Playlist: Bookmarks
Valentine’s Day Codes
Teach your students about basic cryptography and code making.
Concept Formation
For TeachersA model of instruction that moves from specific examples to concepts to one big idea.
Martial Arts in Space
Shaolin kung fu students as seen from a satellite.
Comparing Characters’ Bedrooms
What item’s in a character’s bedroom would reflect their deepest desires? And what if they toured a similar character’s room?
What’s In My Brain: Pentagon vs Pentagon
We’re looking at regular vs irregular polygons.
Coral Reef – Mixed Up Paragraph
Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about the coral reef back into the correct order?
Grouping Shapes by Parallel and Perpendicular Sides
Which shapes go together based on parallel and perpendicular lines?
Letters With Symmetry
Let’s group letters by their symmetry, then create symmetrical words, and then symmetrical sentences!
Math Curiosity: Magic Triangles
Can you make each side of this triangle add up to 9 using the digits 1-6?
Cooking In Space
Watch astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti cook a meal in zero gravity on the International Space Station.
The Heaviest Pumpkin
How heavy is the world’s heaviest pumpkin when measured in Mr. Byrds?
Super Specific Similes: Quick Baby
Let’s make this simile about a quick baby even more specific.
Super Specific Similes: Loud Class
Let’s make this simile about a loud class super specific!
Squiggles Introduction
What do you see in this squiggle?
Squiggles Collection 1
Everyone starts with the same squiggle. No two drawings end up the same. What do you see?
Words Within Words: Intro (SOLDIER)
How many words can you find within SOLDIER? 20? 35? 50? Even more!?
Think Like An Author: Hemingway vs Dickens
What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?
Idiom Tasks
Four fantastically terrific tasks for a weekly idiom study.
From Summary to Synthesis
For TeachersHere’s how you can move from merely “summarizing a text” to a high-level task that culminates in synthesis.
Geometry Image: University Ave
What odd and interesting shapes can your students find in this geometric image?
An Olympic Sized Pool and 2 Liter Bottles (Episode 1)
How many 2 liter bottles could you fill up using the water in an olympic-sized pool?
Notice, Wonder: Rosetta
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Geometry Image: Skytree
What odd and interesting shapes can your students find in this geometric image?
Beyond Identifying a Story’s Problem and Solution
For TeachersSo your students can identify a story’s problem and solution. Then what?
Comparing Strengths and Weaknesses
For TeachersGo beyond merely explaining strengths and weaknesses and get students thinking in interesting ways.
Stories with the Same Problems and Solutions
Have you ever noticed that some stories have awfully similar problems? What if we looked for the most unusual way of solving a repeating problem?
Models of Instruction: Inquiry Training
For TeachersWant your students to ask better questions? Why not train them to inquire!?
Analyze Suffixes: -ly, -less, and -ful
What exactly does adding -less do to a word?
Introducing Universal Theme of Change
Everything changes. But how does it change? Students brainstorm dozens of examples and boil them down to one big idea.
Notice, Wonder: SLS Test
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game
Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?
Drawing Knots, Level 3
How to draw the final version of the twisty Henri Matisse knot!
Drawing Knots, Level 2
How to draw a more complex version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!
Drawing Knots, Level 1
How to draw a simple version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!
The 8th Wonder of the World Tournament
Which of these eight wonders deserves to become the Eighth Wonder of the World!?
Greek and Latin Word Part Paths
How can we go from Biology to Immobile?
Parabolic Curve Art
Create mathematical art with curves that, well, aren’t curvy.
Animal Adaptation Tournament
Which animal has the most interesting, most valuable, or strangest adaptations?
Writing in Pilish
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?
Not Like The Others: US States
How is each of these states not like the others?
New Uses for a Paperclip
So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?
Antonym Paths
Does the antonym of an antonym bring us back to the same meaning?
Fancier Figurative Language: Use the Opposite
Let’s start with “As cold as fire.”
Fancier Figurative Language: Move the Simile
What if we started a sentence with the simile?
Think Like A Historian
Here’s how effects be causes and causes can be effects!
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?
Writing About Art: The Scream
Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.
How Many Will There Be? Desks
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
Analyze Paragraphs: Cucumbers
Three paragraphs about cucumbers. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.
Analyze Paragraphs: Empire State Building
Three paragraphs about the Empire State Building. 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?
Thinking With Art: Head Down
One artist, two paintings. Notice details, compare, synthesize, then find a parallel in another creator’s work.
Inferring With Art: A Man
What’s going on in this painting? Who is that guy? What’s his job? And where’s his other boot?
Inferring With Art: A Couple
What’s going on in this room? There are shoes everywhere! Are those… oranges? Let’s make some inferences!
Inferring With Art: Two Women
What are these two women up to? What’s that thing she’s holding? Let’s make some inferences!
An Escher-Style Tessellation Project
Create a piece of repeating art in the style of MC Escher!
Not Like The Others: Natural Disasters
Four natural disasters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Measurement: An Elephant
What if I told you that an elephant weighed a back-breaking 176,000? Could you figure out the unit I’m using? But… how many corgis would that be?
Measurement: A Long Movie
What if I told you a movie was a whopping 0.017 long? Could you figure out the unit I’m using? This lesson packs in strange measurements of time as well as tiny decimals.
Measurement: How Big is this Bathtub?
So, if I told you a bathtub holds 640 of water, which unit would make the most sense?
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.
Subtraction: 3 Digits Minus 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 subtraction.
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.
Create Your Own Operation
The commutative and associative properties are a whole lot more interesting when you apply them to a mathematical operation that you created!
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.
