← Back to all of your playlists

Playlist: Bookmarks

Power – Blue Whale vs Krill

Sure, a Blue Whale is huge. But does a tiny krill have more power?

Comparing Characters

Your young students will compare how two characters have changed in a story.

St. Patrick and Other Legends

How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?

Getting Specific With St. Patrick’s Day Writing

Let’s take a starting phrase about St. Patrick’s Day and get specific. No, even more specific!

Slow Motion Popcorn

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

Introduction to Puzzlements

For Teachers

How I accidentally discouraged curiosity in my classroom.

Going Beyond “Name That Genre!”

For Teachers

Naming the genre is step one. But what comes after that? Here’s how to push students past identification into real analysis.

Updating Old Questions: Comparing Two Leaders

For Teachers

How I’d upgrade a dull “which one is better” question.

Improving Evaluative Questions

For Teachers

How to improve questions at the “evaluate” level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Differentiate with Low Floors and High Ceilings

For Teachers

Stop starting at grade level and stretching up. Start high and scaffold down. It’s simpler, and it actually works.

Aim High, Scaffold Down in Math

For Teachers

A high level of thinking in math also requires the support of thoughtful scaffolding.

Not Like The Others: US National Parks

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

Racetrack – Race Around A Graph

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

Mow A Lawn

How long would it take to mow a very large lawn with a push-mower?

Writing in Pilish

Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?

Introduction to Differentiation

For Teachers

When differentiating, most teachers simply start in the wrong place!

Anti-Checkers

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

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?

How Many Will There Be? Flowers

These flowers sure are getting bigger faster! How large will they be in step 10? What about step 50?

Creating Sequences of Questions

For Teachers

High-level questions on their own simply aren’t enough. We must create sequences of questions!

Cram

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

Developing Questions that Prompt Thinking in Math

For Teachers

Math is a particularly tricky subject for asking higher-level questions. Here are a couple of techniques I’ve used to prompt students to think, not merely calculate.

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!?

Self Portraits: Pointillism

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

Measurement: How Old Is Mr. Byrd?

What if I told you that I’m 341,640 old? Could you figure out what unit I’m using? Hint: it’s not years!

Math Game: Heaps

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

Math Curiosity: Ulam Spiral

What if we make a huge spiral of numbers and then highlight only the primes? Well, a bunch of weird patterns show up!

Math Curiosity: A Pattern Packed Triangle

Pascal’s pattern-packed triangle is a potent puzzle for pupils to ponder.

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?

Math Curiosity: Goldbach’s Conjecture

Can any even number be written as the sum of two primes? Goldbach thought so, but we haven’t proven it… yet!

Depth and Complexity – An Introduction for Teachers

For Teachers

Depth and Complexity is the most powerful framework most teachers have never heard of. Here’s what it actually is — and isn’t.

Asking Questions That Make Students Think

For Teachers

Most classroom questions test memory. These questions test thinking. There’s a difference — and your students will feel it.

Game: Order and Chaos

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

Exponents – How Low Can They Go?

Using exponent patterns, can students predict what the 0th power will be?

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?

Fractals: Koch Snowflake

You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!

Math Curiosity: Primes and Squares

Can any perfect square be written as the sum of two primes?

Math Curiosity: Finding Primes

Prime numbers are unpredictable! How can we possibly find them all? An Ancient Greek mathematician found one way!

Math Curiosity: Twin Primes

What do you call two prime numbers who are very close together?

Curriculum Acceleration: Step by Step

For Teachers

Your advanced students already know half the material. Here’s how to move them forward instead of making them wait.

Visualizing Fraction Multiplication

What does it look like to multiply fractions?

Discovering Pi With Sticky Notes

Pi is mysterious and strange! Why not let students discover it on their own?

Exploring Circumference With Famous Circles

Let’s find how the diameter and circumference of famous circles are related.

Reduce Anxiety: 5 Question Rule

For Teachers

Adults can limit anxiety by implementing the Five Question Rule.

Math Curiosity: Palindromic Number Conjecture

Using this one weird trick, it seems that you can turn any number into a palindrome!

The Game of 100

Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?

New Uses for Everyday Things

For Teachers

Here’s how Joelle Trayers gets even her youngest students ready to think in unexpected ways.

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.