Playlist: Bookmarks
Contig
Roll three dice and combine them using any mathematical operation. But be strategic to maximize your points!
Factors and Codes: First Names (Episode 2)
Scrambled up somewhere in 161,000 is a first name. Can you find it!?
Factors and Codes (Episode 1)
Let’s use factors to encode and decode words.
Bobbing for Apples
What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?
Words Within Words: CRANBERRY
How many words can you find within “cranberry”?
Pig Pen Cipher (Codes Part 2)
Let’s encode some secret messages with a cipher that was actually used during the American Civil War!
Shift Cipher (Codes Part 1)
Let’s encode and decode secret messages like Julius Caesar!
Create A Civ: Capital City
Every great capital is part geography, part human design. Research real ones, then build your own from scratch.
Words Within Words: GENERAL
How many words can you find within “general”?
Looking Closely at Holiday Photos
Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!
Famous Structures
The Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House — group them, pick the best from each group, then design your own.
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?
Not Like The Others: Ants of the World!
Four ants from around the world. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Tournament of Presidents
So who was the strangest of these eight presidents?
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 – Cold to Cool (5-Steps)
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!
Addition: 3 Digits Plus 2 Digits (Multiple Solutions)
Typical practice problems don’t move students up Bloom’s Taxonomy. With this framework, you’ll see kids stop and really think about how to approach multi-digit addition.
Jotto
Who can guess the codeword first?
Story Starter: A Day At School
Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place at school.
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!
Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences
Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.
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!
Ghost
Ghost is a word-building game for two players. The first person to create an actual word loses.
Student Introductions with Complexity and Frames
How have you changed over time? Students introduce themselves through the lens of change — and learn a Depth and Complexity tool in the process.
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!
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!
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.
Persuasion and Packaging: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
How does a drink’s packaging affect us emotionally and logically?
Fraction Puzzlers: Add and Subtract Fractions To Reach A Number
You only have six digits to form three fractions. Can you combine them to get to 0?
An App For A Historical Figure
What kind of an app could have helped Abe Lincoln accomplish his goals?
Greekymon
Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.
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.