It is interesting, as the children increasingly flex their brain muscles, they not only become more creative in solving their own problems, they also teach you new things. Many such incidents come to mind as I sit down to write this post...
We gave an open ended puzzle to children and asked them to solve it. Once they get started, we generally push their thinking horizon by saying, "There are at least 10 ways of solving it, so find as many as you can". Of course, it is creative thinking, so what did you expect? But, one of the children left me flabbergasted that day. I told them, "There are 10 ways to solve this" (forgot to mention at least) and the child went, "No". I was slightly surprised, "What, no? I know of 10 ways to solve this, how can you say no?". He says, "There are a million ways, not just 10!" and went on to find 25+. So much for flexing those creative muscles...!!!
There was another time we were teaching the children how to break through patterns of thinking to become more creative and they caught on to one of our patterns of saying "Awesome" for anything nice. They insisted that I use several other words to describe how I thought the idea/work was! Now, that is some direct application and feedback! Awesome, Excellent, Fantastic work by kids!!!
Just last week, we asked the kids to identify things that looked like fruits around the room. The room was surprisingly bare (it did not have the usual charts, paintings or any other adornments typical of a children's activity room). So the children took to the task. The button in the air-conditioner became a grape, bulb became an orange, speaker became a pear, TV power light became a pomegranate seed and more...
And so, the imagination looms large in their mind and spring surprises at us!
We gave an open ended puzzle to children and asked them to solve it. Once they get started, we generally push their thinking horizon by saying, "There are at least 10 ways of solving it, so find as many as you can". Of course, it is creative thinking, so what did you expect? But, one of the children left me flabbergasted that day. I told them, "There are 10 ways to solve this" (forgot to mention at least) and the child went, "No". I was slightly surprised, "What, no? I know of 10 ways to solve this, how can you say no?". He says, "There are a million ways, not just 10!" and went on to find 25+. So much for flexing those creative muscles...!!!
There was another time we were teaching the children how to break through patterns of thinking to become more creative and they caught on to one of our patterns of saying "Awesome" for anything nice. They insisted that I use several other words to describe how I thought the idea/work was! Now, that is some direct application and feedback! Awesome, Excellent, Fantastic work by kids!!!
Just last week, we asked the kids to identify things that looked like fruits around the room. The room was surprisingly bare (it did not have the usual charts, paintings or any other adornments typical of a children's activity room). So the children took to the task. The button in the air-conditioner became a grape, bulb became an orange, speaker became a pear, TV power light became a pomegranate seed and more...
And so, the imagination looms large in their mind and spring surprises at us!
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