Playlist: Bookmarks
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?
Parts of Speech Party: Introduction (Check)
How many ways can we use “check” in a paragraph? And can your students spot when it’s a verb, or a noun, or an adjective?
Bobbing for Apples
What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?
Idiom Tasks
Four fantastically terrific tasks for a weekly idiom study.
Analyze Suffixes: -en
What exactly does adding -en to a word do? Find the pattern. Then find the words that break it.
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?
Analyze Suffixes: -ly, -less, and -ful
What exactly does adding -less do to a word?
Parts of Speech Tournament
Which part of speech is most useful? Interesting? Strange?
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?
Writing About Art: The Scream
Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.
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?
Remixing A Holiday Poem
Let’s take a classic Christmas poem and remix it to work with another holiday!
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.
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!
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.
Jabberwocky and Context Clues
Context clues lessons can be a disaster. Here, we expose students to a delightful classic packed with nonsense words (“Jabberwocky”) and ask them to decipher the meanings and parts of speech. Then, it’s only natural for students to write their own nonsense poems.
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.
Greek and Latin Dinosaur Names
Let’s create a new dinosaur using Greek and Latin stems!