Enrichment
Enrichment should be much more than fun and games. It shouldn’t be a bunch of random projects and activities. The goal of enrichment is to get kids analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing. Here’s a few resources for doing just that.
Game: Ghost
How to play the word-building game Ghost.
A Tessellation Art (and Math) Project
Let’s create an MC Escher-style tessellation art (and math) project with nothing more than an index card, a marker, and paper.
Game: Number Scrabble
Let’s play Tic-Tac-Toe with numbers. But instead of three-in-a-row, we’re summing to 15.
Order and Chaos (Tic Tac Toe Variant)
Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe if both players could play as both Xs and Os!
Strategy Game: Chomp
Let’s play the simple (but surprisingly strategic) game of Chomp!
Strategy Game: Sprouts
With Sprouts, students draw a small set of dots and then connect those dots with lines. The first person who can’t make a connection loses.
Math Game: Cram
A surprisingly strategic game played on a simple grid.
Math Game: Heaps
Heaps is a lovely math-y strategy game that requires no more than paper and pencil to play.
Using Art to Practice Reading
When you’re teaching a reading skill, can you replace some of those dull sample texts with glorious artwork?
Using a Classic in Math!?
According to Costello, 7 × 13 = 28. In fact, watch him prove it…
Let’s Play Tic-Tac-Toe Variants!
Sure, tic tac toe is too boring for most people. But oh golly are there some fun variations!
A Classic: “Who’s On First” and 21st Century Kids
My 21st century 12-year-olds absolutely died watching Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s On First” skit. And we got a great homophone activity out of it too.
Remix the Song “Help!”
Students took the classic song, Help!, and rewrote it to be about their collective summers.
Embed A Classic
An easy way to spice up any lesson is to remove the god-awful samples and replace them with selections from great works of art, music, film, tv shows, and historic moments. You get the added bonus of exposing students to new ideas.
Fizz Buzz – A Divisibility Game
Here’s a quick to learn but difficult to master math game. Start with some basic divisibility rules, but then feel free to extend it to any math topic.
The Coloring Problem
How few colors can you use to fill in a map so that no neighboring regions are the same color?
Using Games to Practice Thinking
Here’s how playing simple, paper-and-pencil games can go beyond fun and also serve as practice for higher-level, abstract thinking.
Paradox: Ship of Theseus
Here’s a fun thought experiment your students are sure to get a kick out of: when something is slowly replaced over time, is it still the same thing in the end?
Enrichment Must Prompt Thinking
Enrichment is not merely about doing fun things. It should never be just a project-of-the-week. It must be about getting students thinking in new and interesting ways. Here’s how!
Word Pyramids – A Delightful Vocabulary Puzzle
A fun, abstract vocab puzzle in which students can add one letter per line, forming a pyramid of words.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Recommendations
Many readers sent in recommendations for sci-fi and fantasy stories for gifted readers. I’ve gathered these together here as a growing collection.
Reader Question: Unusual Animals
A reader asks how we can take the typical “look up facts online and then present with PowerPoint” task to an appropriate level of challenge.
What Could You Do With This Pancake Flipping Robot?
I love videos of robots messing up tasks. This one in particular struck a chord, because we get to see the robot learn from his mistakes. Let’s have students write him some advice…
Prime Number Explorations
Students learn about prime numbers early in their careers, but the true, quirky nature of these numbers isn’t really explored unless kids go on to become math majors. Here are three fun prime explorations suitable for even young students.
Vocab Puzzle: Antonym Paths
Begin with a small, simple word and identify its antonym. Then, take this second word and find its antonym. Many times, you’ll find that an antonym of an antonym isn’t always related the original word.
Quick Strategy Game: Domineering
Wanted to share another cheap, quick, and simple game that has interesting complexities and connections to math. This game is called Domineering. All you need are paper and a pencil. Graph paper would be a luxury.
