Playlist: Bookmarks
Robot Writing: The Bridge
One painting of a bridge. Three robots. Who wrote it best?
Word Pyramids
Start with a one letter word, add another letter, then add another. How tall can you make the pyramid?
Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game
Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?
Not Like The Others: Mountains
Which of these mountains is not like the others?
Looping Grid Art
Pick a few numbers, draw some corresponding lines on grid paper, and you’ll end up with some interesting, looping math-y art!
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?
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?
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!
Story Starter: A Magical School
Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place in at a magical school.
Word Ladders Introduction
You won’t believe how this spelling and vocabulary puzzle will get kids’ brains sweating over the smallest of words.
Writing A Thanksgiving Letter
What if an inanimate object could express thanks for a special person in your life? What would it write?
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.
Not Like The Others: Creatures of the Tundra
Four tundra creatures. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
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?
Chomp
Chomp away at your opponent in this grid-based strategy game.
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.
Synonym Graphs
So, which is happiest: happy, joyful, or ecstatic? Which is most temporary?
Math Curiosity: Odds & Squares
Why does the sum of the first 5 odds also equal 5 squared?
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Introduction
Your students will try to match up definitions that belong to the same homophone in this brain-boggling vocab puzzle.
A Caffeine Investigation – Part 3
Caffeine is everywhere. But what are the ads really saying? Analyze the claims, then create your own public service announcement.
A Caffeine Investigation – Part 2
What do people know about the amount of caffeine in common beverages?
A Caffeine Investigation – Part 1
So… just how much caffeine can you have before you end up in the ER?
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.
The Game of 100
Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?