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Playlist: Bookmarks

Bobbing for Apples

What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?

The Heaviest Pumpkin

How heavy is the world’s heaviest pumpkin when measured in Mr. Byrds?

What If… No Sleep?

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

New Uses For An Aluminum Can

So, what CAN a CAN be used for other than storing liquids?

Chess Variant: Monster Chess

What if you had really weak chess pieces, but you could always move twice?

Racetrack – Race Around A Graph

How fast do you get your mathematical car going without crashing?

Drawing An Impossible Triangle

Here’s how you can draw The Penrose Triangle, an example of an impossible shape.

Charge of the Light Brigade – Chess Variant

What if one side played with THREE QUEENS and the other had SEVEN KNIGHTS!? What if?

Analyze Paragraphs: Baseball

Three paragraphs about baseball. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

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.

Analyze Paragraphs: Empire State Building

Three paragraphs about the Empire State Building. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

Analyze Paragraphs: Tomatoes

Three paragraphs about tomatoes. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

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.

An Escher-Style Tessellation Project

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

Game: Snakes

In this grid-based strategy game, who will be the last to add to the snake?

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.

Generalization: Change Leads to More Change

Can you think of a time in your life when “Change lead to more change?”

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!

Writing Sample: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

A passage from “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Bulls and Cows

How quickly can you break the numeric code?

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!

Sprouts

Learn how to play the abstract, paper-and-pencil game Sprouts.

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!

The Resiliency Tournament

Your students will set up a tournament to determine which person or character best demonstrated resiliency.

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.

Depth and Complexity: 🚦 Rules

Is there a consequence for not doing something? You may have found a rule!

Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea

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

Reduce Anxiety: 5 Question Rule

For Teachers

Adults can limit anxiety by implementing the Five Question Rule.

Reduce Anxiety: Worry Time

For Teachers

Adults can learn to help students reduce anxiety with the tool Worry Time.

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.

Reduce Anxiety: Change The Channel (Tool 2)

Reduce anxiety by learning to “change the channel.”

Reduce Anxiety: Square Breathing (Tool 1)

Reduce anxiety by breathing in a square pattern.

Students and Personality Types

For Teachers

How can our students be so different? And how can we help them to understand themselves and each other better.

The Game of 100

Who can get to 100 first in this simple, but delightful, math game?

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.

Writing Clear Directions

Can you write directions so clear that a group of kids can put a toy together with no illustrations?

Impostor Syndrome

For Teachers

The student who breezes through school may hit a wall in college. Here’s why — and what to do about it now.