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Playlist: Bookmarks

An Under-Appreciated Planet

Students write from the point of view of the most under-appreciated planet.

Hero or Not A Hero?

Students will determine what makes a hero a hero.

Factors and Codes (Episode 1)

Let’s use factors to encode and decode words.

Differentiate with Low Floors and High Ceilings

For Teachers

Stop starting at grade level and stretching up. Start high and scaffold down. It’s simpler, and it actually works.

Looking Closely at Holiday Photos

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

Special Gifts with Special Requirements

Your special friends sure have some unique gift needs!

Investigating Population Changes

How have the ages of three countries’ populations changed from 1950 to 2020? And what problems might that create?

Difficult vs Complex Tasks

For Teachers

What separates difficulty from complexity? And why do complex tasks lead to much more natural differentiation?

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?

Creating Sequences of Questions

For Teachers

High-level questions on their own simply aren’t enough. We must create sequences of questions!

Developing Questions that Prompt Thinking in Math

For Teachers

Math is a particularly tricky subject for asking higher-level questions. Here are a couple of techniques I’ve used to prompt students to think, not merely calculate.

Not Like The Others: Natural Disasters

Four natural disasters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Numerator or Denominator: Which has more power in a fraction?

What do you do with students who already get their fraction operations? Give them a contrived project about recipes or pizza slices? Make them solve annoyingly hard practice problems? Please. Here, we get students thinking in a whole new way, pondering which has more power, the numerator or denominator.

Depth and Complexity – An Introduction for Teachers

For Teachers

Depth and Complexity is the most powerful framework most teachers have never heard of. Here’s what it actually is — and isn’t.

Asking Questions That Make Students Think

For Teachers

Most classroom questions test memory. These questions test thinking. There’s a difference — and your students will feel it.

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!

Do Narrators Have Too Much Power?

Imagine being a character in a story. Are you worried that your story’s narrator may inaccurately describe you? What if they reveal something you wanted to be kept secret? Do narrators have too much power!?

Fraction Ordering Tournament

Which set of fractions would be the trickiest to order from least to greatest? Let’s have a tournament!

Writing A Story About Fraction Equivalence

When fractions take on a new denominator, it’s as if they’re wearing a disguise – same value, new look. So let’s write a story about fraction equivalence starring a fraction who needs to fit in with a new group.

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?

Place Value (Beyond Base 10)

Place value is something we cover in elementary school. It seems simple, but I’d wager that very few adults really understand the topic. I sure didn’t until I worked with non-base-10 number systems in college. Your students can get a taste of this mind-boggling experience by imagining what it would be like if we didn’t have the number 9. What would each digit represent then?

Grouping Quadrilaterals In A Hierarchy

Can we classify quadrilaterals like we classify living things?

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!

Persuasion and Packaging: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

How does a drink’s packaging affect us emotionally and logically?

Percents and Credit Cards

Let’s buy something expensive with a credit card and then make only the minumum payments!

Introduce Symbolism with Pixel Art

Create a pixelated icon that represents the essence of a character!

Analyze and Create Misleading Graphs

Let’s make some intentionally bad graphs to learn how to spot poorly made graphs.

How Many Students Can Fit On The Playground?

So… just how many kids could we cram onto the playground?

Greekymon

Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.

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.