This year brings a change to Werner's gifted programming to include screening all 2nd graders for being creatively gifted students. Since I have a small group of students that were tested last spring and identified as having a creativity ID, I now have had the awesome responsibility for helping them learn what it means to be creativity and begin helping them grow that gift. I mentioned in a previous post one of our first activities was to look at what it means to be creative in order to open their minds to the creativity that lies in all parts of life (sciences, mathematics, arts, music, and much more!) We also explored where creativity comes from.
Another element of being creative is what in education we call fluency and flexibility of ideas. Fluency and flexibility are the terms within creativity that means being able to generate a variety of ideas, especially ideas that are "outside the box." One activity I did with the third graders this year was 5 pipe cleaners in 5 minutes. The students were given literally that in addition to a piece of paper to brainstorm all the things you could make out of pipe cleaners. We saw glasses, letters, numbers, people, flowers, and more. some kids were able to generate 5 intricate ideas while others generated 20 quick ones. There were no rules - just a chance to challenge them to use a standard object for non-standard fun. (See the photo gallery for more evidence of 3rd grader's creativity.) Have a kid at your house that is creative? Try this same idea or one of these other suggestions: - go on a nature walk and look for things shaped like letters or like animals - paint with anything other than a brush (plastic toys, spoons, pinecones, fruit, veggies, sponges...) - build with toothpicks and marshmallows -try writing whole sentences with words that all start with the same letter - do household chores with the opposite hand than you are use to - play Pictionary but sculpt the words from play dough instead of drawing - cut out random pictures and parts from magazines to collage a new monster (then turn off the lights and tell a scary story about the monster!) Below is a copy of the rubric we use to score student work based on creativity. This can help you understand what we hope to see in a project where a child has maximized their creativity:
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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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