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
Content Area: Cross Curricular
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.
Introducing “Criteria” To Students
Teaching our students to identify the criteria behind a decision will make them better decision makers and help them understand others’ points of views.
Create Your Own Civilization Project
Each year, my students created their own civilization to mirror what we were learning about Rome, China, India, and beyond.
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.
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!
Upgrading Questions with Key Words
How adding a single “key word” can upgrade your questions to a whole new level.
Lunar Survival Skills
We’re supposed to rank fifteen items according to usefulness if we were stranded on the light-side of the moon. The items range from pistols to powdered milk. Some seem useful, but are actually worthless while others seem unnecessary on earth, but are actually vital when stuck on the moon. However, the structure of the activity as a website is not optimal. Let’s improve this and make it an awesome problem–solving exercise for our class.
Group Investigation: A Model Based on Curiosity
John Dewey’s Group Invesgitation is a favorite model of instruction of mine. It’s simply built on curiosity!
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?