You can use these resources anytime, but they are perfect for a school BACKWARDS DAY or NATIONAL OPPOSITE DAY, celebrated on January 25th. Share the video as a fun way to introduce the day, and then dive into the activities, which can lead to all kinds of creative exploration and discovery! Have kids create their own riddles and “hidden opposite” puzzles! Introduce your scholars to contranyms and explore the root meanings of “contradictory” (contra/ dict). Challenge students to discover and create with palindrome patterns in math and language!
VIDEO INTRODUCTION (2 min.)
WORD GAMES AND RIDDLES
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS PRESENTATION
IRONY
There are some great resources you can use to Introduce or review irony. Even if you don’t discuss the three types of irony or the subtle distinction between verbal irony and sarcasm, your students will immediately see the connection to Opposite Day, and it may even help them remember what irony is.
HERE are three TEDEd lessons on irony, each with a video, that will help students understand true irony. An internet search for “humorous irony examples” will result in many funny images that are not really examples of irony. They’re just funny! You can try to clarify that if you’d like, but definitely if you showed the video above, you can mention that there’s a little irony in the fact the SpongeBob is a sponge, yet he’s often seen washing dishes!
CONTRANYMS
Introduce your students to contronyms, words that have contradictory or opposite meanings. Here are a few and you can find more HERE.
- CLIP can mean to “cut off” (as in clipping a coupon) or “attach” (as you do with a paperclip)
- DUST can mean “to remove particles” or “add fine particles” (as in dusting a cake with sugar)
- LEFT can mean “remaining” (as in one piece left) or “departed” (as in “she left ten minutes ago.”)
- SEED can mean ” seeds put in” (as in “seeded with native grasses”) or “to remove seeds” (as in “seeding a watermelon”).
PALINDROME EXTENSIONS
Kids love palindromes of all kinds. The following activities are engaging for even your most advanced students!
- An Unsolved Problem Your Students Should Attempt ~ My 3rd -5th GT students loved this lesson! Pictured here is a former student who REALLY could not stop! She wrote a blog post about it, which you can read HERE.
- Palindrome Poetry
- Palindrome Writing Game – a “pass the paper” game!
- Time/Date Patterns and Calendar Puzzles
BEGIN WITH THE END
Here are a few activities in which students are presented with something in kind of a backward way:
You’ve Got Game: Figure Out the Rules – Rather than giving students the rules to a game, present these videos, each showing a game being played, and then have students figure out the rules! You can find more HERE.
Backward Ranking – Rather than have students rank items in a list, show the ranked list and have them determine what was being ranked, by what criteria, and for what purpose.
Answers First – There are many activities in which students can be given an answer, and they must supply a problem or a question: (1) The 24 Game (2) Triple-A Analogies, and (3) Jeopardy (template here) creating one). Also, check out Out of Our Math Minds! which is all about starting with an answer (target number).
Of course, you can celebrate NATIONAL OPPOSITE DAY in non-academic ways as well. Reverse your class schedule, invite students to sit on their chairs backward, and (if you dare) give directions in opposite all day!
For more ideas, check out the Holiday/ Seasonal Ideas page and subscribe to receive updates to this site about twice a month.