What if your students could show what they know by designing collectible action figures powered by content knowledge and creative thinking?
Meet EMC² Learning’s  A.I. Action Figure Frenzy — a one-of-a-kind classroom challenge that blends AI-powered storytelling, student voice and choice, and a serious dose of design thinking. This activity transforms your classroom into a high-energy creative lab where learners dream up custom action figures inspired by the topics they’re studying. Characters, themes, and abstract concepts come to life in the form of beautifully stylized figures — complete with accessories, backstories, and marketing-ready packaging!
Why It Works (And Why Students Love It)
Whether you’re reading The Great Gatsby, learning about the American Revolution, or exploring the states of matter, A.I. Action Figure Frenzy invites students to think deeply, work collaboratively, and reflect metacognitively as they iterate their way toward the perfect design.
This isn’t just “make a toy of a character” — it’s a flexible framework that challenges students to create action figures of concepts, values, scientific forces, or mathematical principles. Think:
Titans of the Enlightenment
Mighty Math Masters (and the Evil Negatron)
Captain Climate and the Bio Brigade
The Dharma Defenders
In every case, the result is the same: deeper learning disguised as creative play. AI Action Figure Frenzy isn’t just a passing fancy or a bunch of fun and games — it’s rooted in best practices for learning:
Metacognition & Iteration: Students are encouraged to reflect on what didn’t work, revise their prompts, and refine their final designs.
AI Literacy: The activity includes a transparent, responsible framework for working with AI — and teacher-led prompting options if students can’t use AI directly.
Cross-Curricular Flexibility: Works beautifully across ELA, history, science, civics, math, and more.
Built-In Scaffolding: From reference images to text evidence to accessories and packaging design — every part of the process supports content mastery.
And if your students can’t access AI software like ChatGPT, no problem — teachers can easily take the wheel! Our step-by-step lesson guide provides teachers will all sorts of options for putting this activity in play no matter what your school’s A.I. policy might look like. The result? A seamless creative workflow that emphasizes process over product.
We’ve Done the Heavy Lifting for You
If you’re excited about what AI Action Figure Frenzy can do for your students — we’ve got great news: you don’t need to build a thing from scratch!
Our fully editable template package is:
Stylish — with a bold, eye-catching design that mirrors real collectible packaging
Student-Friendly — scaffolded with helpful prompts, yellow-sticker guides, and clear instructions
Plug-and-Play — just drop in your content area, and you’re ready to roll
Inside, you’ll find everything you need to help students brainstorm, iterate, and reflect on their learning — without spending your weekend formatting slides or writing up directions. Whether you’re working in ELA, social studies, science, or math, this resource is flexible enough to adapt and polished enough to impress.
This classroom-ready resource is available now to all EMC² Learning members and included as part of your annual site membership. That means one click gets you access to:
The full AI Action Figure Frenzy slide deck
Built-in prompts, editable sections, and teacher lesson planning guide
A launch-ready experience for both AI-powered and AI-free classrooms
And of course — tons of inspiration to spark curiosity in every learner
Ready to bring it to your classroom? Login now to download the template or become a member today to unlock this resource and hundreds more like it. Your next unforgettable classroom adventure is just a click away!
The activities featured in this blog post are just a handful of the 900+ resources available and on their way to arrive shortly in the EMC² Learning library. This entire library is available to all members with an active Engagement Engineer or Engagement Engineer PLUS account, and is included with your annual site membership. We hope you’ll consider joining us as an Engagement Engineer to unlock a full year of site access. For complete details including our exclusive limited time offer for annual site membership, click here.
