar scene.

Romeo and Juliet in just about five minutes.

What if one player had, say, 32 pawns?

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

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

It's Hamlet in just about five minutes!

Various desserts melt in surprisingly different ways.

An animated summary of Shakespeare's utterly ridiculous "Twelfth Night."

Shakespeare's Much Ado summarized in just five minutes!

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

The only type of octopus that routinely wanders onto land!

Shaolin kung fu students as seen from a satellite.

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

Can you shred paper using just Lego?

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