Playlist: Bookmarks
Super Specific Similes – Strong Uncle
Let’s make this simile about a strong uncle even more specific.
Looking Closely at Holiday Photos
Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!
Holiday Writing: Packing Crates
An old photograph. A holiday scene. Pick one object in the picture and write from its point of view.
Special Gifts with Special Requirements
Your special friends sure have some unique gift needs!
Thanksgiving Photo Writing
Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item’s point of view.
Stories with the Same Problems and Solutions
Have you ever noticed that some stories have awfully similar problems? What if we looked for the most unusual way of solving a repeating problem?
Investigating Population Changes
How have the ages of three countries’ populations changed from 1950 to 2020? And what problems might that create?
Olympics: Winter vs Summer Medal Count
Which country has a great balance between their summer and winter Olympic medals?
Writing About Art: Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons
Look closely at Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.
Writing About Art: Impression, Sunrise
Look closely at Impression, Sunrise. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.
Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game
Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?
Parabolic Curve Art
Create mathematical art with curves that, well, aren’t curvy.
Writing in Pilish
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?
Writing About Art: Chōshi in Shimosha
Get your students writing some pretty darn impressive poetry based on Japan’s most famous artist.
Writing About Art: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog
Look closely at Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.
Writing About Art: Twilight in the Wilderness
Look closely at Twilight in the Wilderness. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.
Writing About Art: The Scream
Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.
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?
Inferring With Art: A Man
What’s going on in this painting? Who is that guy? What’s his job? And where’s his other boot?
Inferring With Art: A Couple
What’s going on in this room? There are shoes everywhere! Are those… oranges? Let’s make some inferences!
Inferring With Art: Two Women
What are these two women up to? What’s that thing she’s holding? Let’s make some inferences!
An Escher-Style Tessellation Project
Create a piece of repeating art in the style of MC Escher!
Word Ladders Introduction
You won’t believe how this spelling and vocabulary puzzle will get kids’ brains sweating over the smallest of words.
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.
Characters Dressed as Other Characters for Halloween
What if one character dressed up as another for Halloween? Would the Cat in the Hat pick Captain Jack Sparrow, because they’re both chaotic yet good-natured people? Would Elsa dress up as The Ice King since they are both lonely?
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.
Disneyland Parking Structure Math Project
Your students will use estimation strategies to figure out how many parking spots are there in the parking structure at Disneyland? And you bet I reveal the real answer!
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.
The Resiliency Tournament
Your students will set up a tournament to determine which person or character best demonstrated resiliency.
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.)
Analyzing Movies’ Success
So should we make another movie in this series?
Fractals: Koch Snowflake
You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Introduction
Your students will try to match up definitions that belong to the same homophone in this brain-boggling vocab puzzle.
Persuasion and Packaging: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
How does a drink’s packaging affect us emotionally and logically?
Exploring Circumference With Famous Circles
Let’s find how the diameter and circumference of famous circles are related.
Elements of The Fantasy Genre
Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.
Greekymon
Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.
A Nutrition-Based Math Project
Let’s create a parody ad attacking a surprisingly calorie-rich meal.