Playlist: Bookmarks
Super Specific Similes: Quick Baby
Let’s make this simile about a quick baby even more specific.
Robot Writing: Volcano
Read three pieces of writing from three different robots about the same beautiful painting of a volcano. Who wrote it best?
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?
Idioms About Red
Five sets of idioms related to the color red.
Olympics: Winter vs Summer Medal Count
Which country has a great balance between their summer and winter Olympic medals?
Drawing Knots, Level 1
How to draw a simple version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!
Fancier Figurative Language: Move the Simile
What if we started a sentence with the simile?
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?
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?
What’s In My Brain: Trapezoids or Not?
Which are trapezoids and which are not?
What’s In My Brain: Cute Baby vs Fast Cheetah
Can students spot similes vs metaphors?
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 Angles of a Triangle
Why tell a kid the rules of a triangle when they can discover them!?
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.
Create A Creature
Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.
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.