Enrichment ＊ Byrdseed.TV

New Uses for a Paperclip

So what are some new ways to use a paperclip?

A Lunar Survival Mission

A favorite of mine! This task is delightfully complex and ambiguous, forcing students to make choices without enough information and with no right answer. How will they survive on the moon for three days?

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.

The Game of 100

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

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.

Ultimate (or Inception) Tic Tac Toe

What if each square on a Tic-Tac-Toe board had another Tic-Tac-Toe board inside of it?

An Escher-Style Tessellation Project

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

Game: Number Scrabble

What if we played Tic-Tac-Toe with numbers and instead of three-in-a-row, we add up to 15? Well… then we’d have Number Scrabble!

Educational Valentines

Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!

Writing About Art: The Scream

Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.

Game: Bulls and Cows

How quickly can you break the code with Bulls and Cows?

Self Portraits Part One: Line Drawings

Anyone, yes anyone, can create a (somewhat) realistic self-portrait using these steps. Anyone!

Fizz Buzz: A Counting and Divisibility Game

Ready for a tricky counting and divisibility game?

Squiggles Introduction

What do you see in this squiggle?

Looping Grid Art

Pick a few numbers, draw some corresponding lines on grid paper, and you’ll end up with some interesting, looping math-y art!

Game: Order and Chaos

Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe if both players could play as both Xs and Os!

Game: Jotto

Who can guess the other person’s codeword first? This game practices inducting thinking and encourages the development of a strategy.

Self Portraits: Text Art

What if a students’ self-portrait was made of words that describe the student!?

Game: Snakes

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

Shift Cipher (Codes Part 1)

Let’s encode and decode secret messages like Julius Caesar!

Game: Ghost

Ghost is a word-building game for two players. The first person to create an actual word loses.

Fractals: Sierpinski’s Triangle

What if this triangle pattern just kept repeating… forever!?

Fractals: Koch Snowflake

You could keep zooming in on this snowflake forever!

Game: Dots and Boxes

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

Teaching Empathy With Faberge Eggs

Terri Eicholz explains how she builds empathy in her students using the story of the Faberge Eggs.

Back to School: Rewriting The Beatles’ “Help!”

Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles’ song Help!?

Investigating Christmas Trees

Students start with facts, then make groups, and then work with a single statement about Christmas Trees.

Game: Sprouts

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

Game: Col

Learn how to play the abstract, paper-and-pencil game Col!

Lipogram: Rewrite “Twinkle, Twinkle”

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

Game: Wild Tic Tac Toe

Imagine Tic-Tac-Toe, but both players can both play as both X and O throughout the whole game!

Categorize and Re-Categorize Animals

Put these animals into groups. Then do it again. Then… do it one more time. How does re-re-grouping the same creatures reveal new patterns and give new insights?

Game: Chomp

Learn how to play the abstract, paper-and-pencil game Chomp!

Game: Gomoku

Want to take Tic-Tac-Toe to the next level!? Imagine a 15×15 board. You must get five-in-a-row. You cannot get six-in-a-row. That’s Gomoku!

Inferring With Art: A Man

What’s going on in this painting? Who is that guy? What’s his job? And where’s his other boot?

Math Game: Cram

Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) grid-filling game!

Pig Pen Cipher (Codes Part 2)

Let’s encode some secret messages with a cipher that was actually used during the American Civil War!

Game: Notakto

What if you only played Tic-Tac-Toe with Xs and you could play on multiple boards?

Squiggles Collection 1

Students start with the same squiggle and then draw on it, turning it into whatever they think it might be.

Math Game: Heaps

Try this a simple (but surprisingly strategic) subtraction game!

Paradox: The Liar’s Paradox

Nothing like a paradox to get your kids brains exploding 🤯! This one starts with five simple words: “This statement is a lie.”

Racetrack – Race Around A Graph

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

How to Play Go (A Chess and Checkers Alternative)

Ready to learn a 2,500-year-old Chinese board game? Let’s… go!

