Playlist: Bookmarks
Two Animals Switch Biomes
What if a capybara and a kangaroo rat switched homes? Would their adaptations be helpful at all?
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?
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.
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!
Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences
Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.
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.)
Investigating Cost of Living
Would you save money if you lived in Las Vegas and commuted every day to San Francisco?
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.
Literary Technique: Juxtaposition
Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!