Playlist: Bookmarks
Tournament of Mythological Creatures
Who will win the tournament of mythological creatures!?
Greekymon Studies – Round 1
What might a creature named “Ursolunascope” be like?
Natural Disasters Tournament
Earthquake vs. hurricane. Tsunami vs. wildfire. Students set the criteria, argue their case, and crown a champion. Warning: it gets heated.
Van Gogh Self-Portrait Tournament
Who will win the tournament of Van Gogh self-portraits!?
Robot Writing: Volcano
Read three pieces of writing from three different robots about the same beautiful painting of a volcano. Who wrote it best?
Robot Writing: Acropolis
One painting of ruins. Three robots. Three pieces of writing. Who wrote it best?
Robot Writing: The Bridge
One painting of a bridge. Three robots. Who wrote it best?
Robot Writing: Orchestra
Read three pieces of writing from three different robots based on a beautiful painting and decide who wins!
Lipogram: Rewrite “Mary Had A Little Lamb”
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
Lipogram: Rewrite “Twinkle, Twinkle”
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
Racetrack – Race Around A Graph
How fast do you get your mathematical car going without crashing?
Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game
Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?
The 8th Wonder of the World Tournament
Which of these eight wonders deserves to become the Eighth Wonder of the World!?
Sets of Idioms Related to Body Parts
Five sets of five idioms, all related to body parts!
Precipitation Tournament
Eight types of precipitation battle it out in this tournament.
Tournament of Ancient Inventions
Which of these inventions of the ancient world is most influential? Least useful today? Most taken-for-granted?
Antonym Paths
Does the antonym of an antonym bring us back to the same meaning?
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?
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?
Word Ladders Introduction
You won’t believe how this spelling and vocabulary puzzle will get kids’ brains sweating over the smallest of words.
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!
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!
Depth and Complexity – An Introduction for Teachers
For TeachersDepth and Complexity is the most powerful framework most teachers have never heard of. Here’s what it actually is — and isn’t.
Not Like The Others: US Presidents
Four US presidents. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
The Tournament of Biomes
Want to move beyond memorizing the characteristics of biomes? In this lesson, students work through a Tournament of Biomes, explaining which biome wins in each round (based on criteria you choose). In the end, they crown a 👑 Champion Biome!
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?
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!
Paradox: Crocodile Dilemma
A crocodile makes a deal. But the deal creates a paradox. Can your students untangle a 2,000-year-old logic puzzle?
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!
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!
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!
Content Imperatives: Convergence
Add complexity by considering how multiple factors 🔄 Converge within one topic.
Content Imperatives: Parallel
Get students thinking broadly by exploring similarities across multiple topics. Combine with Depth and Complexity for bonus points!
Content Imperatives: Contribuition
Pull on one thread and watch the whole topic move. Contribution asks: what single factor is quietly shaping everything else?
Content Imperatives: Origin
Take students back to the beginning by using the Content Imperative ⏺️ Origin.
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.
Exploring Circumference With Famous Circles
Let’s find how the diameter and circumference of famous circles are related.
Introduce Symbolism with Pixel Art
Create a pixelated icon that represents the essence of a character!
Create A Creature
Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.
Math Curiosity: Palindromic Number Conjecture
Using this one weird trick, it seems that you can turn any number into a palindrome!
An App For A Historical Figure
What kind of an app could have helped Abe Lincoln accomplish his goals?
The Game of 100
Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?
A Grid-Based Fraction Project
You’ve got 60 spaces on a grid to create an amusement park, a house, a farm, or whatever you’d like. Divide it into seven pieces, order it by size, combine into two halves, and more in this fraction project.
Engineering: Build A Bridge
Using real bridges as their starting point, students will construct bridges out of straws and paperclips.