Playlist: Bookmarks
Contig
Roll three dice and combine them using any mathematical operation. But be strategic to maximize your points!
Holiday Shuffle – Day vs Date
Wouldn’t some holidays be better on a certain day of the week? Should Thanksgiving have a set date?
Tournament of Mythological Creatures
Who will win the tournament of mythological creatures!?
Tournament of Not-So-Famous Inventors
Which inventor and invention will win the tournament?
New Uses For A Cardboard Tube
So, what can a cardboard tube be used for other than holding wrapping paper?
A Halloween Costume Gone Wrong
Let’s go roller skating in a Halloween costume! What could possibly go wrong?
Back to School: Rewriting The Beatles’ “Help!”
Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles’ song Help!?
Olympics: Winter vs Summer Medal Count
Which country has a great balance between their summer and winter Olympic medals?
Microchess (Chess Variant)
What if we played chess on a board that’s only 4×5?
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?
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.
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!
Parentheses: How big of a change can they make!?
Two tiny parentheses. One expression. How big of a change can they make? Bigger than you think.
Upgrade Research Questions With Depth and Complexity
Ever ask students to create research questions? Were their ideas a bit… blah? My own students had a very hard time writing questions they didn’t already know the answer to! This video is how I solved that problem: upgrade research questions with depth and complexity.
Investigating Christmas Trees
Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?
Rounding Numbers (But Not To 10)
What could we possibly do to make rounding more interesting for students who already get it? In this series, students consider how they might round to values other than “the nearest 10.” How, for example, do we round to the nearest 9? 7? 15?
Math Curiosity: Magic Squares
Imagine a 3×3 square in which every row, column, and diagonal have the same sum. That’s a magic square!
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.
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!
Furnishing A Hotel
Design and furnish hotel rooms on a budget. Real math, real constraints, real decisions. Then pitch your hotel to investors.