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All AboutEnrichment

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.

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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!

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Classics

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Puzzlers

Paradoxes

Other Enrichment Articles

Game: Number Scrabble

Let’s play Tic-Tac-Toe with numbers. But instead of three-in-a-row, we’re summing to 15.

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: Heaps

Heaps is a lovely math-y strategy game that requires no more than paper and pencil to play.

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?

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.

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.