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Playlist: Bookmarks

Valentine’s Day Codes

Teach your students about basic cryptography and code making.

Struggle Makes Us Stronger

How the lotus can teach your young students about resiliency.

Holiday Shuffle – Day vs Date

Wouldn’t some holidays be better on a certain day of the week? Should Thanksgiving have a set date?

Halloween Problems and Solutions

When we try to solve a problem, sometimes we end up creating new problems. Which lead to new solutions. Which lead to new problems.

Why “Analyze” Is My Favorite Level of Bloom’s Taxonomy

For Teachers

Analyze is like a gateway that connects the lower- and higher-levels of Bloom’s. But make sure you’re truly asking an Analyze-level question!

How to Reset Your Brain When You’re Flooded

Allison Edwards explains how changing your senses can reset your brain.

What Happens In Your Brain When You’re Worried or Afraid

Allison Edwards explains how blood flow in your brain affects your decision-making

Cooking In Space

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

A Halloween Costume Gone Wrong

Let’s go roller skating in a Halloween costume! What could possibly go wrong?

Path Cipher (Codes Part 4)

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

Squiggles Introduction

What do you see in this squiggle?

Zig Zag Cipher (Codes Part 3)

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

Pig Pen Cipher (Codes Part 2)

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

Shift Cipher (Codes Part 1)

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

Create A Civ: Capital City

Every great capital is part geography, part human design. Research real ones, then build your own from scratch.

Famous Structures

The Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House — group them, pick the best from each group, then design your own.

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!?

Introducing Universal Theme of Power

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

Not Like The Others: Types of Diseases

Four diseases. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Notice, Wonder: Butterball

A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!

Tournament: 8 Wonders of the Solar System

Which location is the most wondrous place in the solar system?

Building Creative Confidence with the Torrance Tests

For Teachers

Here are a bunch of ways to quickly practice creativity with your students for zero dollars.

New Uses for a Paperclip

So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?

Create A Civilization: Currency

What type of currency will your civilization use? What symbols will be on it? Why are they significant?

Create A Civilization: Design A Flag

What makes for a good flag? What makes a bad flag?

Looping Grid Art

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

Addressing Disorganization

For Teachers

Know any kids who, despite their brilliant minds, have a bit of a hard time keeping things in order, turning things in on time, or remembering to put their names on their papers?

Ultimate (or Inception) Tic Tac Toe

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

Difficult vs Complex Tasks

For Teachers

What separates difficulty from complexity? And why do complex tasks lead to much more natural differentiation?

A Lunar Survival Mission

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?

Complex Task: Academic Tournaments

For Teachers

Who would win in the Tournament of Least Useful Geometric Shapes or Bravest Shakespearean Characters? Create an academic tournament and watch your students’ brains sweat!

Cram

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

Game: Wild Tic Tac Toe

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

Game: Number Scrabble

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!

Self Portraits: Text Art

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

An Escher-Style Tessellation Project

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

Self Portraits Part One: Line Drawings

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

Game: Snakes

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

Jotto

Who can guess the codeword first?

Game: Gomoku

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!

Writing A Thanksgiving Letter

What if an inanimate object could express thanks for a special person in your life? What would it write?

Holiday vs Holiday (from a Mascot’s Perspective)

Want something to do during the holiday season that is both fun and involves thinking? Get students writing about what a snowman would think about Halloween or what a ghost would think about Thanksgiving.

Complex Task: What Would X Think of Y?

For Teachers

Here’s a simple task that will add complexity to any content from any grade level!

SCAMPER: Scaffolding Creativity

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.

Running A “Notice, Wonder” Lesson

For Teachers

Use these puzzling images to build a classroom culture that is comfortable with curiosity, ambiguity, and taking intellectual risks.

Exposing Students to Classics

For Teachers

Some kids hear Mozart at home. Others don’t. Let’s make sure every student gets exposed to the classics — art, music, and film.

Not Like The Others: Planets

Which of these planets is not like others? Well, it sure looks simple at first. But each option could be the one that doesn’t fit in.

Create A Civilization: A Change In Government

It’s a great moment for your civilization! Power is moving from the hands of a few to a more democratic government.

Bulls and Cows

How quickly can you break the numeric code?

Ghost

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

Student Introductions With Depth and Frames

Want to introduce the tools of Depth and Complexity and learn more about your students and introduce the Frame graphic organizer? Have I got the activity for you!

Math Curiosity: Magic Squares

Imagine a 3×3 square in which every row, column, and diagonal have the same sum. That’s a magic square!

Math Curiosity: The Coloring Problem

No video gets me more email from students! How few colors can you use to color in any map so that no two, neighboring regions are the same color?

Col – A Strategy Game

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

Game: Notakto

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

Why Is Our Calendar So Weird!?

Why are there 12 months? Why don’t weeks fit into months evenly? Why don’t weeks fit into the year evenly? What’s going on with the calendar!

More Specific than “Smart”

When students are told that they’re “smart”, what does this word actually mean to them? (Psst. It isn’t what we intended.)

Building Creative Analogies

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.

The Thinking Hats

So… do your students moan when forced to work in a group? Part of the problem is that lack the structure to work well with peers. Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats are a perfect tool to help with this problem.

A Donut Investigation

In this cross-curricular investigation, students will look into an intriguing question: do donuts or salads have more sugar? They’ll grapple with misleading information, bias, and use their math skills to create a visual representation of sugar in popular foods.

Create A Civilization: Calendars

Why 12 months? Why 30ish days? Why 7 days in a week? Your civilization could organize a year in any way you want!

Universal Themes

For Teachers

Universal Themes are an easy way to connect lessons, units, and content areas, even going across grade levels, and into students’ personal interests.

Improving Presentations 4: The Big Day

How do you mentally (and emotionally) prepare yourself for the big day?

Improving Presentations 3: The Storyboard and Slides

It’s time to turn that outline into a storyboard and then some actual slides.

Improving Presentations 2: Planning The Outline

After watching some great presenters, let’s outline your presentation!

Improving Presentations 1: Watching The Greats

Get better at giving presentations by studying the greats!

Academic Love Letters

What if Kylo Ren wrote a love letter to Abe Lincoln or the Sahara Desert wrote one to the Moon?

Create A Civilization: From Hunter Gatherers to Farmers

What happens when your civilization suddenly has a surplus of food? Think of the possibilities!

Create A Civilization: The River

The Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Seine, the Thames, and now… your river!

Create A Civilization Introduction

Your students build a civilization from scratch — rivers, flags, calendars, currency, government. Social studies, science, and writing woven into one year-long project.

Creating A Realistic Flower and Pollinator

Your students will create a new flower, designed to attract a specific pollinator.

Educational Valentines

Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!

Create A Creature

Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.

Greekymon

Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.

Reduce Anxiety: Square Breathing (Tool 1)

Reduce anxiety by breathing in a square pattern.

Motivation and Moral Development

Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?

Creating A Classroom Motto

Starting with specific examples of fantastic classroom behavior, your class will end up with one sentence summing up their expectations. It’s a classroom motto!

Teaching Empathy With Faberge Eggs

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

Common English Words From Other Languages

Bored with typical spelling studies? Let’s dig into the origins of common English words from other languages!

Greek and Latin Dinosaur Names

Let’s create a new dinosaur using Greek and Latin stems!

Multiple Perspectives in Primary

For Teachers

Even our youngest students can learn to think from multiple perspectives!

Impostor Syndrome

For Teachers

The student who breezes through school may hit a wall in college. Here’s why — and what to do about it now.