Playlist: Bookmarks
What’s In My Brain: Lion vs Bear
Two columns. One is an example, one isn’t. Can you figure out the hidden rule before the big reveal?
Notice, Wonder: Brooklyn
A mysterious image. Reveal it slowly. Let your students wonder!
What’s In My Brain: Ball vs Book
Let’s look at Kinetic vs Potential Energy!
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!
What’s In My Brain!? Gold vs Wood
Some of these examples are conductors and some are insulators!
What’s In My Brain!? Walnut vs Clouds
Let’s look at living vs non-living things.
Concept Attainment: Hornet vs Tiger
Can your class spot the vertebrates vs invertebrates?
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.
Brain Needs or Heart Needs
For TeachersWe think of gifted kids as only having academic needs, but – in their own words – they also have many needs of the heart.
Self Portraits: Text Art
What if a students’ self-portrait was made of words that describe the student!?
Self Portraits Part One: Line Drawings
Anyone, yes anyone, can create a (somewhat) realistic self-portrait using these steps. Anyone!
Generalization: Systems Are Made up of Other Systems
A clock is a system. So is a rainforest. So is your school. Once you see systems inside systems, you can’t unsee it.
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.
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.
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.
Math Curiosity: Finding Primes
Prime numbers are unpredictable! How can we possibly find them all? An Ancient Greek mathematician found one way!
Studying and Remixing “The Raven”
Ready to push kids beyond the boring, old ABAB rhyme scheme and into something a bit more complex?
Depth and Complexity: ⏳ Change Over Time
Want to get students thinking about how a topic has changed or might change in the future? The ⏳ Change Over Time thinking tool is just what you need!
Analyze and Create Misleading Graphs
Let’s make some intentionally bad graphs to learn how to spot poorly made graphs.
How Many Students Can Fit On The Playground?
So… just how many kids could we cram onto the playground?
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?