Playlist: Bookmarks
Halloween Problems and Solutions
When we try to solve a problem, sometimes we end up creating new problems. Which lead to new solutions. Which lead to new problems.
What’s In My Brain: Pentagon vs Pentagon
We’re looking at regular vs irregular polygons.
What’s In My Brain: Austin vs Los Angeles
We’re looking at capital cities.
What’s In My Brain: Narwhal vs Penguin
We’re looking at the arctic vs the antarctic.
Words Within Words: CORNMAZE
How many words can you find within CORNMAZE?
The Great Sphinx – Mixed Up Paragraph
Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about The Great Sphinx back into the correct order?
Crossing Every Bridge Exactly Once (aka Eulerian Paths)
How can you cross each bridge in this city exactly once?
Slow Motion Popcorn
What surprises can you spot when a kernel pops in super slow-mo?
Words Within Words: ORNAMENT
How many words can you find within ORNAMENT?
Robot Writing: The Bridge
One painting of a bridge. Three robots. Who wrote it best?
Squiggles Introduction
What do you see in this squiggle?
Squiggles Collection 1
Everyone starts with the same squiggle. No two drawings end up the same. What do you see?
What If… Long Life?
What would the consequences be if all people lived much, much longer?
What If… No Sleep?
What would the consequences be if no one had to sleep anymore?
Pig Pen Cipher (Codes Part 2)
Let’s encode some secret messages with a cipher that was actually used during the American Civil War!
Shift Cipher (Codes Part 1)
Let’s encode and decode secret messages like Julius Caesar!
Word Pyramids
Start with a one letter word, add another letter, then add another. How tall can you make the pyramid?
Differentiate with Low Floors and High Ceilings
For TeachersStop starting at grade level and stretching up. Start high and scaffold down. It’s simpler, and it actually works.
Lesson Makeovers: 3 Big Ideas
For TeachersAfter looking at dozens of lessons folks sent in, I came up with three big ideas to address.
Phrases to Join a Discussion
Want your classroom discussions to go a bit more smoothly? Train students to use a few simple phrases and it’ll make all the difference in the world.
Categorize and Re-Categorize Animals
Put these animals into groups. Then do it again. Then… do it one more time. How does re-re-grouping the same creatures reveal new patterns and give new insights?
Famous Structures
The Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House — group them, pick the best from each group, then design your own.
Notice, Wonder: A House
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Olympics: Winter vs Summer Medal Count
Which country has a great balance between their summer and winter Olympic medals?
Introducing Universal Theme of Power
So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.
Writing Concept Attainment Lessons
For TeachersIn a Concept Attainment lesson, we give students examples and non-examples of a concept — without telling them what that concept is!
Mow A Lawn
How long would it take to mow a very large lawn with a push-mower?
Words Within Words: AIRPLANE
How many words can you find within airplane?
Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game
Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?
Sets of Idioms Related to Food
Five sets of five idioms, all related to food.
How Many Ways: Fractions Multiply 2/3
How many different ways can you make this fraction multiplication statement true using only the digits one through nine?
Writing in Pilish
Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?
New Uses for a Paperclip
So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?
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!
Analyze Characters Using Philosophy
What is the Brick Pig’s philosophy? How would he apply it to the characters in Harry Potter?
How Many Will There Be? Desks
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
Analyze Paragraphs: Cucumbers
Three paragraphs about cucumbers. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.
How Many Will There Be? Stairs
Give kids a taste of a sequence, let them build an understanding, and then see how far their predictions can take them.
Analyze Paragraphs: Wolverines
Three paragraphs about wolverines. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.
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?
Creating Sequences of Questions
For TeachersHigh-level questions on their own simply aren’t enough. We must create sequences of questions!
Cram
Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) grid-filling game!
Developing Questions that Prompt Thinking in Math
For TeachersMath is a particularly tricky subject for asking higher-level questions. Here are a couple of techniques I’ve used to prompt students to think, not merely calculate.
Game: Wild Tic Tac Toe
Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe, but both players can both play as both X and O throughout the whole game!
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!
An Escher-Style Tessellation Project
Create a piece of repeating art in the style of MC Escher!
Measurement: How Big is this Bathtub?
So, if I told you a bathtub holds 640 of water, which unit would make the most sense?
Measurement: How Old Is Mr. Byrd?
What if I told you that I’m 341,640 old? Could you figure out what unit I’m using? Hint: it’s not years!
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.
Subtraction: 3 Digits Minus 2 Digits (Single Solution)
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 subtraction.
Subtraction: 3 Digits Minus 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 subtraction.
Game: Snakes
In this grid-based strategy game, who will be the last to add to the snake?
Jotto
Who can guess the codeword first?
Word Ladders Introduction
You won’t believe how this spelling and vocabulary puzzle will get kids’ brains sweating over the smallest of words.
Math Curiosity: Ulam Spiral
What if we make a huge spiral of numbers and then highlight only the primes? Well, a bunch of weird patterns show up!
Game: Gomoku
Want to take Tic-Tac-Toe to the next level!? Imagine a 15×15 board. You must get five-in-a-row. You cannot get six-in-a-row. That’s Gomoku!
Think Like A Philosopher
What would Socrates have thought if he watched Frozen?
Writing A Thanksgiving Letter
What if an inanimate object could express thanks for a special person in your life? What would it write?
