Playlist: Bookmarks
Who has more power: the Queen Bee or the Hive?
Who really runs the hive: the queen, or the thousands of bees around her?
Power can be Visible or Invisible
What are examples of unseen Power? And can invisible power be more powerful than visible power?
Not Like The Others: Rivers
Four rivers. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Multiple Meaning Matcher – Epsilon
Can your students match multiple meanings of the same five words?
Cooking In Space
Watch astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti cook a meal in zero gravity on the International Space Station.
Parts of Speech Party: Introduction (Check)
How many ways can we use “check” in a paragraph? And can your students spot when it’s a verb, or a noun, or an adjective?
A Character’s Playlist
What playlist of songs best goes with a character’s change over time?
Super Specific Similes – Slimy Broccoli
Start with a basic simile. Now make it more specific. Now even more. Watch how much better writing gets with each round.
How Many Will There Be? Earthworm
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
Not Like The Others: US National Parks
Four US national parks. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Olympics: Winter vs Summer Medal Count
Which country has a great balance between their summer and winter Olympic medals?
Greek and Latin Word Part Paths
How can we go from Biology to Immobile?
Not Like The Others: Rainforests
Which of these rainforests is not like the others?
Fancier Figurative Language: Use the Opposite
Let’s start with “As cold as fire.”
Not Like The Others: Natural Disasters
Four natural disasters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Addition: 3 Digits Plus 2 Digits (Multiple Solutions)
Typical practice problems don’t move students up Bloom’s Taxonomy. With this framework, you’ll see kids stop and really think about how to approach multi-digit addition.
SCAMPER: Scaffolding Creativity
Asking students to “think creatively” won’t get you far. They won’t know how to start, they’ll get stuck with simple ideas, or they’ll just go completely wild. SCAMPER is a tool for scaffolding the process of creativity.
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.
Game: Order and Chaos
Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe if both players could play as both Xs and Os!
Bulls and Cows
How quickly can you break the numeric code?
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!
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?
The Resiliency Tournament
Your students will set up a tournament to determine which person or character best demonstrated resiliency.
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.)
A Caffeine Investigation – Part 1
So… just how much caffeine can you have before you end up in the ER?
Studying and Remixing “The Raven”
Ready to push kids beyond the boring, old ABAB rhyme scheme and into something a bit more complex?
Educational Valentines
Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!