Cross Curricular

Start A Lesson With A Music Video

I love collecting intriguing images and videos – things that stop me in my tracks and pique my curiosity. I always figure that if it fascinates me, students would probably be interested also. Often, these visuals work as wonderful hooks for a lesson you need to teach.

Curiosity Skill: Encouraging Students to Ask Other Students

If you want to make a massive change in the culture of your classroom, move from teachers asking students all of the questions to students asking each other questions!

Thinking From Anything’s Perspective

How a small change, with very little effort on the teacher's part, leads to a delightfully complex task that can will get students thinking.

An Academic Twist on Valentines

Want to have some February fun? Let's merge the idea of "going together like milk and cookies" with curriculum to create Academic Valentine's Day cards!

Remixing Stories With Gifted Students

One of my favorite ways to differentiate for gifted students is to create "remixes" of an existing idea. Students take an existing story, reshape it, and create a new product. It encourages them to explore the stories behind existing stories, helps them to understand how real writers work, and gives them a creative way to explore literature.

Get Students Out Of Creative Ruts

Sometimes students need a little structure to force them into a more creative state of mind. Here are a few ideas for interesting writing prompts

The Original Puzzlement: A Zoetrope

As teachers, I spend a ton of time searching for inspiration to enliven my lessons. But sometimes, inspiration hits as soon as you leave the desk and books behind. Friday my wife and I took a trip to Disneyland and saw this unbelievable (literally, it seems like magic) intersection of art & technology.

Thinking Hats and Lunar Survival Skills

How Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats helped me solve a problem with my favorite group discussion task.

Students Need More Than Independent Work

It's so easy to just ask advanced students to work by themselves in a corner. But, the more advanced the kid, the more they need advanced instruction and adult guidance.

Tickling Curiosity

Let's look at a way to encourage and scaffold curiosity in our classes using a "Book of Unanswered Questions." Begin by sharing intriguing objects or images and asking your own questions. Give kids a chance to find answers to their questions. Then encourage students to bring in their own intriguing conversation starters. Finally, move students towards curriculum based questions.

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