Writing Seuss Style Poetry
Sure, Dr. Seuss wrote for young students, but can older students analyze his writing and learn to mimic his style? THEN, they can produce Seuss-style poetry about any topic: Ancient China, the electromagnetic spectrum, Pride and Prejudice, and (yes) fraction division!
Not Like The Others: Charlotte’s Web
Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Fancier Figurative Language: Advanced Repetition
Is your students’ use of repetition limited to, “The girl was very, very, very fast.”? Let’s borrow some ideas from Shakespeare!
How Many Ways: Times Equals Minus
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
How Many Ways: Times Equals Times
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
Advanced Alliteration and Consonance
When students learn about alliteration, it’s hard to steer them away from goofy tongue-twisters. Certainly, there must be more powerful and practical ways of using alliteration. In this lesson, I draw on delicious examples from Shakespeare to show how a very advanced writer used alliteration. Then, I break those ideas down so students can try them out.
What’s In My Brain: Cute Baby vs Fast Cheetah
Can students spot similes vs metaphors?
Notice, Wonder: Etna
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Fraction Ordering Tournament
Which set of fractions would be the trickiest to order from least to greatest? Let’s have a tournament!
Bulls and Cows
How quickly can you break the numeric code?
Same Perimeter, Different Area For Rectangles
Can two rectangles have the same perimeter but… different areas!?
Upgrade Research Questions With Depth and Complexity
Ever ask students to create research questions? Were their ideas a bit… blah? My own students had a very hard time writing questions they didn’t already know the answer to! This video is how I solved that problem: upgrade research questions with depth and complexity.
Undoing Multiplication With Division
Multiplication and division, natural foes, are constantly seeking to undo each other. Students will attempt to reverse the effects of multiplication by dividing once, twice, or even thrice!
Notice, Wonder: A Ship
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Sets of Idioms
Why do we say ‘break a leg’? Five themed sets of idioms your students will actually remember.
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!
Rounding Numbers (But Not To 10)
What could we possibly do to make rounding more interesting for students who already get it? In this series, students consider how they might round to values other than “the nearest 10.” How, for example, do we round to the nearest 9? 7? 15?
Game: Notakto
What if you only played Tic-Tac-Toe with Xs and you could play on multiple boards?
Sprouts
Learn how to play the abstract, paper-and-pencil game Sprouts.
What Would Poetry Think About Prose?
Poetry and Prose meet at a party. What would they say to each other? How would they feel about each other’s style?
Grouping Quadrilaterals In A Hierarchy
Can we classify quadrilaterals like we classify living things?
Lines, Line Segments, Rays, and Infinity!
A lesson about lines, line segments, and rays that avoids dull memorization. Instead, we ponder this delightful question: Which is longer, a ray or a line? Then, kids consider what these different geometric concepts would think about each other.
Upgrading Compare and Contrast Writing
Upgrade compare and contrast writing with just a couple of key words.
Building Creative Analogies
We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.
Finding The Volume of Laptops
How has the volume of laptops changed over time? You know you want to check out how huge those first versions were!
Describing Author’s Voice
What if… Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?
The Thinking Hats
So… do your students moan when forced to work in a group? Part of the problem is that lack the structure to work well with peers. Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats are a perfect tool to help with this problem.
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.
Math Curiosity: Finding Primes
Prime numbers are unpredictable! How can we possibly find them all? An Ancient Greek mathematician found one way!
Persuasion and Packaging: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
How does a drink’s packaging affect us emotionally and logically?
Depth and Complexity: ❓ Unanswered Questions
This underutilized tool focuses students on what we don’t yet know and even what we can’t know.
Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea
Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.
Depth and Complexity: 👓 Multiple Perspectives
Every topic looks different depending on who’s looking. This prompt teaches students to see through someone else’s eyes.
Depth and Complexity: 🌻 Details
Get kids focusing on the small, but essential, details of a topic.
Differentiate With Frames Across Disciplines
For TeachersOne topic, four angles. The Frame graphic organizer gives every student a different way in — without you creating four different lessons.
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.
Elements of The Fantasy Genre
Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.
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.
Analyze and Create Misleading Graphs
Let’s make some intentionally bad graphs to learn how to spot poorly made graphs.
Create A Creature
Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.
An App For A Historical Figure
What kind of an app could have helped Abe Lincoln accomplish his goals?
Motivation and Moral Development
Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?
“Much Ado About Nothing” Summary
Shakespeare’s Much Ado summarized in just five minutes!
Writing Summaries in Haiku
Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.
Teach Non-Fiction Writing Structure With Fractals
Did you ever notice that the structure of an essay is very similar to the structure of a paragraph? Hmm…
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.
Fancier Figurative Language: Start with a Cliche
We’ll start with the cliché “as cold as ice” and go somewhere much more interesting.
Teaching Criticism
For TeachersAsk students to go beyond “I don’t like it” and form critical opinions based on a set of criteria. Students can produce written arguments or turn their opinion into oral presentations.
Better Stories Part 5: Plot Structure
Ever read a student’s story that was just event after event after event and then a very sudden ending? They lack an understanding of a plot’s structure. With the help of Finding Nemo, I break down how to set up a well-structured plot.
Greek and Latin Dinosaur Names
Let’s create a new dinosaur using Greek and Latin stems!
Better Stories Part 2: Types of Conflict
If your students’ stories are packed with endless ninja fights or arguments between frenemies, it’s time to expose them to a wider range of conflicts.
Better Stories Part 1: The Big Idea
We open our unit on narrative writing with a big idea: “structure increases creativity.” I show how this is true by bringing in examples from across all disciplines.
Better Stories Part 4: Character Archetypes
Are students’ characters a bit flat? Archetypes give them a strong foundation on which to build their own characters as well as a tool to analyze existing stories.