Parabolic Curve Art

Create mathematical art with curves that, well, aren’t curvy.

Inferring With Art: Two Women

What are these two women up to? What’s that thing she’s holding? Let’s make some inferences!

Paradox: Crocodile Dilemma

Students grapple with The Crocodile Dilemma, a paradox from Ancient Greece in which a tricky crocodile makes a deal with some parents. Warning: students brains might explode 🤯

Drawing Knots, Level 1

How to draw a simple version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!

Path Cipher (Codes Part 4)

Now let’s try the Path Cipher – a cipher that mixes things up even more than Zig Zag did.

Zig Zag Cipher (Codes Part 3)

Let’s try a cipher that doesn’t substitute new letters or shapes. We just mix things up.

New Uses For A Pencil

So, what can a pencil be used for other than writing and drawing?

Thinking With Art: Head Down

Students will work their brain in several ways, noticing details, comparing, synthesizing, and finally identifying a parallel. All with one artist’s work!

Self Portraits: Pointillism

Turn your students into a bunch of Monets with q-tips and some tempera paint.

New Uses For A Cardboard Tube

So, what can a cardboard tube be used for other than holding wrapping paper?

Paradox: Rebuilding A Ship

What if we completely rebuild something slowly? What if we completely rebuild it all at once? Is it still the same thing?

Cooking In Space

Watch astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti cook a meal in zero gravity on the International Space Station.

Art Lesson: One-Point Perspective

Let’s give our students an art history lesson while teaching them how to enhance their drawings using one-point perspective.

Drawing An Impossible Triangle

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

Introduction to Watercolor

Cindy Phan shares her method of introducing watercolor to students using a mosaic technique.

Building Brush Bots and Art Bots

What if we turned a tooth brush into a robot… that could do art?

What If… Long Life?

What would the consequences be if all people lived much, much longer?

Inferring With Art: A Couple

What’s going on in this room? There are shoes everywhere! Are those… oranges? Let’s make some inferences!

What If… No Sleep?

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

Lipogram: Rewrite “Mary Had A Little Lamb”

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

Slow Motion Popcorn

What surprises can you spot when a kernel pops in super slow-mo?

Paradox: The Barber’s Paradox

The barber shaves everybody who doesn’t themselves. So… does the barber shave himself?

New Uses For An Aluminum Can

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

Concept Attainment: Art

Can your students tell the difference between cubism and abstract art?

New Uses For A Chair

So, what can a chair be used for other than, you know, sitting in?

Microchess (Chess Variant)

What if we played chess on a board that’s only 4×5?

Squiggles Collection 2

Students start with the same squiggle and then draw on it, turning it into whatever they think it might be.

Anti-Checkers

Sure, anyone can win at checkers… but can you lose!?

Art Lesson: Two-Point Perspective

Let’s get students’ art really popping with two-point perspective!

Compare and Create New Year’s Traditions

Hey! Our New Year traditions have a lot in common.

Squiggles Collection 3

Students start with the same squiggle and then draw on it, turning it into whatever they think it might be.

Drawing Natural Curves Like Andy Goldsworthy

Teach students to draw, and then build on, natural curves using the style of artist Andy Goldsworthy.

Drawing Knots, Level 2

How to draw a more complex version of this twisty Henri Matisse knot!

Frozen Bubble

What happens when you blow a bubble in below-freezing temperatures?

Four Player Chess

Tired of boring ol’ chess? Then you need to try FOUR PLAYER chess!

Chess Variant: Monster Chess

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

What If… Unreliable Water?

What would the consequences be if a town’s tap water became… unreliable?

Van Gogh Self-Portrait Tournament

Who will win the tournament of Van Gogh self-portraits!?

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Nothing could possibly go wrong with a love potion on the loose!

Drawing Knots, Level 3

How to draw the final version of the twisty Henri Matisse knot!

Categorize and Re-Categorize Countries

Put these countries into groups. Then do it again. Then… do it one more time. How does re-re-grouping the same places reveal new patterns and give new insights?