Playlist: Bookmarks
Mother’s Day Cards
Let’s write the cleverest Mother’s Day cards you’ve ever seen!
Squiggles Introduction
What do you see in this squiggle?
Discussing An Important Decision from History
How would people with two different perspectives discuss a decision from history?
What’s In My Brain!? Walnut vs Clouds
Let’s look at living vs non-living things.
The 8th Wonder of the World Tournament
Which of these eight wonders deserves to become the Eighth Wonder of the World!?
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?
Self Portraits: Text Art
What if a students’ self-portrait was made of words that describe the student!?
Word Ladder: Foot to Shoe (4 Steps)
COLD to COOL. BAND to SING. Change one letter at a time — can you find the path?
The Pros and Cons of Producers and Consumers
Sure, students might know the difference between a producer and a consumer… but have they considered how they feel about each other? What, in a producer’s opinion, are the pros and cons of a consumer?
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.
Characters Dressed as Other Characters for Halloween
What if one character dressed up as another for Halloween? Would the Cat in the Hat pick Captain Jack Sparrow, because they’re both chaotic yet good-natured people? Would Elsa dress up as The Ice King since they are both lonely?
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!
Ghost
Ghost is a word-building game for two players. The first person to create an actual word loses.
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?
More Specific than “Smart”
When students are told that they’re “smart”, what does this word actually mean to them? (Psst. It isn’t what we intended.)
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!
Academic Love Letters
What if Kylo Ren wrote a love letter to Abe Lincoln or the Sahara Desert wrote one to the Moon?
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.
Educational Valentines
Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!
An App For A Historical Figure
What kind of an app could have helped Abe Lincoln accomplish his goals?
Creating A Classroom Motto
Starting with specific examples of fantastic classroom behavior, your class will end up with one sentence summing up their expectations. It’s a classroom motto!
The Game of 100
Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?