Three Videos With Mind-Blowing Optical Illusions
Paradoxes and illusions are a great area of study to blow students’ minds. I recently discovered an amazing artist, Kokichi Sugihara, who creates and films optical illusions using just paper and balls.
Paradox: Does Majority Rule?
A quick, but challenging discussion topic for any age: “Is it always fair to make decisions based on a majority vote?”
Jabberwocky, Parts of Speech, and Context Clues
Let’s see how we can use a classic piece of poetry to enhance a lesson on parts of speech or context clues. This provides exposure to a great work and also increases the complexity of a typical task.
An Image for Divergent Thinking Practice
I think this is an interesting way to practice our students’ divergent thinking skills. What else could this trash can’s icon represent?
Puzzler: A Number With ‘A’
Counting up, what’s the first number with an “a” in it?
Classic Halloween Stories
With Halloween approaching, it’s a great time to expose students to some spooky classics. Lucky for us, many of these stories are in the public domain and freely available in many formats.
Classic Paintings for your Classroom
Exposing students to great pieces of art is an easy way to enhance a lesson, provide a visual way to practice a skill, and educate our students beyond the prescribed curriculum. Here’s a list of works that you can easily grab and use in your class.
Puzzle: Words Within Words
In need of some nice word puzzles that will keep your students busy? Ask them to find as many words as they can within another word. For example: can you find 10 words made from the letters in “soldier”? How about 20? 50?
Chess Sets Over Time
How did chess sets arrive at their now-standard look? Several recent articles trace the design of the modern chess set.
Puzzle: Word Ladders
One of my favorite tricks in the classroom was having a “puzzle of the day.” The great difficulty was finding puzzles that challenged my students, but didn’t require meticulous work or strange knowledge. Word Ladders were always a consistent hit.
Goldbach’s Conjecture
Our look at math conjectures continues with Goldbach’s Conjecture, which states that all even integers greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two primes. Is this true for all cases? Another authentic, unsolved question.
3 More Paradoxes, Part III
Here are even more amazing paradoxes to baffle your students: Buridan’s Bridge, the Bootstrap Paradox, and the Barber Paradox.
The Collatz Conjecture
A “conjecture” is an idea that is believed to be true, but has not yet been proven. They are authentic unanswered questions for students to explore. The Collatz Conjecture uses two simple rules to get from any number to 1. It seems to work for all numbers…
Using A Classic: Charlie Chaplin
Integrating a classic is a great way to pump up an otherwise simple lesson. It seems like a black and white movie is the last thing a kid would want to see, but classics are classics for a reason!
3 Sites For Free Classics
The public domain is a rich collection of creative works whose copyrights have expired. More than ever we have incredible access to this art and literature. Public domain images and writings add depth to lessons and expose students to classic works.
Mathematical Curiosities
Sometimes you encounter that math student who is simply interested in numbers. Here are some famous (and not so famous) sets of numbers that have curious properties.
Beyond Checkers
Even the simplest game takes on interesting new twists when we alter the rules a bit. Let’s look at ways our students can modify checkers and turn this children’s game into something new to explore.
Math Game: The Game of 100
The Game of 100 is a simple game requiring no supplies, yet it opens up a rich world of exploring strategy and a little mental math.
5 Visual Paradoxes To Blow Your Students’ Minds
We’ve seen some awesome logic paradoxes, now let’s examine a few visual paradoxes that would make great mental warm-ups for your class! The penrose triangle, penrose stairs, impossible cube, the blivet, and the Möbius strip! Plus, download a powerpoint to share with your students.
M.C. Escher Across The Disciplines
As a gifted kid, M.C. Escher fascinated me. Without a doubt, he continues to fascinate the gifted kids I work with. Here are some links to inspire a study of Escher in your classroom.
3 More Paradoxes
Last month’s paradox post was very popular, so here’s another. These are a blast to share with kids. Use them to help students think through a complex problem, finding all possibilities. Work on the ability to articulate thinking. And, naturally, have them find and create their own.
