Creative Creations

One of my favorite parts of the year is when I get to go into the 1st/2nd grade classrooms. I instruct two whole class lessons three times a year from the Primary Education Thinking Skills (PETS) curriculum. The purpose of this is to engage the students and encourage them to think critically. The students’ performance in the whole class lessons helps me identify students for my 1st/2nd grade PETS group.

Right now, we're in the middle of the second wave of whole class lessons, and we're focusing on my favorite thinking skill: Divergent/Inventive Thinking. In the first lesson, the students met Isabel the Inventor from Crystal Pond Woods. We talked about what inventors do and how inventions are different from discoveries. Inventions are new ideas, creations, or designs, while discoveries are things we find. The kids had to come up with new ways to use a whisk. One cool idea was turning it upside down, covering it in peanut butter, and using it as a bird feeder. Other creative ideas included using it as a curling iron or a tree ornament.

After that, the students got a sheet with circles on it. They had to use the circles in new and different ways, by creating pictures from the round images. It was interesting to see how they used multiple circles to make one image. Here are some of the cool pictures they came up with.

For the second lesson, the students had to create a machine to pick up acorns and bring them to Isabel the Inventor’s hollow in the tree (she is a squirrel). Check out some of the fun inventions they came up with!

Being creative is super important for students. It's not just about having fun; it helps them figure out different ways to solve problems. Creativity teaches them to be flexible and open-minded, which is really useful in a world that's always changing. So, these lessons aren’t just cool activities - they're helping these kids get ready for whatever comes their way in the future.