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Playlist: Bookmarks

Student Introductions With Depth, Complexity, and Frames: Level Two

Once students know the prompts of Depth and Complexity, let’s take them much higher up Bloom’s Taxonomy.

What If… No Sleep?

What would the consequences be if no one had to sleep anymore?

New Uses For A Pencil

So, what can a pencil be used for other than writing and drawing?

Words Within Words: Intro (SOLDIER)

How many words can you find within SOLDIER? 20? 35? 50? Even more!?

Idiom Tasks

Four fantastically terrific tasks for a weekly idiom study.

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.

Looking Closely at Holiday Photos

Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!

Holiday Writing: Packing Crates

An old photograph. A holiday scene. Pick one object in the picture and write from its point of view.

Discussing An Important Decision from History

How would people with two different perspectives discuss a decision from history?

Famous Structures

The Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House — group them, pick the best from each group, then design your own.

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!?

Introducing Universal Theme of Change

Everything changes. But how does it change? Students brainstorm dozens of examples and boil them down to one big idea.

Drawing Knots, Level 1

How to draw a simple version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!

The 8th Wonder of the World Tournament

Which of these eight wonders deserves to become the Eighth Wonder of the World!?

Precipitation Tournament

Eight types of precipitation battle it out in this tournament.

Parabolic Curve Art

Create mathematical art with curves that, well, aren’t curvy.

Tournament of Ancient Inventions

Which of these inventions of the ancient world is most influential? Least useful today? Most taken-for-granted?

Not Like The Others: US States

How is each of these states not like the others?

New Uses for a Paperclip

So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?

Create A Civilization: Design A Flag

What makes for a good flag? What makes a bad flag?

Tournament of Presidents

So who was the strangest of these eight presidents?

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!

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?

Self Portraits: Text Art

What if a students’ self-portrait was made of words that describe the student!?

An Escher-Style Tessellation Project

Create a piece of repeating art in the style of MC Escher!

Self Portraits Part One: Line Drawings

Anyone, yes anyone, can create a (somewhat) realistic self-portrait using these steps. Anyone!

Measurement: An Elephant

What if I told you that an elephant weighed a back-breaking 176,000? Could you figure out the unit I’m using? But… how many corgis would that be?

Writing Technique: Contrast With Synonyms

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be contrasting two ideas using synonyms.

Word Ladders Introduction

You won’t believe how this spelling and vocabulary puzzle will get kids’ brains sweating over the smallest of words.

Not Like The Others: Countries

How is each of these four countries not like the others?

Notice, Wonder: A Long Line

A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!

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!

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.

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?

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!

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!

Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences

Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.

Not Like The Others: Charlotte’s Web

Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Sets of Idioms

Why do we say ‘break a leg’? Five themed sets of idioms your students will actually remember.

Investigating Christmas Trees

Start with facts about Christmas trees. Group them. Label them. Can you boil it all down to one big idea?

Student Introductions with Complexity and Frames

How have you changed over time? Students introduce themselves through the lens of change — and learn a Depth and Complexity tool in the process.

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!

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!

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.)

Building Creative Analogies

We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.

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.

Create A Civilization: Calendars

Why 12 months? Why 30ish days? Why 7 days in a week? Your civilization could organize a year in any way you want!

Multiple Meaning Matcher – Introduction

Your students will try to match up definitions that belong to the same homophone in this brain-boggling vocab puzzle.

Academic Love Letters

What if Kylo Ren wrote a love letter to Abe Lincoln or the Sahara Desert wrote one to the Moon?

Depth and Complexity: 👄 Language of the Discipline

Imagine a construction worker who doesn’t know the name of a screwdriver or a doctor who can’t remember what to call your neck. It’s pretty hard to communicate well without knowing the 👄 Language of the Discipline!

Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea

Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.

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.

Create A Civilization Introduction

Your students build a civilization from scratch — rivers, flags, calendars, currency, government. Social studies, science, and writing woven into one year-long project.

Historic Social Media

How would people from history have interacted online? Students will develop a conversation online between people involved in the same event from history.

Educational Valentines

Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!

“Its Big Day” – A Children’s Story About Its and It’s

Let’s spice up a typically dull lesson about the difference between “its” and “it’s” by asking students to write a children’s story about the adventures of a critter named It.

Reduce Anxiety: 5 Question Rule

For Teachers

Adults can limit anxiety by implementing the Five Question Rule.

Create A Creature

Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.

Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 2

We’ll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with a reason, a prepositional phrase, and a simile.

An App For A Historical Figure

What kind of an app could have helped Abe Lincoln accomplish his goals?

Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 1

‘Add more variety!’ teachers say. But how? This lesson gives students actual techniques instead of vague advice.

Reduce Anxiety: Brain Plate (Tool 3)

When a student’s brain is full of worries, everything feels urgent. Brain Plate helps them sort what’s real from what’s noise — and actually do something about it.

Teaching Empathy With Faberge Eggs

The story of the Fabergé Eggs is heartbreaking. It’s also the perfect way to build empathy in your classroom.

Furnishing A Hotel

Design and furnish hotel rooms on a budget. Real math, real constraints, real decisions. Then pitch your hotel to investors.

Introduction to Watercolor

For Teachers

A mosaic technique that makes watercolor approachable. Students walk away with something they’re proud of.

Engineering: Build A Bridge

Using real bridges as their starting point, students will construct bridges out of straws and paperclips.