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Playlist: Bookmarks

Power – Blue Whale vs Krill

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

Contig

Roll three dice and combine them using any mathematical operation. But be strategic to maximize your points!

What’s In My Brain: Crocodile vs Tree Frog

Is it a reptile or an amphibian?

What’s In My Brain: Narwhal vs Penguin

We’re looking at the arctic vs the antarctic.

Squiggles Collection 1

Everyone starts with the same squiggle. No two drawings end up the same. What do you see?

What If… Unreliable Water?

What would the consequences be if a town’s tap water became… unreliable?

What If… No Sleep?

What would the consequences be if no one had to sleep anymore?

Words Within Words: Intro (SOLDIER)

How many words can you find within SOLDIER? 20? 35? 50? Even more!?

Word Pyramids

Start with a one letter word, add another letter, then add another. How tall can you make the pyramid?

Looking Closely at Holiday Photos

Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!

Thanksgiving Photo Writing

Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item’s point of view.

What’s In My Brain!? Walnut vs Clouds

Let’s look at living vs non-living things.

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!?

Drawing Knots, Level 1

How to draw a simple version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!

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.

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?

Word Ladder: Fast to Race (4 step)

COLD to COOL. BAND to SING. Change one letter at a time — can you find the path?

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!

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?

Math Game: Heaps

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

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!

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.

Generalization: Problems Lead to New Rules, Which Lead to New Problems

Problems create rules. Rules create new problems. Can you trace the cycle in history, stories, and your own life?

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.

How Many Ways: Times Equals Times

How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?

Ghost

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

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.

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.

Differentiate With Frames Across Disciplines

For Teachers

One topic, four angles. The Frame graphic organizer gives every student a different way in — without you creating four different lessons.

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!

The Game of 100

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

Writing Summaries in Haiku

Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.

Greek and Latin Dinosaur Names

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