Enrichment ＊ Byrdseed.TV

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

The only type of octopus that routinely wanders onto land!

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

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

Can you shred paper using just Lego?

Shaolin kung fu students as seen from a satellite.

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

Oil paint floats on water and becomes a familiar scene.

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

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

Compare and Create New Year’s Traditions

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

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

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

Various desserts melt in surprisingly different ways.

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

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

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

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

What do you see in this squiggle?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lipogram: Rewrite “Mary Had A Little Lamb”

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

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

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?

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?

Back to School: Rewriting The Beatles’ “Help!”

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!?

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

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

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

Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game

Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?

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

Charge of the Light Brigade – Chess Variant

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

What if one player had, say, 32 pawns?

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

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

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

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

So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?

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

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

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

So, I heard you like Tic-Tac-Toe. What if each square on a Tic-Tac-Toe board had another Tic-Tac-Toe board inside of it? 🤯

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe, but both players can both play as both X and O throughout the whole game! First to get three-in-a-row still wins!

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 🤯

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.