Playlist: Mary Catherine's Bookmarks

Broken Calculator: 2-Digit Subtraction

What If… Long Life?

What would the consequences be if all people lived much, much longer?

What’s the Pattern? Fraction Addition

Can your students figure out how to add fractions by looking for a pattern?

Greek and Latin Word Part Paths

How can we go from Biology to Immobile?

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!

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!

Word Ladder: Arm to Leg (6-steps)

COLD to COOL. BAND to SING. Change one letter at a time — can you find the path?

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?

Create Your Own Operation

The commutative and associative properties are a whole lot more interesting when you apply them to a mathematical operation that you created!

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.

Deducing the Area of Triangles

Using patterns, students try to deduce where that area formula came from.

Finding The Volume of Laptops

How has the volume of laptops changed over time? You know you want to check out how huge those first versions were!

Depth and Complexity: ❓ Unanswered Questions

This underutilized tool focuses students on what we don’t yet know and even what we can’t know.

Depth and Complexity: ⚖️ Ethics

Want to add drama to any topic? Use the Ethics prompt!

Elements of The Fantasy Genre

Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.

A Nutrition-Based Math Project

Let’s create a parody ad attacking a surprisingly calorie-rich meal.

Math Curiosity: Collatz Conjecture

The Collatz Conjecture: start with any number and get to 1 using just two rules. It seems to always work…

Teach Non-Fiction Writing Structure With Fractals

Did you ever notice that the structure of an essay is very similar to the structure of a paragraph? Hmm…

Math Project: What If I Bought Apple Stock Instead?

What if you had an original iPod and sold it compared to if you had bought the equivalent amount of Apple stock and sold that?