Playlist: Bookmarks
A System Similar to a Cell
Which parts of a cell serve a similar job to the parts of a cruise ship, human body, computer, or other system?
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Zeta
Can your students match multiple meanings of the same five words?
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Epsilon
Can your students match multiple meanings of the same five words?
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Alpha
Can your students match multiple meanings of the same five words?
Parts of Speech Party: Introduction (Check)
How many ways can we use “check” in a paragraph? And can your students spot when it’s a verb, or a noun, or an adjective?
Word Pyramids
Start with a one letter word, add another letter, then add another. How tall can you make the pyramid?
What’s In My Brain!? Gold vs Wood
Some of these examples are conductors and some are insulators!
What’s the Pattern? Fraction Addition
Can your students figure out how to add fractions by looking for a pattern?
Olympics: Medals by Population
Do big countries always have the most medals? Which smaller countries rank surprisingly high in the Olympics?
Olympics: Winter vs Summer Medal Count
Which country has a great balance between their summer and winter Olympic medals?
Not Like The Others: Birds of the Desert
Four desert birds. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Not Like The Others: Penguins
Four penguins. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
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.
Not Like The Others: Microorganisms
Four microorganisms. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game
Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?
Not Like The Others: Deserts
Which of these deserts is not like the others?
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?
What’s In My Brain: Owl vs Eagle
Some of these animals are nocturnal and some are diurnal.
Analyze Paragraphs: Baseball
Three paragraphs about baseball. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.
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?
Paradox: Rebuilding A Ship
What if we completely rebuild something slowly? What if we completely rebuild it all at once? Is it still the same thing?
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!
Changing Coordinating Conjunctions
What happens when we switch out a “but” with a “so”? An “and” with a “for”? How can such tiny words make such big differences?
Game: Snakes
In this grid-based strategy game, who will be the last to add to the snake?
Math Game: Heaps
Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) subtraction game!
Punctuation Power
In a sentence, punctuation may seem meek when compared to those mighty words, but punctuation has incredible power over the meaning of a sentence. Students will try re-punctuating sentences to find new meanings – without changing a single word!
Game: Order and Chaos
Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe if both players could play as both Xs and Os!
Bulls and Cows
How quickly can you break the numeric code?
Simple or Compound Sentences – What’s In My Brain?
Can your students spot simple sentences vs compound sentences?
Complex or Compound – What’s In My Brain
Can your class spot the complex sentences vs compound sentences?
Parts of Speech Party – Well
How many different ways can we use the word “well”? Let’s find out in this Parts of Speech Party!
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!
Sprouts
Learn how to play the abstract, paper-and-pencil game Sprouts.
Fractals: Koch Snowflake
You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!
Showing A Character’s Trait
We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Introduction
Your students will try to match up definitions that belong to the same homophone in this brain-boggling vocab puzzle.
Math Curiosity: Finding Primes
Prime numbers are unpredictable! How can we possibly find them all? An Ancient Greek mathematician found one way!
Content Imperatives: Paradox
How can one idea pull in opposite directions, being both true and false or right and wrong at the same time? It’s time to explore Paradoxes!
Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea
Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.
Depth and Complexity: 🌻 Details
Get kids focusing on the small, but essential, details of a topic.
Percents and Credit Cards
Let’s buy something expensive with a credit card and then make only the minumum payments!
Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity
Your students will use Depth and Complexity to note how a character’s main trait changes across a story.
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.
A Visual Guide To Dividing By Fractions
Have you ever wondered what it looks like to divide by a fraction, man?
Historic Social Media
How would people from history have interacted online? Students will develop a conversation online between people involved in the same event from history.
How to Play Go
Ready to learn a 2,500-year-old Chinese board game? Let’s… Go!
Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 1
‘Add more variety!’ teachers say. But how? This lesson gives students actual techniques instead of vague advice.
The Game of 100
Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?