3 Paradoxes
The paradox content imperative is a blast to expose students to. Here are three famous paradoxes to delight and confound your deep thinkers (and one bonus from Yogi Berra).
Differentiating “Compare & Contrast” with Classics
Here’s how I differentiated the reading skill of “Compare & Contrast” for my students, who have been successfully comparing and contrasting since kindergarten. Students investigated artists, developed a haiku, and learned how to shade with pencils.
Symbolism and Pixel Art
Symbolism, a mainstay of literature discussion, seems too abstract and ephemeral to teach to younger students. However, with a well-constructed lesson, students will quickly get the hang of symbolic representation. We’ll finish this unit up with some great pixel-art and computer painting.
Go Deep With Christmas Trees
Naturally, the origin of a topic is a great place to start, and the Christmas tree has quite a twisty, knotted history. Some trace the roots of the tree-decorating tradition back to ancient winter celebrations. However, the use of decorated trees as a Christmas-specific decoration is surprisingly new, appearing in the last 500 years or so.
Getting Music Into The Classroom
Ever since, I’ve used Morris’ idea, and played the theme from The Andy Griffith Show as a cue for students to return to their seats. These musical transitions have saved my voice years of wear and tear. Here are some of the ways I’ve been getting music into my classroom
Thanksgiving’s Thursday Origins
Teaching students about the first Thanksgiving feast is standard fare in the primary grades, yet there is a gold mine of fascinating information about the origin of Thanksgiving’s date. It’s a bizarre history that will intrigue your students and could lead down some interesting avenues!
Compare and Contrast Movie Trailers Over Time
Here’s a movie made in 1977, and its trailer is barely watchable! In fact, it almost made me not want to watch Star Wars, a movie I know almost by heart. Perhaps we’re onto something interesting for our students to analyze.
Halloween Exploration Ideas
Halloween is coming up, and it’s a hard one to ignore in the classroom. Sure, you can always use the traditional cut and paste pumpkin activity, but let’s think about how we can capture students’ excitement and use it to deepen thinking and increase knowledge?
Beyond Chess: Go, Shatranj, and Xiangqi
Advanced learners and chess go hand in hand. In the past, I’ve used chess to introduce systems, introduce depth and complexity, and discuss paradoxes. However, since so many of my students understand the basics of chess, I decided to expose them to some chess-like games from other cultures.
From Silent Reading To Creating Art
I’ve been continuing the idea to explore classic music during silent reaing, and incorporated Gustav Holsts’ “The Planets.” My students, who have an affinity for memorizing gods and goddesses, took a special interest in this idea. I figured, let’s see how far their interests will take us?
7 Ways To Use Film In The Gifted Classroom
I am consistently amazed that so few of my students have experienced classic films such as The Wizard of Oz, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and It’s A Wonderful Life. Movies like these are cultural milestones that enrich students lives and connect them to a larger community. It is important to expose students to these sorts of classics.
Reordering A Mixed Up Paragraph
I combined my utility Paragraphy with Project Gutenberg, The Differentiator, and The Wizard Of Oz to create a differentiated lesson about how to order sentences within a paragraph for gifted students.
Movie Previews and Poems’ Tones
In California, both Third and Sixth grade teachers are required to teach students to recognize elements that contribute to the tone of a written piece. I struggled with this abstract concept before landing on an engaging tool to help express the meaning of tone: movie previews.
Writing a Song to Respond to Literature
As I walked around the room with my guitar, groups of students raised their hands, asking “Can you come check ours!?” I approached and sang the lyrics they had written, strumming along to check their rhythm. My students were writing songs as a novel way of responding to literature. Literary Response as Song In my […]
Building Confidence in Speaking Skills
When preparing your students for standardized tests, those little standards labeled Speaking And Listening can easily slip by the wayside. And yet, is there any skill more important in landing a job, surviving social engagements, or being a successful leader than confident oral language skills? Teach your students to analyze great speeches to become better public speakers themselves.