Playlist: Bookmarks
Holiday Emoji Story 🍪
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Holiday Emoji Story ☃️
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Holiday Emoji Story 🎅
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Halloween Emoji Story 🎃
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Halloween Emoji Story 🕷️
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Emoji Stories 🚗
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Emoji Stories 🤖
Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?
Parts of Speech Party – Gift
How many different ways can we use the word “gift” in a single paragraph? Let’s find out in this Parts of Speech Party!
Words Within Words: SCARECROW
How many words can you find within “scarecrow”?
Words Within Words: CRANBERRY
How many words can you find within “cranberry”?
Notice, Wonder: Silver Torch
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Random Emoji Prompt Generator
Click up an interesting, visual writing prompt suitable for any grade or purpose.
Holiday Writing: Packing Crates
An old photograph. A holiday scene. Pick one object in the picture and write from its point of view.
What’s In My Brain!? Walnut vs Clouds
Let’s look at living vs non-living things.
Notice, Wonder: Critter
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Not Like The Others: Birds of the Desert
Four desert birds. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Not Like The Others: Penguins
Four penguins. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Not Like The Others: Snakes of the Rainforest
Four rainforest snakes. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
New Uses for a Paperclip
So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?
Inferring With Art: A Man
What’s going on in this painting? Who is that guy? What’s his job? And where’s his other boot?
Art Lesson: One-Point Perspective
Let’s give our students an art history lesson while teaching them how to enhance their drawings using one-point perspective.
Art Lesson: Two-Point Perspective
Let’s get students’ art really popping with two-point perspective!
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?
Not Like The Others: Natural Disasters
Four natural disasters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
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?
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.
Not Like The Others: States of Matter
How is each of the states of matter not like the others?
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: A Pattern Packed Triangle
Pascal’s pattern-packed triangle is a potent puzzle for pupils to ponder.
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?
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.
Not Like The Others: Charlotte’s Web
Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.
Do Narrators Have Too Much Power?
Imagine being a character in a story. Are you worried that your story’s narrator may inaccurately describe you? What if they reveal something you wanted to be kept secret? Do narrators have too much power!?
Notice, Wonder: Michael
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
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!
Notice, Wonder: A Ship
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
Exponents – How Low Can They Go?
Using exponent patterns, can students predict what the 0th power will be?
Calculators, Patterns, and Multiplying By Decimals
Before teaching students the procedure for multiplying with decimals, how much can they intuitively glean from a structured play session with calculators?
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!
Grouping Quadrilaterals In A Hierarchy
Can we classify quadrilaterals like we classify living things?
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!
Math Curiosity: Odds & Squares
Why does the sum of the first 5 odds also equal 5 squared?
Investigating Cost of Living
Would you save money if you lived in Las Vegas and commuted every day to San Francisco?
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.
Jabberwocky and Context Clues
Context clues lessons can be a disaster. Here, we expose students to a delightful classic packed with nonsense words (“Jabberwocky”) and ask them to decipher the meanings and parts of speech. Then, it’s only natural for students to write their own nonsense poems.
Propaganda and Logical Fallacies
Let’s see how propaganda techniques can make even something great seem bad.
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!
Create A Civilization: From Hunter Gatherers to Farmers
What happens when your civilization suddenly has a surplus of food? Think of the possibilities!
Create A Civilization: The River
The Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Seine, the Thames, and now… your river!
Fraction Puzzlers: Add and Subtract Fractions To Reach A Number
You only have six digits to form three fractions. Can you combine them to get to 0?
Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity
Anyone can say a character changed. Your students will prove it: four details from the beginning, four from the end, and the two traits those details point to.
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.
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.
Educational Valentines
Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!
How Many Students Can Fit On The Playground?
So… just how many kids could we cram onto the playground?
Create A Creature
Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.
Math Curiosity: Palindromic Number Conjecture
Using this one weird trick, it seems that you can turn any number into a palindrome!
Greekymon
Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.
The Game of 100
Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?
Writing Summaries in Haiku
Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.
Fancier Figurative Language: Start with a Cliche
We’ll start with the cliché “as cold as ice” and go somewhere much more interesting.
An Inductive Exploration Of Geometry
For TeachersWith inductive thinking, students will work from parts to whole, discovering big ideas along the way!
Introduction to Watercolor
For TeachersA mosaic technique that makes watercolor approachable. Students walk away with something they’re proud of.
Better Stories Part 3: Literary Themes
A typical student narrative includes plot and characters but lacks a larger idea to hold it all together. This is where a lesson on themes comes in…