Playlist: Bookmarks
Introducing Order and Chaos
Introduce Order by exploring “written” vs “unwritten” rules.
Hero or Not A Hero?
Students will determine what makes a hero a hero.
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.
St. Patrick and Other Legends
How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?
Tournament of Mythological Creatures
Who will win the tournament of mythological creatures!?
Order, Chaos, and the Holiday Season
Let’s write a holiday song about order and chaos!
Letters With Symmetry
Let’s group letters by their symmetry, then create symmetrical words, and then symmetrical sentences!
What Happens In Your Brain When You’re Worried or Afraid
Allison Edwards explains how blood flow in your brain affects your decision-making
The Heaviest Pumpkin
How heavy is the world’s heaviest pumpkin when measured in Mr. Byrds?
A Halloween Costume Gone Wrong
Let’s go roller skating in a Halloween costume! What could possibly go wrong?
Geometry Image: University Ave
What odd and interesting shapes can your students find in this geometric image?
Lipogram: Rewrite “Mary Had A Little Lamb”
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
Lipogram: Rewrite “Twinkle, Twinkle”
What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?
Special Gifts with Special Requirements
Your special friends sure have some unique gift needs!
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?
Find The Pattern: Multiply Fractions
What if you set the stage for students to discover how to multiply fractions?
Greek and Latin Word Part Paths
How can we go from Biology to Immobile?
How Many Ways: Fractions Divide Equals 2/3
One equation. Digits one through nine. How many ways can you make it work?
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?
How Many Will There Be? Flowers
These flowers sure are getting bigger faster! How large will they be in step 10? What about step 50?
Fractions: Decompose and Recompose
What if we took a fraction apart, then took those pieces apart, then recombined them, and then recombined those, arriving back to the original fraction?
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!
The Pros and Cons of Producers and Consumers
Sure, students might know the difference between a producer and a consumer… but have they considered how they feel about each other? What, in a producer’s opinion, are the pros and cons of a consumer?
Math Curiosity: Klauber’s Triangle
In 1932, a leading authority on rattlesnakes, Laurence Klauber, discovered a startling pattern within a triangle of primes.
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.
What If There Were No Hundreds Place?
Imagine a world with no hundreds place. We’d have to call it ten tens instead. But then, what would we call the thousands place? How would we read 9999? What if we added one more?
Depth and Complexity – An Introduction for Teachers
For TeachersDepth and Complexity is the most powerful framework most teachers have never heard of. Here’s what it actually is — and isn’t.
Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences
Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.
What’s In My Brain: Cute Baby vs Fast Cheetah
Can students spot similes vs metaphors?
Same Perimeter, Different Area For Rectangles
Can two rectangles have the same perimeter but… different areas!?
Intersecting Angles and Streets
There can never be just one angle.
Investigating Christmas Trees
Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?
Parts of Speech Party – Thanks
How many different ways can we use the word “thanks”? Let’s find out in this Parts of Speech Party!
Exponents – How Low Can They Go?
Using exponent patterns, can students predict what the 0th power will be?
Paradox: The Liar’s Paradox
Nothing like a paradox to get your kids brains exploding 🤯! This one starts with five simple words: “This statement is a lie.”
Chomp
Chomp away at your opponent in this grid-based strategy game.
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!
Place Value (Beyond Base 10)
Place value is something we cover in elementary school. It seems simple, but I’d wager that very few adults really understand the topic. I sure didn’t until I worked with non-base-10 number systems in college. Your students can get a taste of this mind-boggling experience by imagining what it would be like if we didn’t have the number 9. What would each digit represent then?
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.
Investigating Cost of Living
Would you save money if you lived in Las Vegas and commuted every day to San Francisco?
Math Curiosity: Waring’s Conjecture
So, can you write every odd (greater than 3) as the sum of three primes?
Depth and Complexity: 👓 Multiple Perspectives
Every topic looks different depending on who’s looking. This prompt teaches students to see through someone else’s eyes.
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.
A Visual Guide To Dividing By Fractions
Have you ever wondered what it looks like to divide by a fraction, man?
Creating A Realistic Flower and Pollinator
Your students will create a new flower, designed to attract a specific pollinator.
Discovering Pi With Sticky Notes
Pi is mysterious and strange! Why not let students discover it on their own?
Greekymon
Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.
Reduce Anxiety: Square Breathing (Tool 1)
Reduce anxiety by breathing in a square pattern.
Motivation and Moral Development
Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?
The Game of 100
Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?
Furnishing A Hotel
Design and furnish hotel rooms on a budget. Real math, real constraints, real decisions. Then pitch your hotel to investors.
Greek and Latin Dinosaur Names
Let’s create a new dinosaur using Greek and Latin stems!