Playlist: Bookmarks
Halloween Worksheets
Crosswords, image analysis, and writing prompts for Halloween!
Contig
Roll three dice and combine them using any mathematical operation. But be strategic to maximize your points!
Two Animals Switch Biomes
What if a capybara and a kangaroo rat switched homes? Would their adaptations be helpful at all?
Characters’ Faults Can Also Be Strengths
Strength and weakness are often two sides of the same coin. Students will explore how a character’s flaw can be a benefit.
Holiday Shuffle – Day vs Date
Wouldn’t some holidays be better on a certain day of the week? Should Thanksgiving have a set date?
Order, Chaos, and the Holiday Season
Let’s write a holiday song about order and chaos!
Words Within Words: CORNMAZE
How many words can you find within CORNMAZE?
Math Curiosity: Magic Triangles
Can you make each side of this triangle add up to 9 using the digits 1-6?
Words Within Words: ORNAMENT
How many words can you find within ORNAMENT?
Words Within Words: WREATH
How many words can you find within WREATH?
Bobbing for Apples
What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?
Words Within Words: CRANBERRY
How many words can you find within “cranberry”?
A Halloween Costume Gone Wrong
Let’s go roller skating in a Halloween costume! What could possibly go wrong?
Moving Students from “On-Level” to “Advanced” in Writing
For TeachersWhat separates our on-level writers from our advanced writers?
Graphic Organizers and Higher Order Thinking
For TeachersA few quick tips on how to better use graphic organizers to support higher-order thinking.
Holiday Writing: Packing Crates
An old photograph. A holiday scene. Pick one object in the picture and write from its point of view.
Not Like The Others: US National Parks
Four US national parks. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Thanksgiving Photo Writing
Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item’s point of view.
Writing in Pilish
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?
Ultimate (or Inception) Tic Tac Toe
What if each square on a Tic-Tac-Toe board had another Tic-Tac-Toe board inside of it?
Analyze Paragraphs: Baseball
Three paragraphs about baseball. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.
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?
Cram
Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) grid-filling game!
Game: Number Scrabble
What if we played Tic-Tac-Toe with numbers and instead of three-in-a-row, we add up to 15? Well… then we’d have Number Scrabble!
Doubling Up Writing: Anadiplosis
Repeating words can be what you want, if what you want is an interesting effect. (Psst, that’s an example of anadiplosis!)
Story Starter: A Magical School
Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place in at a magical school.
Math Game: Heaps
Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) subtraction game!
Word Ladders Introduction
You won’t believe how this spelling and vocabulary puzzle will get kids’ brains sweating over the smallest of words.
Math Curiosity: A Pattern Packed Triangle
Pascal’s pattern-packed triangle is a potent puzzle for pupils to ponder.
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?
Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences
Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.
Game: Order and Chaos
Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe if both players could play as both Xs and Os!
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?
Game: Notakto
What if you only played Tic-Tac-Toe with Xs and you could play on multiple boards?
Why Is Our Calendar So Weird!?
Why are there 12 months? Why don’t weeks fit into months evenly? Why don’t weeks fit into the year evenly? What’s going on with the calendar!
Words Within Words: NUTCRACKER
How many words can you find within NUTCRACKER?
Building Creative Analogies
We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.
Showing A Character’s Trait
We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.
Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 1
‘Add more variety!’ teachers say. But how? This lesson gives students actual techniques instead of vague advice.
Greekymon
Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.
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!