Remixing A Holiday Poem
Let’s take a classic Christmas poem and remix it to work with another holiday!
Characters Dressed as Other Characters for Halloween
What if one character dressed up as another for Halloween? Would the Cat in the Hat pick Captain Jack Sparrow, because they’re both chaotic yet good-natured people? Would Elsa dress up as The Ice King since they are both lonely?
Generalization: Change Leads to More Change
Can you think of a time in your life when “Change lead to more change?”
Evens and Odds – Addition and Subtraction
When we’re adding and subtracting, do evens make odds into evens? Do odds make evens odd? Which one has… more power!?
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!
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?
Complex Task: What Would X Think of Y?
For TeachersHere’s a simple task that will add complexity to any content from any grade level!
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.
Running A “Notice, Wonder” Lesson
For TeachersUse these puzzling images to build a classroom culture that is comfortable with curiosity, ambiguity, and taking intellectual risks.
Disneyland Parking Structure Math Project
Your students will use estimation strategies to figure out how many parking spots are there in the parking structure at Disneyland? And you bet I reveal the real answer!
Numerator or Denominator: Which has more power in a fraction?
What do you do with students who already get their fraction operations? Give them a contrived project about recipes or pizza slices? Make them solve annoyingly hard practice problems? Please. Here, we get students thinking in a whole new way, pondering which has more power, the numerator or denominator.
Asking Questions That Make Students Think
For TeachersMost classroom questions test memory. These questions test thinking. There’s a difference — and your students will feel it.
Not Like The Others: Charlotte’s Web
Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
How Many Ways: 2 Digit ÷ 1 Digit = 1 Digit
How many different ways can you make this math statement true using only the digits one through nine?
Notice, Wonder: A River
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Notice, Wonder: The Cliff
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Notice, Wonder: Etna
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
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?
Ghost
Ghost is a word-building game for two players. The first person to create an actual word loses.
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.
Undoing Multiplication With Division
Multiplication and division, natural foes, are constantly seeking to undo each other. Students will attempt to reverse the effects of multiplication by dividing once, twice, or even thrice!
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!
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: 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.
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?
Deducing the Area of Triangles
Using patterns, students try to deduce where that area formula came from.
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.)
Describing Author’s Voice
What if… Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?
Math Curiosity: Odds & Squares
Why does the sum of the first 5 odds also equal 5 squared?
Doubling Dollars
Say you have a dollar. Say you can double that dollar each day: $1, $2, $4, and so on. How long will it take to reach… one million dollars? Not as long as you might think!
Passive to Active Voice
In this lesson, students will not just fix passive sentences, but break active sentences as they learn to put the star of the sentence first.
Fractals: Koch Snowflake
You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!
The Thinking Hats
So… do your students moan when forced to work in a group? Part of the problem is that lack the structure to work well with peers. Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats are a perfect tool to help with this problem.
A Donut Investigation
In this cross-curricular investigation, students will look into an intriguing question: do donuts or salads have more sugar? They’ll grapple with misleading information, bias, and use their math skills to create a visual representation of sugar in popular foods.
Showing A Character’s Trait
We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.
Universal Themes
For TeachersUniversal Themes are an easy way to connect lessons, units, and content areas, even going across grade levels, and into students’ personal interests.
Climbing Bloom’s with Depth and Complexity
For TeachersBloom’s tells you how high to aim. Depth and Complexity tells you where to look. Combine them and things get interesting.
Math Curiosity: Finding Primes
Prime numbers are unpredictable! How can we possibly find them all? An Ancient Greek mathematician found one way!
Running A Group Investigation Lesson
For TeachersLearn to lead a lesson that is built entirely on student curiosity.
Depth and Complexity: ⚖️ Ethics
Want to add drama to any topic? Use the Ethics prompt!
Percents and Credit Cards
Let’s buy something expensive with a credit card and then make only the minumum payments!
Educational Valentines
Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!
Running A Curiosity Based Research Project
Skip the assigned topics. Let students research what they’re genuinely curious about — here’s how to structure it so it actually works.
Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 1
‘Add more variety!’ teachers say. But how? This lesson gives students actual techniques instead of vague advice.
Greekymon
Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.
Motivation and Moral Development
Can someone do the right thing, but for the wrong reason?
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!
The Game of 100
Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?
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…
A Grid-Based Fraction Project
You’ve got 60 spaces on a grid to create an amusement park, a house, a farm, or whatever you’d like. Divide it into seven pieces, order it by size, combine into two halves, and more in this fraction project.
An Inductive Exploration Of Geometry
For TeachersWith inductive thinking, students will work from parts to whole, discovering big ideas along the way!
Teaching Criticism
For TeachersAsk students to go beyond “I don’t like it” and form critical opinions based on a set of criteria. Students can produce written arguments or turn their opinion into oral presentations.
Better Stories Part 5: Plot Structure
Ever read a student’s story that was just event after event after event and then a very sudden ending? They lack an understanding of a plot’s structure. With the help of Finding Nemo, I break down how to set up a well-structured plot.
Intellectual Intensity
Do you know someone who becomes a bit overexcited by ideas?
Impostor Syndrome
For TeachersThe student who breezes through school may hit a wall in college. Here’s why — and what to do about it now.